Age fluidity, bathroom habits, and the fabulous fashions of Korean ajummas
Travels with my mother pt 2.
Age fluid
“How old do you think he is?” I whisper to my cousin as we listen to our tour guide tell the story of the heroine depicted on a painting in a shrine at one of our many sightseeing stops traveling around Korea.
“Maybe our age? Maybe a little older,” she whispers back. “No, wait. He could be younger than us, actually. I just never assume anyone is older than me anymore.”
In a classic case of “can’t tell how old that Asian is 🤷🏻♀️,” one of the many running themes during my recent trip to Korea was that nobody in our various tour groups knew how old anybody was. This is a meme I referenced in an essay about aging I wrote a few months back, and of currently being in the very weird transitional stage between looking eternally young to all of a sudden blooming into an Asian grandma.
In Korea, it’s not actually impolite to ask someone you’ve just met how old they are because of the use of honorifics in the language; knowing a person’s age is central to how you address and converse …