As Clara Wing-chung Ho observes in this exhaustively researched and multi-faceted study, “Aged people are theoretically highly respected in Chinese society. Filial piety is a core value of Chinese culture. But where are the voices of the elderly themselves heard?” (181). This book thus corrects an important lacuna in the literature, by exploring elderly people’s descriptions of their experiences of aging. Here we read about the ups and downs of getting old, as told by the elderly themselves: the physical decline, the way mirrors can become the enemy, the isolation. The book would be a pretty dreary read, except that there are also sections on the joys of aging, like grandparenting, enjoying leisure pursuits, celebrating and feeling gratitude for continued good health. The author focuses on the Qing period because, as she notes, rapid population growth in this period produced the largest elderly population in imperial Chinese history.
The author begins by establishing parameters of the category of “aged” in China, using classical texts as a guide. Well-known passages from the Analects and Record of Rites refer to the decades of life that mark transitions, with the explicit statement that when a man reaches sixty, “we say, ‘He is getting old’ ” (2). But as the author shows, the question of when old age began was complex and differed by individual, with stark gender differences. Men and women considered forty- and fifty-sui birthdays to be milestones, which offered opportunities for reflection. But even the thirtieth birthday was significant: for men it often marked their awareness of how little they had achieved (or, what they still hoped to achieve) in their official careers. For women, it marked the onset of physical decline and the loss of beauty. Men’s writings about entering their fifties show “heightened awareness of aging and the struggles they will face” (18). Women at fifty, in contrast, “present a collective picture of exhausted female elders who perceive themselves as fully aged” (18).
In the first substantive chapter, entitled “Various Kinds of Frustration Provoked by Aging,” the author catalogs the physical and psychological stresses associated with getting older. Qing writers complained of the three major illnesses afflicting the elderly (laonian sanbing 老年三病): visual impairment, hearing loss, and dental problems. They also described dealing with joint pain, skin problems, digestive issues, and chronic insomnia. Some of the most challenging problems they faced were psychological, with poems and essays describing the loss of vitality in stark terms. Yuan Mei wrote about walking somewhere intending to do something, but then forgetting his reason for going when he was half-way there. Qing writers also described the loneliness that came with the loss of companionship when friends or spouses died. Shang Jinglan (1605–1676) composed a poem for her fiftieth birthday, nine years after her Ming loyalist husband’s suicide, in which she wrote: “I am like a torn-off remnant of silk / That will never be woven to completion” (83).
In “Coping with Aging Challenges,” the author turns to the practical and creative strategies Qing writers used to manage the challenges of aging. Adjusting the diet became important when people aged. They ate softer food because of their weakening teeth, and warmer food to accommodate poor digestion. They used eyeglasses for failing eyesight, and walking sticks to help them get around. The author devotes considerable attention to the problem of feeling cold. Many used hot water containers near their feet when they slept, which they affectionately termed hot-water spouses (tang pozi 湯婆子). The chapter also details struggles with incontinence; Zhao Yi mentions that he placed a bag of ashes under his bedding at night to deal with the problem, much as one would for a child. This led him to joke that, as an old man, he was returning to childhood. The chapter also describes how the elderly coped with aging by seeking comfort from end-of-life preparations. They commissioned portraits, chose coffins, and selected their gravesites. Some turned to fortune tellers to predict how long they would live, and practiced self-mourning when they thought the end was near. They composed their own eulogies, sent advance mourning invitations, or composed final messages to their descendants in which they offered advice on family matters. The chapter demonstrates the complex ways in which the elderly took an active role in facing, and managing, the effects of aging.
As its name implies, the chapter entitled “The Joys of Aging” provides an upbeat discussion of the good sides of getting older. Among these, grandchildren surely ranked near the top. Qing writers used an Eastern Han-dynasty saying “Tasting a sweet dessert while enjoying time with one’s grandchildren (hanyi nongsun 含飴弄孫)” to describe the joys of grandparenting and old age (146). Many writers were involved in the education of their grandchildren, but generally felt that it was less stressful to teach a grandchild than a child. With the passing of their own parents, the older people sometimes felt a new sense of freedom from responsibility. Those who enjoyed good health made it a point to celebrate that fact, and used the term “laojian 老健 (old and healthy)” to describe their condition (136). Many enjoyed hiking and sightseeing, and attended social gatherings geared particularly to the aged. The author notes that there is a rich and largely untapped documentation of official banquets given in honor of aged officials, to which male elders were invited, suggesting an avenue for future research.
