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　On Growing Old Gracefully

    It is to be assumed that if man were to live this life like a poem, he would be able to look upon the sunset of his life as his happiest period, and instead of trying to postpone the much feared old age, be able actually to look forward to it, and gradually build up to it as the best and happiest period of his existence. In my efforts to compare and contrast Eastern and Western life, I have found no differences that are absolute except in this matter of the attitude towards age, which is sharp and clear-cut and permits of no intermediate positions. The differences in our attitude towards sex, toward women, and toward work, play and achievement are all relative. The relationship between husband and wife in China is not essentially different from that in the West, nor even the relationship between parent and child. Not even the ideas of individual liberty and democracy and the relationship between the people and their ruler are, after all, so different. But in the matter of our attitude toward age, the difference is absolute, and the East and the West take exactly opposite points of view.

    This is clearest in the matter of asking about a person's age or telling one's own. In China, the first question a person asks the other on an official call, after asking about his name and surname is, "What is your glorious age?" If the person replies apologetically that he is twenty-three or twenty-eight, the other party generally comforts him by saying that he has still a glorious future, and that one day he may become old. But if the person replies that he is thirty-five or thirty-eight, the other party immediately exclaims with deep respect, " Good luck!"； enthusiasm grows in proportion as the gentleman is able to report higher and higher age, and if the person is anywhere over fifty, the inquirer immediately drops his voice in humility and respect.

    That is why all old people, if they can, should go and live in China, where even a beggar with a white beard is treated with extra kindness. People in middle age actually look forward to the time when they can celebrate their fifty-first birthday, and in the case of successful merchants or officials, they would celebrate even their forty-first birthday with great pomp and glory. But the fifty-first birthday, or the half century mark, is an occasion of rejoicing for people of all classes. The sixty-first is a happier and grander occasion than the fifty-first and the seventy-first is still happier and grander, while a man able to celebrate his eighty-first birthday is actually looked upon as one specially favored by heaven. The wearing of a beard becomes the special prerogative of those who have become grandparents, and a man doing so without the necessary qualifications, either of being a grandfather or being on the other side of fifty, stands in danger of being sneered at behind his back. The result is that young men try to pass themselves off as older than they are by imitating the pose and dignity and point of view of the older people, and I have known young Chinese writers graduated from the middle schools, anywhere between twenty-one and twenty-five, writing articles in the magazines to advise what " the young men ought and ought not to read," and discussing the pitfalls of youth with a fatherly condescension.

    This desire to grow old and in any case appear old is understandable when one understands the premium generally placed upon old age in China. In the first place, it is a privilege of the old people to talk, while the young must listen and hold their tongue. " A young man is supposed to have ears and no mouth," as a Chinese saying goes. Men of twenty are supposed to listen when people of thirty are talking, and these in turn are supposed to listen when men of forty are talking. As the desire to talk and to be listened to is almost universal, it is evident that the further along one gets in years, the better chance he has to talk and to be listened to when he goes about in society.

    It is a game of life in which no one is favored, for everyone has a chance of becoming old in his time. Thus a father lecturing his son is obliged to stop suddenly and change his demeanor the moment the grandmother's place. And it is quite fair, for what right have the young to open their mouths when the old men can say " I have crossed more bridge than you have crossed streets!"

    In spite of my acquaintance with Western life and the Western attitude age, I am still continually shocked by certain expressions for which I am totally unprepared. Fresh illustrations of this attitude come up on every side. I have heard an old lady remark that she has had several grandchildren, but, " It was the first one that hurt." With the full knowledge that American people hate to be thought of as old, one still doesn't quite expect to have it put that way. I have made allowance for people in middle age this side of fifty, who, I can understand, wish to leave the impression that they are still active and vigorous, but I am not quite prepared to meet an old lady with gray hair facetiously switching the topic of conversation to the weather when the conversation without any fault of mine naturally drifted toward her age. One continually forgets it when allowing an old man to enter an elevator or a car first； the habitual expression " after age" comes up to my lips, then I restrain myself and am at a loss for what to say in its place. One day, being forgetful, I blurted out the usual phrase in deference to an extremely dignified and charming old man, and the old man seated in the car turned to his wife and remarked jokingly to her, " This young man has the cheek to think that he is younger than myself!"

