“Korean Age”: Old Before My Time

John Bocskay:

This is my latest over at Sweet Pickles and Corn: Life on the other side of the International Age Line. Wait, what? Just read it.

Originally posted on SWEET PICKLES & CORN:

By John Bocskay


People say age is just a number. Koreans say it’s just a slightly larger number.


As an international traveler, you get used to the idea of various countries using different measures to refer to the same thing. The same size-four dress in Australia will translate into a size-five in svelte Japan. That which we call a size-eight trainer in London will smell as sweet in L.A. – OK, maybe not – though it will be labeled a size-ten (and will be called a sneaker). A “small” soda in the States is what Koreans call “large”, and what Americans call large, Koreans call a bucket. I big-gulp-kid-carouselhave no trouble wrapping my head around these things, but even so, I found it exceedingly weird to board a Korean Air flight in New York as a 27-year-old and disembark thirteen hours later in Seoul at age twenty-nine. I…

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