Age: a Relative Concept (part one) It’s interesting to observe how differently the age of a person is considered in different cultures and which things are related to that age according to a certain culture. Is a thirty years old individual young or not really young? Is a sixty years old individual old or not really old? In my experience, the society you grow up in effects on the perception of you have of people age and the expectations you have for that age. Let’s consider a thirty years old girl/woman. In my country, Italy , people look at her as a girl or a young woman, who whether is married or not is not significant. But in a country like China, Pakistan and sometimes Turkey too, it is very significant (I named these countries because I know better their cultures). I have been living in China for five years and I can say that not been married at the age of thirty in China is considered quite abnormal. It doesn’t matter you want to marry or not, you fall in love with someone or not, you finished your studies or not, you are ready for that or not, you have got to marry, because “you are already thirty years old”. This is what Chinese think. Even if this kind of mentality is far away from my mentality it did effect on me somehow. I started thinking ‘maybe I am not that young anymore’. As for people after fifty years old, in my country, especially ladies, they like to think they are young and strong even when not, they try their best to wear clothes and do make up to look like younger. If a forty years old woman gives her sit to her, in some cases she will feel a kind of disappointed and maybe will not sit, in order to show she is not “old”. But in China is very different. This is connected to the different conception of elders. Elders are wise and young people have to show high respect of them and learn from them, elders are a step higher then young people. So what happen is that people sometime even abuse of power related to their age. Ladies after forties become the queens of public transport: even if they are healthy, energetic and all except from old, they will frown at you if you don’t give them your sit, because that’s a matter of respect! By having contacts with people from different countries I realized how relative the perception of the age is.