Underage

South Koreans have found a way to turn younger — no, not the fountain of youth, but a little age adjustment following their legislature's passage of a law.

South Korea has different ways of counting age. Aside from the international standard of adding one year 365 days after one's birth, a South Korean is one-year-old when born and gains a year on the first day of each new year under its so-called Korean system, Agence France-Presse reported.

Another method, called counting system, is used to determine a person's legal age to drink alcohol and smoke. It starts from zero upon birth and one year is added every 1 January, according to AFP.

For example, a South Korean born on 31 December 2002 is 19 years old today under the international system, but 20 under the legal age counting system and 21 under the Korean system.

The new law scrapping the latter two age counting methods and adopting the global standard eliminates confusion and effectively cuts one year from the age of every South Korean.

For brothers Daljeet, Kamaljit and Ramneet Singh of Punjab, India, their very youthful looks don't show their ages of 13, 11 and 7, respectively. In fact, they can be mistaken as toddlers, if not babies, based on their cute faces, size and when their parents carry the brothers who are only 20 inches or 1.5 feet tall.

They likely will remain so due to their rare genetic condition that reports call achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism characterized by a normal sized torso and short limbs, according to Mirror.

The Singh brothers simply stopped growing as they aged, and their parents are worried of their children struggling to walk, being taunted and not accepted by schools.

with AFP