Ages in different countries

[miluda]

My boss and I were walking down Market St to meet up with another company. On the way there, conversation somehow went across birthdays, and I found out he has the same exact birthday as me. It wasn't just like that... he listed the day after mine

Comments

[magedragonfire]

Ahaaa, birthdays. Such fun. I never knew anyone that was born on the same day as me - until I met me boyfriend. XD Since then, besides him, I know about three other people who was born then, although most of them aren't on the same year like we are.

I think I'm... eight hours or so older than he is? Born on different sides of the country. (And Canada is really big.)

The Asia age difference thing used to come up in high school a lot - lot of kids there came from China or Hong Kong or Korea, and so they'd always be reporting ages one year higher than they 'actually' were (or what the rest of us were used to, anyways). We always thought it kind of odd, until we figured it out; they were smart kids, why were they behind a year?

[miluda]

Travis (I think that was his name) has the same birthday as you!? Whaaaaaaat, that's so awesome, what do you guys do on the birthday day day day? What a fun day that would be. My boss'd be the third person I have met with the same birthday

[magedragonfire]

(Yes, that's it!) Yeeeah, we do. It means he'll never forget when my birthday is! :D He also has a sister with the same name as me, so maybe it's just him being lazy, buuuuut. Usually our friends throw us a party, and we drink and cavort and have cake~! It does make it difficult for our parents to have us have dinner on birthdays, though. There's only so much dinner we can eat. >.>

Eight actual hours difference, with time zones calculated and everything. I'm a cougar, rawr.

Waaah, that's confusing. I'll just stick to my normal method of calculating age, thankee.

[miluda]

They just want to fatten you up!!! That's what!

[djmeowmix]

i know someone who's a year younger then me and who lived on my street who also was born on august 5th. we were pretty good friends, both outgoing and had a lot of the same ideas about things, i mean on the subject of astrological signs relating to personalities

i never knew that in asia they did age differently like that. i cant even imagine myself saying im 20 when im 19, but doesnt that boggle the brain a bit--- "Because i'm 19" well, over here i'm 19. what if i was born on an island and didnt know the date or time or anything ahhh what would my age beee

what am i talking about

[miluda]

I'm not sure how accurate reading a sun sign alone is for astrological stuff-- I had my friend Douwe explain to me the importance of moon and ascending signs. When she helped me calculate all of that together, it somehow made more sense to me than just the sun sign alone. It says I'm a balanced Scorpio...

Well, if you were born on an island, and didn't know the date or time, your mother/father could keep track of the number of days that pass by by writing when the sun sets, then when they find land, they can find what day it was, and then calculate your birthday.

I'm really not sure if there is a way to calculate birthday if you didn't have one, but from what I read in stories and such, people who can't remember their birthdays tend to choose a day to celebrate and choose an approximate age.

I don't know what you're talking about! Do you? No? I'm trying to make sense of it!

[gero_jimbo]

Yeah, it's weird to think that something that seems so "set in stone"---your age---can vary depending on a cultural difference. I didn't know that there was a different way of counting the age over in certain Asian countries until, well, to be honest, I imagine it was when it was explained to me by hachifusayuber, so... y'know, sometime in the last seven years or so. ;)

It's interesting to think about. ^^

[miluda]

Definitely. Different cultures can make what feels set in stone completely different... Life's a nice mixed bag like that. You never know what to expect, and everything is interesting!

When I went over there, I had only learned of the concept that age was counted differently. I forget who explained it to me, but I think I somehow figured it out because my cousin would give me her birth year, and I'd try to figure out how old she was... only to find that it seemed always a year younger than the age she said she was.

I think at the time, though, we had a little bit of a difficulty communicating because I was so fluent in English and she was so fluent in Mandarin, and both of us had the other language a little shaky. Somehow we managed!

[miluda]

Yes, he is the guy I mentioned in my entry without saying his username.

Poor excuse to not remember your birthday, really!

[sakura_nek0]

lol, I forgot all about the Asian way of counting ages for such a long time, wow.. I think I counted by half months or something.

If I were 20 and it were halfway to my bday, I'd say I was 21.. in Taiwan.
But I have also heard of the "1" start off for counting. (So would that be like a 1.5 yr advancement?? lol. My mom would tell me to tell people I was a year older than I really was, regardless.)

But yeah, nowadays people just ask me what grade I'm in instead of my age. I'm not sure if my cousins or my mom's side of the family realize I say my real age or not when I'm there, though... but I don't think they mind it all that much.

I think mizuno_youko has the same birth date as you, too, but she's also rather far and you don't seem to really know her.

Wait, does that mean when I drank in Japan, I really was "20" and not "19"? (I was really 19, but I would have been 20 there, therefore legal drinking age..??) Hooray, doing legal activities! ... .. .... :D

[chibi_bahamut]

>If I were 20 and it were halfway to my bday, I'd say I was 21.. in Taiwan.
whut. you round up only in Taiwan?

True; it's nice to know someone that has the same birthday as you. But on the other hand, it has its downsides. I have a friend who has the same birthday (albeit one year older), and our b-day celebration is always joint. I'd rather it be at least a week different so we could have an excuse to hang out more. D:

[sakura_nek0]

Usually.
I dunno. Asian places??

Hey, at least it's not on Christmas. ;-;

[miluda]

I don't know of this thing. I only know of +1... I haven't ever heard of the "half age" thing.

I know friends who have joint birthday bashes. It seems fine, I guess. I don't know, it's not like I do much on my birthday, it's another day to mark the day that I get older, I get cake, and that's good.