Older and wiser: the secret survival skills of Hong Kong’s elderly
Our city’s old folks get little help from anyone when coping with the daily challenges that life throws up
This is a city of tough love for old people. And I’m not talking about sex in the city, nor about sex for those over 60.
I am talking about the tough love of an inverse preference, illustrated by the recent consultation paper on retirement protection: the more you love something, the less likely you are to get it. Tough!
While it’s not my intention to pick a bone with the government over this – that I’ll leave to the experts – it does appear that old people here have to fend for themselves with little help from others, even from the powers who profess to care.
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Yet these senior citizens are survivors. They are among the world’s toughest survivors, endowed with hitherto unrecognised skills that scientists attribute to the Darwinian adaptation to a hostile environment.
That little old lady hobbling beside you has secret powers: hush … as they say, three people can keep a secret if two are dead. Well, I’m alive and kicking and I’ll tell it like it is.
Public buses or minivans remain a challenge to the arthritic and osteoporotic. Old people here must use their superior strength-to-weight ratio and special pain tolerance to scale the height of the vehicles’ steps. Only with the balance gained by years of tai chi can they sit down, without being knocked down, to enjoy subsidised rides.
They run the risk of being told to ‘move along’ or get run over by suitcases that trail behind shoppers like dogs on leashes
The MTR welcomes the elderly with smiley emoji, marking the few seats reserved for the vulnerable. Yet young people sit comfortably there, immersed in electronica, oblivious to their surrounds; or appearing to sleep, but miraculously awakening at their very destination. Perhaps with a walking-stick and the light-sabre skills of a Jedi knight, our elderly can persuade those individuals to yield to the emoji.
