First of all, what is a nominal age?
What is a nominal age? Imaginary age is a method of remembering age relative to real age (now collectively referred to as one year old). As the name implies, "emptiness" means falsehood, and "reality" means truth. Virtual age is a traditional method of calculating age in China, and it is a method of budget estimation in units of years. The year of birth is recorded as one year old, and it increases by one year every Spring Festival. Different from modern times, in ancient times, nominal age was the only way to remember age. The so-called age refers to a nominal age, and there is no concept of a nominal age of one year.
There is no concept of starting from scratch, and there is no way to remember a special birthday. According to folk custom, newborn babies will be counted in days only before 100 days. /kloc-After 0/00 days, people will not calculate his age in days or months, but in years. Theoretically speaking, a person is considered as 1 year-old at birth and will grow to 1 year-old every year. For example, a person born on 1 March 19901May is considered as1year old before the New Year's Eve of 199 1, and is considered as two years old when the Spring Festival arrives. In this way, during the Spring Festival of 2000 to March 15, this person's one-year-old is 9 years old, while his nominal age is 1 1 year old, and there will be a two-year error between them.
Second, why do China people say that they have lived in vain?
It is a specious question why people in China have a nominal age. In ancient China, there was only one way to calculate age. Since modern times, the way of calculating age in the West has gradually spread all over the world and to China. So there are two ways to calculate the age in modern China. In order to distinguish, they are called nominal age and full age respectively. This gives people the illusion that China people have lost their lives.
1, there was no concept of 0 in ancient China.
First of all, this is a mathematical problem-1 2 centuries ago, there was no concept of 0 in China's counting method, so the registration age of newborns could not be 0, but1. A nominal age is naturally older than a year old.
The reason is that people in ancient times didn't value birthdays as much as they do now. It was not until Buddhism expanded its influence in China in the Southern and Northern Dynasties that people began to celebrate their birthdays inspired by the Buddha's Birthday Festival, and the date of their birthdays was not necessarily their own. Zhao Yanheng, a poet in the Song Dynasty, said in Money at the Foothills of Clouds that "before Wei and Jin Dynasties, it was not a birthday". Before that, even the emperor's birthday was not taken seriously. For example, in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, except for writing down his birthday to show that Emperor Guangwu was born abnormally, no other emperors recorded it. Chen Shou's History of the Three Kingdoms does not record anyone's birthday.
The ancients in China did not have the concept of "birthday" as we now call it. The words closest to the meaning of "birthday" are "birthday" and "birthday". The concepts of birth and birthday are not exactly the same as birthday. Birthday is the smallest unit, which is 24 hours a day. Birthdays and birthdays take time (moment) as the smallest unit. The ancients divided the time of a day into twelve hours, which were represented by twelve earthly branches, and were called twelve hours. In the concept of birth of ancient people in China, date is only an element to record the time of birth, which keeps pace with year, month and time, without any emphasis; The western concept of birthday emphasizes month and date, so we usually say birthday, only month and date, not year or specific time. This is another reason why the ancients in China did not attach importance to birthdays.
This age calculation method, which takes beginning of spring as the node instead of birthday, is a habit that has been passed down from generation to generation. The first sentence in "Calculating the Full Age Table of the National Calendar Based on the Imaginary Years of the Old Calendar" issued by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China 1930 is that "the old calendar is used to calculate the age in China, so the ages mentioned are all imaginary years, not full years." In ancient China, when people calculated their age, they did not take their birthdays as the node of aging, but automatically aged in beginning of spring every year. The saying that "days increase years, people prolong life" and the habit of giving lucky money to children during the Spring Festival are all traditional legacies.
2. The emergence of the ancient household registration system.
Before the emergence of the household registration system, most people may not be able to report their exact age.
According to the Book of Rites Quli Xiaxia, no one from Tian Zi to Shu Ren can answer his actual age, but only clothes size, skills and the work he can undertake. According to Lv Simian's explanation, this is the embodiment that the ancients did not pay attention to age. In fact, it is neither necessary nor beyond the ability of most people to remember their exact age when the level of popular education is generally extremely low.
The appearance of age is actually to strengthen the state's control over society and facilitate the absorption of resources. People in China attributed the nominal age to Qin State, which practiced military centralization during the Warring States Period. It established the household registration system in 375 BC, and began to register their ages in 23 1 BC, with two main purposes-taxation and conscription. After the Qin Dynasty, the oral accounting of currency, military service and corvee in the Han Dynasty, the system of land education, household registration and Zhong Ding in the Western Jin Dynasty, and the system of land equalization and rent adjustment in the Sui and Tang Dynasties were all inseparable from the registration age, otherwise it would be impossible.
Limited by the technical conditions at that time, the official statistics could not be specific to everyone's birthday, only the age was recorded. From the Warring States Period to the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the annual registration time was August of the lunar calendar, so the official initially took August as the node for aging. It was not until Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed the taichu calendar Law and took the first month as the beginning of the year that the nominal age was customized and continued to this day.
Compared with China and the Han cultural circle, other western countries have never really implemented the policy of "all people make up for their families" in history, and ordinary people don't need to remember their exact ages, which is why only China has a nominal age.
Third, life is wasted.
Although the nominal age is a curse in some parents' mouths, you should tighten it if you want, relax it if you want, and use it if you want to hasten your marriage, but sometimes you must pay attention to it and never use it to enrich your age.
Shanghukou:
It is convenient to apply for an account now, and you can apply at any time. However, it is still recommended to report the account within two months after the baby is born. When reporting your household registration, you should take the date of birth as the standard, and don't report your false age. Although the registered account generally depends on the Birth Medical Certificate, it is difficult to guarantee that no one will pay attention to it! If the registration is wrong, it will be very troublesome for the baby to go to school in the future!
Hospital:
If you don't use the pediatric medical insurance card, the pediatrician will ask the baby's age. At this time, don't report a false age in your mind. You should know that pediatric medication is based on age and weight. If you make a false report, the baby will grow up immediately 1-2 years old, and the doctor will prescribe different drugs. For babies under 2 years old, it is best to report their age directly, because a month's difference will be much worse.
Sign up for the course:
Parents should not lie about their age in order to let their children learn a certain skill early when they enroll in an interest class. Many interest classes have a minimum age for admission. If it is less than this age, the child's physical development conditions will not be met, which will be very difficult.
For example, learning the piano, children are less than four years old, and it is impossible to concentrate for that long. Being inferior to other children will lead to frustration and aversion to the piano. There are also some sports interest classes, which will bring a burden to children's bone development too early.
These are the reasons why China people waste their lives. Finally, please don't waste your life! In the final analysis, the age calculation method of nominal age belongs to punch card calculation, which can not reflect the average ability that children may achieve at all. However, whether you are a nominal age or a full year old, you should live carefree and should not be kidnapped by numbers.