Age is not just a number
A week ago, I met up with a friend and he introduced me to his cousin who recently flew in from Vietnam to pursue his undergraduate studies here in Korea.
He looked so young, energetic and bubbly that I had to inquire about his age, which the lad disclosed with a smile on his face. Upon hearing it, I almost immediately began to reminisce on my high school days when we studied “Literature in English.” We usually read books in different genres but my favorite were dramas set in the medieval period.
I still remember one of Shakespeare’s classics titled “Antony and Cleopatra,” where Cleopatra reflected and said “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood...” She was talking about her youthful and naive infatuation with Julius Caesar, and as young students, we began to use the metaphors of “salad days” and “green” to describe our more youthful selves, just like Cleopatra used it to described a time of immaturity and inexperience, contrasting her past feelings for Caesar with her deeper, more mature love for Mark Antony.
As I spoke with the young man who had just turned 19, I tried to remember my own green days when I was still a teenager. It felt like a lifetime ago. However, there are two ironies that occurred after that encounter that left me pondering on whether we really do look at age the way we should.
A few days after meeting the 19-year-old, I found myself with a group of middle-aged Korean men. We were having coffee when they turned to me and asked how old I was and I could see their eyes light up, the same way mine did a few days back when I met someone who was younger than me. To be candid, these men looked nothing like their ages, and this is something I’ve come to notice about Koreans who can be over 50 but look much younger. Some of these “ajeossi” were in their early 60s and one even told me I was the same age as his first daughter, and also did not hesitate to bring up stories about university life back in the '90s, especially when I disclosed that I am pursuing a master's degree at Suncheon National University, a school he graduated from many years back.
The next irony is how age is looked at in Korea and back in my home country Cameroon. Back home when you tell someone that they look and act older than their age, it's received as a complement. It shows how matured they are and it sounded very pleasant to my ears back then. In contrast, last weekend, I found myself promising coffee to a random stranger, who said I looked like a 23-year-old, after I asked her to guess my age.
Nevertheless, aging is inevitable. We can cosmetically try to mask it: get Botox, dye gray hair black or surgically restore hairlines. But it doesn’t change the saying “Today is the oldest you’ve ever been and the youngest you’ll ever be again.”
Bambot Valentine is a trained journalist from Cameroon who is currently pursuing a master's degree at Suncheon National University. He is also a Korea Times Global Supporter.