Chinese old people fascinate me. In general, I have to admit that living to be 80 or 90 in this day an age impresses me anyway both in and out of China. These days, it seems everything is laden with some cancer causing additive or a by-product that will result in genetic mutations in your offspring, causing the healthiest of woman to give birth to a scaled albino fish with fur. Despite all these possible calamities, it’s not necessarily the fact that Chinese “Lao Ren” (Old people) have survived all this, but it’s the amount that they have seen in the last 75 years or so in China during their life time. The eyes hold many a story, but there is something remarkable to me about Chinese elderly who have lived in big cities in China and seen this transformation first hand.

Photo: Andrea Hunt

Even being from the States, I can remember only 12 years ago when I finished high school that I did not have a cell phone, no one did. Now I can hardly imagine what I used to do when I couldn’t tell people I was stuck in traffic and would be late. What did I listen to as I walked around before my Ipod? I hardly remember a time when I used to write real letters to people; as wonderful as they are to have, I can hardly be bothered to get to the post office these days. Really, how did I manage without email or *gasp, Google?

Traveling around China, I came to notice a pattern in my photography. Even at all the historical sites I went to for which I traveled hundreds of miles to see, I seemed to have been more captivated by China’s old people than any Tang Dynasty architecture or relic. Every picture would be an old woman leaning against a temple, an old couple with their canes helping each other down a step, an old man resting against a tree. I find that what interests me most is the expression they don on their beautifully crevassed and wrinkled faces; it seems to me there is something unique about China geriatrics. There is a sparkly yet squinty look of extreme experience that I can liken to elderly in other places, but a child like wonder and a peace that they possess that fascinates me. The rippled brows with years and years of thinking overshadow these magical eyes that hold a genuine curiosity for their surroundings. They don’t mind just sitting along the road on their little stools, watching the day go by, or strolling along with no particular destination in mind. This curiosity they possess is most evident in small towns, where to this day, a TV can be on and facing outward through the dusty window of a small shop and 50 people will crowd around in the cold to watch China’s national television stations, CCTV.

Photo: Andrea Hunt

If you think about it, the last 75 years in China has been a bit of a whirlwind. But unlike other countries where technology came in stages, here it was light years quicker in terms of transitions. I watched in the park the other day as an elderly lady perched atop a small wooden stool in a puffy blue shirt with a traditional qi po collar sent an SMS to someone. Suddenly, I started to think of all the technology now available in China and how shocking this all must be for the older generation who saw years with little technological advancement at all. Then, within a staggeringly short amount of time suddenly out of nowhere the internet, mobile phones, and digital appeared all at once as China came to be the manufacturer of these products and huge companies like China Mobile became one of the top 5 most valuable companies worldwide. Deng Xiao Ping’s dreams in 1978 of having a socialist market economy roared into fruition in only a generation and produced a society that went from near economic extinction and mass starvation to a country with the third largest economy… and they witnessed it all..

To read the continuation of Through the Wrinkly Old Eyes of a Chinese Old Person stay tuned for Part Two coming up soon.

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