Age Is More Than A Number
2023년 7월 2일Age Is More Than A Number
< Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Tine >
When I first went to Korea in 1971, I was 23 years old. The Peace Corps sent me to Korea where I taught English at Kyungbuk University. It was a wonderful experience. Everything was new and different: the language, the food, the customs. I was especially fascinated by the traditional Korean way of counting age. Overnight I found out I was considered to be 24 years old. Over the years I got used to telling my age in the Korean style. It didn’t help with my teaching assignment. I could say I was 24 but I looked 18. The problem was, most of my male students were in fact 25, having fulfilled their military service before finishing college. So to give myself an age advantage, I grew a mustache to look older than my students. It worked— most of the time. One weekend I was taking the train to Busan and, because there were no more seats, I was standing. A young man stood and offered me his seat. I tried to decline but he insisted, using 높임말. I reluctantly accepted his offer before I realized his mistake: he thought I was older. As we chatted in Korean for awhile, he continued to use 높임말. Eventually he asked the inevitable question: “How old are you?” I hesitated but finally answered: 24. In less than an instant he switched to 반말. I tried giving him his seat back, that only made things worse. That day the five-hour trip to Busan seemed like 10 hours.
Age is only a number, we are told. But that number in Korea, at least, is important as it determines how you speak to others. I’m sure by now you’ve heard the news that Koreans, at least in Korea, are all about to get two years younger as the society abandoned the traditional way of counting age (one at birth and another year at New Year’s.) So if you were born on December 31 you were one year old and a day later you became two—- even without a mustache. I presume most of you living in the States adopted the American age counting system, but maybe not. It raises an interesting point. What if you could actually become two years younger? What would you do with that “extra” time? How would you use your time differently? We are called to love God, our neighbor and ourself no matter how old or young we are. Honestly, now that I am officially old, I’d rather be in Korea, where I wouldn’t need my mustache anymore and people would offer me their seats on the bus without awkward silence or embarrassment.