Different age in Vietnam?

[Anonymous]

I was talking to some Vietnamese lady and she said in the states she is 36 but her real age is actually 50. How is this possible? Is birthday’s different in Vietnamese culture. Do they have to change their birth date to come to America?

[Dargil]

Then Why can't I? What if I want to 85?

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.EuaIoginXpdloPNaXIFieAHaFj?pid=ImgDet&rs=1

[Pyrofox]

Vietnamese age is based on the day they were born and changes with each "Vietnamese new year" that passes. Its a little excessively complex to explain. Basically its an honorific age. Not the biological age.

[Asker]

So she’s an old lady pretending to be young? Kind of creepy…

[Pyrofox]

Its based on what day you were born on in relation ship to your cultures new years. Applied to ones age. Hence its two different ages. The lower one is the real age the higher one is considered the wisdom age.

[Asker]

Very confusing because she looks old

[KostasKouvalis]

Wait?
The way I understood it from how you worded the question, is that her American age is 36 and hee Vietnamese age is 50. So I interpreted that to mean that her actual biological age is 36

[FunkyMonkee]

Just guessing but, maybe they use a different calendar system and only consider a year to be 7 months.

[KostasKouvalis]

Oh, I get it. I think they use a different system/calendar