    The whole thing is as senseless as can be. I can understand young and middle-aged unmarried women refusing to tell their age, because there the premium upon youth is entirely natural. Chinese girls, too, get a little scared when they reach twenty-two and are not married or engaged. The years are slipping by mercilessly. There is a feeling of fear of being left out, what the Germans call a Torschlusspanik (gate-shut panic), the fear of being left in the park when the gates close at night. Hence it has been said that the longest year of a woman's life is when she is twenty-nine; she remains twenty-nine for three or four or five years. But apart from this, the fear of letting people know one's age is nonsensical. How can one be thought wise unless one is thought to be old? And what do the young really know about life, about marriage, and about the true values?

    Again I can understand that the whole pattern of Western life places a premium on youth and therefore makes men and women shrink from telling their age. A perfectly efficient and vigorous woman secretary of forty-five is, by a curious twist of reasoning, immediately thought of as worthless when her age becomes known. What wonder that she wants to hide her age in order to keep her job? But then the pattern of life itself and this premium placed upon youth are nonsensical. This sort of thing is undoubtedly brought about by business life, for I have no doubt there must be more respect for old age in the home than in the office, I see no way out of it until the American people begin somewhat to despise work and efficiency and achievement. I suspect when an American father looks upon the home and not the office as his ideal place in life, and can openly tell people, as Chinese parents do with absolute equanimity, that now he has a good son taking his place and is honored to be fed by him, he will be anxiously looking forward to that happy time, and will count the years impatiently before he reaches fifty.

    It seems a linguistic misfortune that hale and hearty old men in America tell people that they are "young," or are told that they are " young," when really what is meant is that they are healthy. To enjoy health in old age, or to be "old and healthy" is the greatest of human luck, but to call it " healthy and young" is but to detract from that glamour and impute imperfection to what is really perfect. After all, there is nothing more beautiful in this world than a healthy wise old man, with "ruddy cheeks and white hair," talking in a soothing voice about life as one who knows it. The Chinese realize this, and have always pictured an old man with " ruddy cheeks and white hair" as the symbol of ultimate earthly happiness. Many Americans must have seen Chinese pictures of the god of Longevity, with his high forehead, his ruddy face, his white beard - and how he smiles! The picture is so vivid. He runs his fingers through the thin flowing beard coming down to the breast and gently strokes it in peace and contentment, dignified because he is surrounded with respect, self-assured because no one ever questions his wisdom, and kind because he has seen so much of human sorrow. To persons of great vitality, we also pay the compliment of saying that "the older they grow, the more vigorous they are."

    On the whole, I find grand old men with white beards missing in the American picture. I know that they exist, but they are perhaps in a conspiracy to hide themselves from me. Only once, in New Jersey, did I meet an old man with anything like a respectable beard. Perhaps it is the safety razor that has done it, a process as deplorable and ignorant and stupid as the deforestation of the Chinese hills by ignorant farmers, who have deprived North China of its beautiful forests and left the hills as bald and ugly as the American old men's chins. There is yet a mine to be discovered in America, a mine of beauty and wisdom that is pleasing to the eye and thrilling to the soul, when the American has opened his eyes to it and starts a general program of reclamation and reforestation.

    Gone are the grand old men of America! Gone is Uncle Sam with his goatee, for he has taken a safety razor and shaved it off, to make himself look like a frivolous young fool with his chin sticking out instead of being drawn in gracefully, and a hard glint shining behind horn-rimmed spectacles. What a poor substitute that is for the grand old figure!

