Yesterday was the last day this year that I was one year younger than my younger brother by 1, then today arrived, my own birthday… which effectively put me to where my brother and I are the same age… 

I know what you must be thinking after hearing this weird comment about my little brother being actually older than me or vise versa… lol

The thing is I had this weird thing going on with me that I don’t know anybody else has.

You see, unless you are familiar with the Korean custom you probably wouldn’t know that Korean babies are considered 1 year old the day they are born, and if they happened to be born right before New Year’s Day, like my own cousin who was actually born on December 31st, they turn 2 on New Year’s Day.

Yup, much like Kim TaeHyung, AKA V of BTS whose own birthday is December 30st, but unlike him my cousin was only one day old when he turned two… 

So by the same rule, Korean standard suggests that my brother still ages just like the rest of Koreans but me? 

Of course I go by American/Western rule which effective puts me almost a year behind than my little brother so why not, even age is nothing but numbers it’s still there and since there’s nobody who would stop me from counting birthdays the way I do… so there! lol

Rather confusing isn’t it? 

I mean how could only a day old infant could turn two years of age under normal circumstances, right? 

Well, that’s because in Korea a baby’s age is calculated from the day of conception so by the time they are born more or less of 9 months later, they are considered 1 including incubation time in mommy’s womb… 

Hence I conveniently ditch that particular custom after marrying an American I decided that I also drop that baby being 1 year old at birth, therefore allowing me to calculate American ways. 

However my little brother and I are mere 13 months and 8 days apart I neatly put myself to being a year younger to my younger brother by 1, get that? lol

So here’s to you little big brother, from this day and forth we get to be the same age, getting older and collecting wrinkles and what not… well that is until the next New Year’s Day that is. Ha ha

You see when I was born, my mom was staying with my grandparents in another parts of Korea a few hours distance away from home and the mail service was not as we know nowadays which even the fastest one took a few days to deliver. 

So by the time news of my birth reached my dad I was already 5 days old even his immediate action didn’t prevent me from having registered date for my birth was not the day I was born, yup I know… to my great surprise.

One day my little sister and I were discussing about our birthdays, particularly the lunar ones and out of blue, I mentioned that I actually didn’t know whether or if my birthday is the same as one I registered as. 

Upon hearing that comment, my sister thought it might actually be fun to look up and see what it actually says since so many of our Korean cousins often had actual date of birth different than what is officially written on birth certificate so there goes, enter my lunar birthday plus year I was born, and voila! My birth date didn’t match and the actual birthday was 5 days earlier than my official birthday! 

Imagine my surprise, finding out I was not born on my birthday and the date I knew of was not actually my birthday and my family and I have been celebrating the wrong birthday for over 4 decades! 

Turned out I had another birthday which falls in near the end of August which also was my wedding anniversary. 

I know I found out that day I actually got married on my own birthday without even knowing, and of course my parents never mentioned it probably because by then both of them actually forgot about that particular fact themselves too, how about that! 

Anyway, I guess I should mention that though I long stopped celebrating my lunar birthday my mom still insists that we do, ergo there goes my third birthday… ha ha.

And since being married to an American and having lived in the US for years that celebrating birthday, lunar or otherwise seems rather silly but oh boy! I do really enjoy the bit of whimsy in the days these gloomy COVID age I will take all the fun I can get out of… 

So folks, here I am, a woman with rare three birthdays and after hearing that particular bits of my personal history my husband then told me that he never realized that he was married to such an old woman who turned out to be nearly biblical… 

Anyway, as a result, it was quite some time before he stopped teasing me that I was actually older at little over 130 years to Moses’ own 120, yeah, quite the young man I know, ha!

I don’t know about you but I felt that my birthday story was unique enough that I wanted to share with others so that someone else besides may join in the fun and enjoy a good laugh or two…