As a man, you retire at age 60.  As a woman, you retire at age 55.  These are the mandatory retirement ages in China, unless you have your own shop or are a high government official (they are mostly in the 60s and perhaps even 70s – they all seem to color their hair black and therefore look quite young).
 
Every month as a retiree, you get a little bit of a pension payment, which helps with expenses.  Chinese tradition is that parents live with their eldest son and help to watch the grandchildren.  Given the one-child policy started in the late 1970s, it will be interesting to see how these traditional notions changeOther than the intergenerational mixing that we’ve previously discussed on this blog, I also love the inherent emphasis on health, wellness, and socialization in the Chinese culture.
 
Adults of all ages seem to walk and bicycle everywhere.  Even the very old, who you might see confined to walkers in the U.S., are seen shuffling around with a cane and get around quite well.  Here is a picture of an 82-year old who I met at the neighborhood park.  She used to work in a banana candy factory in town:
 

In addition, as we mentioned before, morning exercises are very important.  Here is a picture of a man kicking a feathered tuff to get exercise:
 

This idea of health and wellness starts young.  Here is a photo of a younger woman in the same neighborhood hula-hooping while she reads a book (like how some young women read books while on the treadmill in U.S. gyms):

Healthy eating is part of the Chinese diet.  Most day-to-day dishes cooked at home are primarily vegetables, with a little bit of meat mixed in to add flavor.  Soy is integral to the diet, as seen in soy milk, soy sauce, tofu, and other common food items.  So is tea, a natural antioxidant (especially green and white tea), which is drunk widely.
 
Three drawbacks to healthy lifestyles here in Beijing are the pollution, incessant smoking, and the stress of work.  The pollution is simply terrible; years of coal-burning, back-to-back cars on the streets, and factories emitting waste has made the air smoggy and the skies swampy.  The situation has improved markedly for the Olympics, and hopefully afterwards the government will keeps things on the up and up.  Same thing goes for smoking, which is seen at every street corner and in all the doors in between.
 
As for the stress of work, the Chinese are known for their ability to “chi cu,” or eat bitterness, in their lives and work.  Some “chi cu” by being up at all hours doing business and working hard, whereas others “chi cu” with countless hours of hard manual labor (others do not “chi cu” at all).
 
In general, people seem to age well in China – getting around and doing everything needed to live and help your family.  If you do need a wheelchair to help with getting around, you get one.  In fact, I see them being pushed everywhere by sons and daughters – in little alleyways, across big streets, and so forth.  It’s a little strange, like if you were walking around Manhattan and saw a wheelchair being pushed across Lexington Ave (except Beijing has a population larger than that of New York City.)
 
Here is a picture of a woman in her wheelchair by the fruit stand, and a photo of the same place with a car trying to squeezes by her.