In a concluding chapter, the author argues for establishing the category of “age” as a distinct analytical category in historical analysis, and for more work on “historical gerontology,” as a field of interdisciplinary study (181). She also notes that while authors often held back little in describing their feelings about aging, there are some topics that are noticeably absent from her sources. Women, she notes, rarely described their feelings about menopause. Neither gender had much to say about sex in old age. And while Zhao Yi mentions incontinence, most writers considered it too embarrassing to discuss. In this chapter, the author also notes that the problems of the Qing elderly were not unique. “When we consider the complaints of Qing elders about functional decline, bodily pain, changes in appearance, physical abnormalities, psychological discomfort, and emotional stress, we realize that these issues are still commonly experienced by the aged population today” (182–83).
As I read the book, I found myself highlighting the factors that might make aging in the Qing distinctive. Given the social stress on the role of filial piety, I fully expected it to play a larger role in Qing people’s narratives. There are, to be sure, occasional mentions. Zhao Yi describes receiving gifts of brown and white fox coats from his two sons. Zhang Youshu, fearing that because of her liver disease she would not live long, commissioned a painting of herself so her sons could worship her in the future. (She ended up living more than two decades after the portrait’s completion.) There is also a moving poem by Shang Jinglan (the Ming loyalist’s widow mentioned above) in which her two sons, seeing her emotional pain and seeking to comfort her, kneel and ask: “Mother, what is the cause of your distress? / Is it because we did something wrong? / Or is our filial piety not up to par?” (82). Largely absent, however, are descriptions of filial sons or daughters-in-law personally caring for their family members, or even voicing concern about their health. This is perhaps explained by the fact that the subjects of this book were largely elite members of society who were cared for by servants. Or it may be that aged parents took their family’s care and concern for granted and felt no need to mention it in their writings. We should, however, not dismiss the possibility that filial care of the elderly, even respect for the elderly, was not as common as didactic texts suggest. And the book certainly contains evidence of the loneliness endured by the Qing elderly. For example, while Zhao Yi is grateful for his sons’ gifts of fox coats, he also writes that he feels shunned by family members, who attempt to avoid him (80).
Clearly, and as the author notes, gender differences are an area in which Qing aging differed from that of many other societies. While couples could reflect on the pleasures of growing old together, the reality of a polygamous society meant that men with the financial means could seek out young female companionship in old age. Some elderly men turned to young women to solve the problem of staying warm in bed. This practice, known as “warming the seniors” (nuanlao 暖老), was noted in early texts, such as Bencao gangmu 本草綱目. It was reaffirmed by Qing writers, and was used to justify the acquisition of new concubines (107).
One of the most fascinating aspects of this book is the discussions of the material culture of aging. Beyond interesting descriptions of eyeglasses, canes, and hair and beard dye, there are lengthy discussions of bed warmers (the tang pozi mentioned above), as well as cooling devices (bamboo tubes that the elderly clutched while sleeping to help dissipate the heat (called zhufuren 竹夫人, or “bamboo wife”) (110). The author mentions the apparent gendering of these devices, noting that in a well-known joke, a monk “told the Qianlong emperor he had two wives to hold at night, a zhufuren in the summer and a tang pozi in the winter” (111).
One issue the author does not discuss is possible changes in attitudes over the course of the Qing. For example, might there have been generational shifts in how the elderly perceived their social roles? Writers from the early Qing included “loyalists and survivors from the Ming” (8) who had experienced dynastic collapse, while late-Qing elders witnessed Western imperialism and internal rebellions. Did these dramatically different historical contexts shape how individuals experienced aging? Assistive technologies changed over the course of the Qing. Did the proliferation of eyeglasses and eyeglass shops mean a growing acceptance of them as a visible mark of aging?
The book uses an impressive body of sources. The author examined the works of approximately 320 Qing writers (roughly equally split between men and women). Their works span several genres (poems, diaries, letters, and prose) providing an unprecedented window onto their experiences of aging. The author also translates a large number of texts and includes translations by other scholars (the latter are primarily in a very useful Appendix). The author’s engagement with women’s writings is particularly noteworthy, drawing on recent publication projects and digital platforms that have made female-authored collections increasingly accessible. Yet the thematic organization that allows the author to extract information from across this vast corpus also produces a weakness: we encounter many writers, such as Yuan Mei and Zhao Yi, repeatedly throughout the book but never gain a holistic understanding of how each of these individuals experienced their aging journeys. This fault aside, this is a wonderful book that makes a welcome contribution to Qing studies. It will be of great interest to scholars generally who are interested in the history of aging.
