South Koreans counting down to first legal drink at midnight on New Year’s foiled by coronavirus curfew

SEOUL — For a cohort of teenagers connected the cusp of adulthood each twelvemonth successful South Korea, the nighttime of New Year’s Eve is 1 large day party.

Age successful South Korea is traditionally calculated by commencement year, not the nonstop commencement date, truthful astatine the changeable of midnight connected Jan. 1, the 51-plus cardinal radical surviving present efficaciously go 1 twelvemonth older. For those turning 20 successful Korean years, the ineligible drinking age, midnight is erstwhile the doorway opens to nights of lawfully clubbing and downing shots of soju.

Or truthful it was earlier the coronavirus pandemic. This month, South Korean officials reinstated a curfew connected bars, clubs and restaurants successful an effort to dilatory the dispersed of the virus, which had reached grounds levels earlier falling successful caller days.

The measurement — which astatine 9 p.m. boots diners and drinkers onto the streets and subways — is acceptable to past astatine slightest until Jan. 16, oregon agelong capable to barroom those calved successful 2003 from the accustomed coming-of-age solemnisation successful a state with a robust drinking culture. (South Korea has higher rates of “heavy” drinking compared to the United States, according to the World Health Organization.)

With rowdier plans thwarted by the curfew, Kim Ji Yu, who is acceptable to crook 20 successful Korean years connected Saturday, is readying a video telephone with her friends connected Friday nighttime to speech astir which drinks they privation to effort connected Jan. 1. After midnight, Kim said, she’ll astir apt bargain immoderate drinks from a convenience store and play games with friends astatine home.

“If it weren’t for the pandemic, I’d beryllium spending Friday nighttime astatine a brew pub with friends drinking and trying each kinds of anju similar grilled pork belly, [ramen] and dried pollock,” Kim said, listing retired foods that typically travel intoxicant successful South Korea.

In South Korea — wherever seniority often dictates one’s relation successful nine — the unsocial property strategy often puzzles those unfamiliar with the practice, which has roots successful Confucianism, said Choi Sun Jong, an adept connected younker civilization astatine Kyonggi University, conscionable extracurricular Seoul. Age successful South Korea starts astatine 1 twelvemonth old, truthful “even for idiosyncratic calved connected Dec. 31, the adjacent twelvemonth they volition beryllium 2 years old.”

Japan scrapped a akin mode of measuring property past century, opting for the much communal strategy based connected a person’s day of birth. A Korean lawmaker tried successful 2019, unsuccessfully, to marque the aforesaid shift.

Kim Ha Eun, who volition crook 20 with the commencement of the caller year, said that her pistillate friends “fantasize astir yet putting constitution connected similar mascara and eyeliner, dressing up and going out” arsenic they measurement into adulthood.

South Korean students are usually truthful consumed with studying for the assemblage entranceway exam, Kim Ha Eun said, “they don’t person clip to beautify themselves oregon adjacent spell retired much.” But astir New Year’s, “the exams are implicit and radical are preparing to greet the caller twelvemonth arsenic a caller adult. I deliberation that’s what turning 20 symbolizes.”

“I conscionable consciousness bittersweet for them,” said Park Hyo Ju, a instrumentality pupil who is biologically 34 years old. Staying retired precocious — and legally — for the archetypal clip successful bustling Seoul districts specified arsenic Hongdae and Gangnam is simply a “big deal,” she said.

In a metropolis wherever nightlife often stretched into the aboriginal greeting hours earlier the pandemic, a 9 o’clock curfew is “so early.”

For those who can’t hold until Saturday nighttime to get their archetypal drink, a fistful of bars successful Hongdae, an country fashionable with assemblage students, said they would unfastened astatine 5 a.m. connected New Year’s Day, allowing the 2003 acceptable a jump-start connected the day’s celebrations.

The planetary pandemic near weddings, funerals and graduation ceremonies postponed oregon canceled, but peculiarly threw young people’s lives disconnected kilter, according to experts and polling connected the matter. A canvass released this period successful the United States recovered members of Gen Z were the astir stressed by the pandemic, with young radical citing its toll connected schooling, societal lives and relationships.

Choi, the assemblage professor, said that turning 20 successful South Korea is associated with graduating from precocious schoolhouse and transitioning into adulthood. “These young Koreans privation to independently marque their ain decisions and instrumentality work for them,” helium said, noting that they grew up successful a nine that is comparatively family-oriented.

Monica Kim, a spokeswoman for South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, said Thursday that the authorities had not decided connected whether the curfew would beryllium extended. “It is simply a possibility,” she said, adding that the authorities takes into relationship the interaction of specified policies connected culture, acquisition and the economy.

The curfew was reinstated conscionable weeks aft South Korea had eased it nether a program to “live with covid,” allowing bars and clubs to enactment unfastened until midnight, with hopes of gradually removing restrictions altogether. Its instrumentality drew protests from merchants, who said governmental compensation would not adequately marque up for mislaid business.