You may notice quite a few homeless people around Seoul Station. A lot of visitors ask me, “Why are there so many homeless people here?” One of the biggest reasons goes back to 1997, during the Asian Financial Crisis. In Korea, we usually call it the IMF Crisis . A lot of companies went bankrupt, unemployment rose very quickly, and many people suddenly lost their jobs and income. Some people eventually lost their homes as well. And many of them came to Seoul Station . Why here? Because this was one of the main places to find day labor and temporary jobs , and it was also the main railway station if they wanted to go back to their hometowns. But some had no money left and nowhere else to go, so they stayed around the station. That is one reason Seoul Station became one of the main gathering places for homeless people after the 1997 crisis. Then another thing happened. Once many homeless people were here, churches, charities, NGOs, and the government started providing help here. Th...
In Korea, Ahead of the presidential election, candidates are making several campaign pledges. Among them, a promise to change the Korean age system into an international standard is attracting people's attention.
The Korean age system is a little bit different from the international age system that calculates how many years and months a person has lived since his or her birthday. Korea has a unique way of counting babies as being age 1 from birth. That means everyone in Korea already becomes a year old at birth. This is the idea that time in a mother's womb is also considered a part of life.
People already treat their baby in the womb as a human. So Koreans give their baby a name during pregnancy to call the unborn baby before the baby is born. (=Taemyeong) It is also the unique culture of Korea to give an unborn child a name and call that name from the time she is in the womb.
However, the Korean age system got a problem during the Covid-19 period. Our government announced its plan to implement the vaccine pass for children aged between 12~18. Vaccine eligibility age, which begins at the age of 12 and older, follows the international standard age system but the Korean government has applied the vaccine pass mandate from 12 years old using the Korean age system. Children born in 2010 are not yet 12 years old, so they are not suitable for the vaccination.
As soon as the government's announcement came out, the public's complaints intensified, leading the political class to make such a pledge. In Korea, not all institutions follow the Korean age system, but some are following international standards, which is why confusion is mounting.