When Are We Old?

~ A Letter from China ~

As I’ve advanced in age—and I’ve noticed a pattern through my time; I seem to get one year older every 365 days or so—my own interior definition of when a person becomes “old” keeps migrating northward. Perhaps you’ve noticed the same thing in your own life.

I’ve been residing on this planet for 65 years now. The Canadian government considers me to be old. They’ve begun sending me monthly Old Age Security cheques, as well as Canada Pension Plan money. That’s good, from that point of view.

Except I’m not old, not yet. Not in my own heart—though the mirror in my bathroom doesn’t entirely agree. But I don’t feel old, and I still have lots of things left to accomplish. So I guess that makes me “un-old”, right? (You can start using the term ‘un-old’ too, if it applies to you. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work as a synonym for the word ‘young’.)

In Canada we tend to hide away our very old people, for some unpleasant reason or other, I suppose. Maybe simply because the children are far away (or too busy), or else because so many of the elderly need specialized care; hooked up to machines or dependent on drugs. But in any case, many of our aged have ceased to make contributions to life and are basically just waiting to die. It sounds harsh to put it that way, I know, and it’s certainly not universally true. But it’s too often true, and it’s an issue that we try diligently to avoid dealing with.

Relating these thoughts to China, because that’s where I am right now, an internet search quickly revealed to me that China does indeed have a problem with their increasing number and ratio of senior citizens. In fact, this country is now entering a period of a ‘reverse population bomb,’ so to speak. Xinhua magazine informed me that in thirty years more than one-third (34.9%) of the population here will be over the age of 60; this at a time when China’s population as a whole will actually be on a steep decline.

Pause for a moment to let that number sink in; more than 1 in 3 people. (We seniors are still people; this is sometimes forgotten in the discussions.) Right now the world average of seniors is about 1 in 10. In light of this one-third number many things should come to mind. The first thing that occurred to me is that this is likely an unintended consequence of the nation’s decades-long one-child policy. When the program began in 1980, were there no social scientists on the job —statisticians, actuaries—to foresee this happening as one of its long-term results?

You should also realize that the consequences will be enormous. A major one is that by 2050 more than one-quarter of China’s GDP will need to be devoted to the care of their senior citizens. How is that going to be possible? Will it even be possible, in fact? A realistic assessment of the situation suggests that it will not. So, how are they going to live?

China is failing to take sufficient care of its seniors right now, even before the population bomb has exploded. I found an article on the BBC’s website describing how they passed an “Elderly Rights Law” in 2013 that attempts to deal with the problem of lonely elderly people by mandating that adult children visit their aging parents regularly. It’s the same problem as we have, only worse. The seniors have only one child, and that child is too far away to visit, let alone to care of their mum and dad. (So okay, how is this law being enforced, really?)

I must say that here in my own neighbourhood—we all live in a tightly bounded space— senior citizens are very much in evidence all around me. This is an observational comment only. A lot of them are working still, too, though that may be partly due to poverty, I’m not sure.

Urban farming is a really big thing here. That is, the practice of making every available vacant place in the city a productive space in which to grow vegetables. (It’s worthy of its own letter sometime, and we Canadians would do well to imitate China’s lead.) Who’s doing all this urban farming? It’s not the young people. They’re busy behind the cash registers in the stores, waiting on patrons in the restaurants, serving in the military, No, it’s senior citizens who’re doing the farming. I see them hard at work every day as I walk to my school. Are these people still leading productive lives—you bet!

Good for these senior workers, really. Tilling the soil is a physical job, it’s labour. Making things grow has been hard work for thousands of years and that hasn’t changed. Me, I’m happy to be teaching young people still, even at my advanced age. It’s an intellectual job and I’m glad to have it.

Let me say one last thing about aging before I let you go. I can tell you this because I’ve been living it: age alone doesn’t bring you wisdom. (Although, tilling the soil might do it.)

To gain experiences during a long life is only a start; you’ve got to reflect upon and learn from those experiences, then shape your behaviour accordingly. The bottom line is that if you don’t learn the lessons that are set before you to learn, then it doesn’t matter how old you become. Wisdom will always elude you.

You can be wise in some ways and foolish in others, of course, which is where I’m at. I suspect that most other people are there as well. But I certainly do hope that I’m still learning my lessons. And I hope you are too.

Are you young? Are you old? Are you ‘un-old’? Check your state of mind. That’ll give you the answer.