Who said so? Well, Jung Dong Ha himself said so. At a recent special yearly concert dedicated to the late Kim Kwang Seok, Dongha sang his very well known ballad "About Being 30". He had performed it multiple times before - he almost always participates in this commemorative event. But this time he apparently said that this was probably the last time he would sing this particular song, because he will not be in his 30-ties any more. He will turn 40 next year.
What? I must protest! This is wrong.
Jung Dong Ha was born April 17, 1980. So everywhere in the world, except Korea, he will be 38 next month.
So a year from now he will be only 39!
I was already slightly irritated last year, when 37 yrs old Dong Ha received a cake with a big number 38 on it, but I didn't say anything. It's the silly way Korean calculate age of a person. Why is that? I did some research online, and here is what I found on the website https://www.90daykorean.com/korean-age-all-about-age-in-korea/
Well, Koreans have a different way of calculating their age than people in other countries.
People in most countries calculate their age based on their birthday. If you were born on April 1st 2000, then you would turn 17 on April 1st 2017. However, in Korea, age isn’t calculated based on your birthday.
If you are born in the USA, then on the day after you are born, you are considered to be one day old.
In Korea, on the day of your birth, you are considered to be one year old; the time you spent in the womb counts as the first year of your life (despite it only being nine months). Because of this, your Korean age is always at least one year higher than your international age.(...)Koreans all age on the same day. January 1st. No matter when your birthday is, if you were 40 years old on December 31st, then on January 1st, you will be 41. Korean age works as if everybody was born on January 1st.(...) if today is February 14th, and you were born in July, you would add two years to your age. If today is February 14th, and you were born in January, you would just add one year to your age."
Under the article quoted above, a Korean posted a comment: "I read this article and found it succinctly explains what Age means in Korea. However, the explanation on Korean age is not correct. (...) The reason why the new-born baby's age is 1, is that it is the first year of the birth.
So, regardless of the birthday, at January 1st, everyone get 1 year older.
It has nothing to do with that pregnancy period."
***
OK, then now that we have full understanding of Korean convoluted way of counting age, we can listen to Dongha singing "About Being 30", maybe for the last time? It seems that knowing he is approaching 40, he feels he will not have the right to sing about being in the 30-ties. Therefore he sings it somewhat differently, with added emotion, and nostalgia. His face expresses self irony, maybe. How cute.
