The elderly residents of one Chinese county have endured invasion, civil war and famine, and many live in unheated concrete shacks on only a few US dollars a day. However, they are apparently among the longest-lived people on Earth.
Chengmai, a string of villages dotted with orange plantations in the tropical island province of Hainan, claims more than 200 residents aged over 100 out of a population of 560,000 — one of the highest ratios in the world.
They are said to include at least three “supercentenarians” — the name given to those aged over 110 — out of fewer than 400 thought to exist worldwide.
Li Aizhu, whose government-issued residence permit says she was born in 1900, hobbles daily from her tiny concrete bedroom, where an electric fan beats back the intense heat, to watch quacking ducks waddle past her family farmhouse.
Other clusters of longevity are said to include Cuba, islands off Greece and Japan, and a peninsula in Costa Rica, with researchers finding common characteristics including an emphasis on family, lifestyles requiring physical activity and a plant-based diet.
As China was swept by dramatic changes — from Japanese invasion, to the Communist victory in the civil war, and a transition from a planned economy to the market — most Chengmai residents carried on doing what they had always done, growing crops.
“I’ve never done any exercise, except hard farm work,” said 86 year-old Wang Kailu, who lives in a simple concrete shack with his wife, Wu Aihe. The couple said they married the day after Japan’s World War II surrender, 68 years ago.
Their one-storey dwelling is barely furnished and Wang draws water from a well to spread on his small vegetable plot.
Experts on aging who have traveled to the area say several factors could be involved in the phenomenon.
Jennifer Holdaway, who runs the China Environment and Health Initiative of the US-based Social Science Research Council and visited Chengmai for a government-funded conference last year, pointed out that its economy was centered around agriculture.
“There is not a lot of industry, the climate is good, they can get exercise easily and the diet is healthy; they have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and the soil is also naturally high in selenium,” an essential nutrient, she said.
Locals, though, claimed a healthy reliance on alcohol was vital.
Xu Yuhe, whose residency permit lists her as 104, said that she takes daily shots of “Three Coconut Spring,” a local grain spirit.
“I drink alcohol every evening, just a little bit, it helps you feel warm,” added Sheng She, an 80-year-old who says she has 31 children and grandchildren.
Experts say an active social life is also a key to longevity, and each morning dozens of Chengmai’s elderly pack out benches in a teahouse, with men at the back playing cards and women at the front, chatting and listening to clattering opera recordings.
“I come here every morning to exercise, watch opera and drink tea,” Sheng said, before darting out to test her strength on a yellow-painted metal exercise machine.
A study commissioned by Chengmai’s Chinese Communist Party committee put its residents’ lifespans down to their being “diligent, simple-minded and magnanimous, mainly taking a vegetarian diet, eating sensibly, early to bed early to rise.”
The county has coraled its centenarians into singing concerts and paraded them for the media as it seeks to promote itself as a center of long life.
Property companies — which have developed large swathes of Hainan in recent years — also hope to cash in, with the island a hotspot for retirees from across China.
Soaring clumps of newly-built apartment blocks dot the county, with one named “Longevity City” trumpeting the aging population in its advertising.
However, while Chengmai has stepped up investment in elderly care — reporters visited a newly built set of huts for housing those whose families cannot look after them — facilities for the aged themselves remain basic.
“If you’re living in a climate like that you don’t need very much to be comfortable: simple housing, a mosquito net, some rattan chairs and other people to hang out with,” Holdaway said. “It’s a different matter if you live in the north where you have to spend a lot of time indoors and fresh food is expensive in the winter.”
Li Aizhu has a simpler explanation.
“We asked her once,” the 113-year-old’s great-granddaughter, Yi Mei, said. “She said its because she eats a lot of peanut oil, that’s her secret.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese