4. How old are you?
Completed years ____
Month from last birthday to Census Day ____
5. What is your date of birth?
Day ____
Month ____
Year ____
6. What is your Chinese date of birth?
Day ____
Month ____
Year ____
Question 4
The information needed for question 4 is the age in completed years, and the number of months between the person's last birthday and Census Day. Write the information on age in completed years and months from last birthday on the lines provided. If the person is less than 1 year old, record the age as '00' years. If a person is 100 or over years of age, we will consider him to be '99', as this is the highest age you will record.
For older persons and for persons not so well educated, difficulty may be encountered with this question. If the person has an I.C. (or other documents) handy, he may use them to answer the question.
If the information on 'age in completed years' cannot be obtained by direct question, the information may still be obtained by asking probing questions, for example, by stating some important events in the person's life like number of years married, years lived in this kampung, etc.
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A calendar of notable events is also supplied to you (see Form 14(a)/14(b)/14(c)). If you can relate some important event in the person's life with an event in your calendar, you may be able to make a reasonable guess at the person's age. A simple example would be the following:
You ask a woman whether she was married before the Japanese came. She might say that she got married just after they left. You then ask her whether she was a very young woman when she married. She then may give you some idea that her age at marriage was about twenty in 1945, then her present age (in 1980) must be about 55.
An even better calculation could be made if you know the age of her eldest child.
You may be able to ask a person to show you how old he was at the time of an event on your calendar. He could do this by pointing out a child who is about the same size as he was then. If he was about 10 years old in (say) 1930 then he must be about 60 years old in 1980.
As a last resort, you may have to make a guess using the appearance of the informant and the appearance or known ages of his relative as a guide.
Under no circumstances are you to leave Question 4 blank. However, where information on months is not obtainable, this may be left blank. But you must note that information on completed years must be obtained in all cases. After writing the age in completed years, you are also to mark the code boxes for this question. Since there are only 2 digits in this case, you must mark the first digit in the 't' row and the second digit in the 'u' row. Those aged below 10 must have a '0' box marked in the 't' row. Therefore, age nine is marked as '09' , age six is marked as '06' and so on.