    I have no doubt that the fact that the old men of America still insist on being so busy and active can be directly traced to individualism carried to a foolish extent. It is their pride and their love of independence and their shame of being dependent upon their children. But among the many human rights the American people have provided for in their Constitution, they have strangely forgotten about the right to be fed by their children, for it is a right and an obligation growing out of service. How can anyone deny that parents who have toiled for their children in their youth, have lost many a good night's sleep when they are ill, have washed their diapers long before they could talk, and have spent about a quarter of century bringing them up and fitting them for life, have the right to be fed by them and loved and respected when they are old? Can one not forget the individual and his pride of self in a general scheme of home life in which men are justly taken care of by their parents and, having in turn taken care of their children, are also justly taken care of by the latter? The Chinese have not got the sense of individual independence because the whole conception of life is based upon mutual help within the home; hence there is no shame attached to circumstance of one's being served by his children in the sunset of one's life. Rather it is considered good luck to have children who can take care of one. One lives for nothing else in China.

    In the West, the old people efface themselves and prefer to live alone in some hotel with a restaurant on the ground floor, out of consideration for their children and an entirely unselfish desire not to interfere in their home life. But the old people have a right to interfere and if interference is unpleasant, it is nevertheless natural, for all life, particularly the domestic life, is a lesson in restraint. Parents interfere with their children  when they are young, and the logic of non-interference is already seen in the results of the Behaviorists, who think that all children should be taken away from their parents. If one cannot tolerate one's own parents when they are old and comparatively helpless, parents who have done so much for us, whom else can one tolerate in the home? One has to learn self-restraint anyway, or even marriage will go on the rocks. And how can the personal service and devotion and adoration of loving children ever be replaced by the best hotel waiters?

    The Chinese idea supporting this personal service to old parents is expressly defended on the sole ground of gratitude. The debts to one's friends may be numbered, but the debts to one's parents are beyond number. Again and again, Chinese essays on filial piety mention the fact of washing diaper, which takes on significance when one becomes a parent himself. In return, therefore, is it not right that in their old age, the parents should be served with the best food and have their favorite dishes placed before them? The duties of a son serving his parents are pretty hard, but it is sacrilege to make a comparison between nursing one's own parents and nursing a stranger in a hospital. For instance, the following are some of the duties of the junior at home, as prescribed by T'u Hsishih and incorporated in a book of moral instruction very popular as a text in the old schools:

    In the summer months, one should, while attending to his parents, stand by their side and fan them, to drive away the heat and the flies and mosquitoes. In winter, he should see that the bed quilts are warm enough and the stove fire is hot enough, and see that it is just right by attending to it constantly. He should also see if there are holes or crevices in the doors and windows, that there may be no draft, to the end that his parents are comfortable and happy.

    A child above ten should get up before his parents in the morning, and go to their bed and ask if they have had a good night. If his parents have already gotten up, he should first curtsy to them before inquiring after their health, and should retire with another curtsy after the question. Before going to bed at night, he should prepare the bed, when the parents are going to sleep, and stand by until he sees that they have fallen off to sleep, and then pull down the bed curtain and retire himself.

    Who, therefore, wouldn't want to be an old man or an old father or grandfather in China? This sort of thing is very much laughed at by the proletarian writers of China as "feudalistic," but there is a charm to it which makes any old gentleman inland cling to it and think that modern China is going to the dogs. The important point is that every man grows old in time, if he lives long enough, as he certainly desires to. If one forgets this foolish individualism which seems to assume that an individual can exist in the abstract and be literally independent, one must admit that we must so plan our pattern of life that the golden period lies ahead in old age and not behind us in youth and innocence. For if we take the reverse attitude, we are committed without our knowing to a race with the merciless course of time, forever afraid of what lies ahead of us - a race, it is hardly necessary to point out, which is quite hopeless and in which we are eventually all defeated. No one can really stop growing old; he can only cheat himself by not admitting that he is growing old. And since there is no use fighting against nature, one might just as well grow old gracefully. The symphony of life should end with a grand finale of peace and serenity and material comfort and spiritual contentment, and not with the crash of a broken drum or cracked cymbals.
 

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