Korean’s great obsession of questioning people’s age.

Korean’s great obsession of questioning people’s age.

As we are learning English and international manners, Koreans find out that asking personal questions may sound rude and make you look nosey. As long as a Korean speaks English, there is no problem with not asking people’s age. However, when it comes to speaking in Korean, it is a different story.

Korean is one of the most super hierarchical languages in the world. Malcolm Gladwell, the author of ‘Outliers’ wrote in his book that the Korean language has no fewer than six different levels of conversational address, depending on the relationship between the addressee and addresser : formal deference, informal deference, blunt, familiar, intimate, and plain.

If we don’t know the other party’s age, it makes us have a difficult time in choosing the level. Mostly, we choose the formal deference level between adults when we don’t know well each other though, asking and knowing people’s age make us feel comfortable which help us become close and intimate. ‘How old are you?’ is the most legitimate question in Korea and without being asked, we tell you how old we are easily.

The hierarchical structure of Korean language affects many parts of Korean social life and it is much more meticulous than anyone could ever imagine. A Korean must rise when an obvious social superior appears on the scene, and he cannot pass in front of an obvious social superior. All social behaviors and actions are conducted in the order of ranking. All Koreans learn these things as soon as they begin speaking from their parents. Most of people would say that age is just a number. But in Korea, age is not just a number. It means more.

For this reason, sometimes I love speaking in English. Even though there are some levels in English, we, Koreans, can feel a sense of freedom when we speak in English. Koreans can’t imagine calling a person’s name when he or she is older than them.  How convenient it is to call other people’s names no matter how old they are!

Therefore, I ask that you kindly understand poor Korean people who are stuck in the culture they can’t escape all their life as long as they live in Korea, when some Korean people around you ask your age when you have just met and they can’t speak in English very well though.

There is one more thing you should know about an age issue. If your age is 35, for us you will be 36 because you are already a year old in your mother’s womb which means that Korean babies are two year old on their first birthday. This thing causes great confusion to a lot of expats who live in Korea. In this era of globalization, I just hope that somebody who is government official changes Korean age system to the international standard as soon as possible.