Legal changes to South Korea’s age counting system came into effect on Wednesday meaning that locals are now considered one or two years younger. The traditional method of counting age in the country deems people one year old when they’re born, with another year added every Jan. 1. The more widely used international system—in which a person is zero at birth and years are added every birthday—has been used in South Korean legal and medical documents since the early 1960s, but the traditional system has remained in effect for other purposes. The government passed laws in December to completely drop the traditional method and adopt the international standard.
