On Jul 31, 2007, at 6:11 PM, Karl Dubost wrote:
Actually... AFAIK... your birthday and your date of birth are the
same
thing. (And they both have a year.)
Not in Korea at least.
I was writing this in the commuting train without internet access.
East Asian age reckoning is a concept that
originated in China and is used in East Asian
countries. Several East Asian cultures, such as
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, share
a traditional way of counting a person's age.
Newborns start at one year old, and each passing
of a New Year, rather than the birthday, adds one
year to the person's age; this results in people
usually being between 1-2 years older in Asian
reckoning than in the Western version. This
system is still widely used in China and is used
universally in Korea, with exceptions to the
legal system. However, its use is less common in
other countries.
I think this just reinforces what Charles said: the anniversary
celebration of an event is not the same as the event. In this case,
birthday anniversaries are celebrated on New Year, but that doesn't
mean everyone's birthday nor date of birth is New Year. Similarly,
in America we often celebrate former Presidents' birthdays on days
that are not actually their birthdays. But no one says the birthday
changes every year; only the celebration changes.
Peace,
Scott
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