How to tell Their Age: The "Nickname" Solution One of the minor difficulties which confront the members of the Child Labour Commission recently appointed by the Municipal Council is that of the difference between Occidental and Oriental methods of counting ages. Very interesting information was forthcoming at a recent meeting of the Commission when medical evidence was being taken. All witnesses, of course, agree that in the absence of any system of birth registration it is quite impossible to tell the age of Chinese child workers.
One witness, a Chinese doctor, stated that he had a method securing the proper information which invariably bore good fruit. At an unexpected juncture in the course of the interview he raps out the question asking the child's "nickname." Every Chinese child has a "nickname" which depends on the year in which he or she is born. For these nicknames there are a dozen characters only, there being five periods of 12 years each in the Chinese cycle of 60 years. These characters represent. animals, riz. rat, rabbit, tiger, dragon, monkey, pig, etc., ind the Chinese child, taken unawares, will promptly give the desired information. It is obvious of course that a mistake of 12 years cannot be made in the case of children. If the dragon represents the eighth year of the cycle then a child born in that year is either 13, 25 or 37 years old or he is 4, 16, 28 or 40.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.