In China, Aging in the Care of Strangers

One-Child Policy Changes Tradition

Wang Xiulian, left, tends to Tian Deren, 58, at a home for seniors in China. (By Maureen Fan -- The Washington Post)

DALIAN, China -- Tian Deren is only 58, but poor eyesight means he must be helped across the street. He also has diabetes and is hard of hearing, so earlier this year a son-in-law brought him to a privately run home for the elderly.

Because he is still mobile, Tian isn't relegated to the fourth floor, where the most infirm residents live and where some have been known to throw cups of tea at the staff. His room is clean; the food plentiful. Life is good, he said.

But like many of China's graying citizens, Tian understands that the elderly are now treated differently than they once were, that the country's modernization and one-child-only policy have shifted assumptions about old age.

Only children often bear the burden alone of taking care of their parents, while the cradle-to-grave welfare associated with state-owned factories is becoming a thing of the past. Two or three decades ago, a more traditional way of life emphasized the Confucian ideal of respecting one's elders. Today, making good money is the slogan of choice.

"I understand why children send their parents to rest homes," Tian said. "It's not a shame at all today. It's really a big change." His daughter, who is busy selling cosmetics part time and caring for a 4-year-old daughter, has health problems of her own.

Here in Liaoning province, in China's northeast, Tian spends his time in a simple bedroom bare of any decoration. He keeps some peanuts and a thermos on a side table, and two blue shirts hang above his bed. He says the staff treats him well.

Still, there are times when Tian's upbeat demeanor falls away, and something else shows through.

"The director always says to me, every extra day that I live, she will be happy for me. My own daughter does not say that," he said the other day, fighting back tears.

"They really treat me very well here, as if they were my own children," Tian added later, beginning to sob. "The director always takes me outside for a walk or a concert. My daughter cannot do that because she doesn't have the time."

Tian's sentiments, and those of many elderly Chinese, signal a deeper unhappiness than is often acknowledged within a system that has failed to adequately provide for the aged. While China has created opportunities for a younger, more affluent population, many older people have been left to fend for themselves.

There remains in this country a greater sense of filial piety than in most Western societies. But young people no longer like to talk with their parents as they once did, said Zhang Kaidi, director of the China Research Center on Aging, a government-supported research organization.

"People value money more than family ties. It is very dangerous," Zhang said. "Parents have put all they have, all their money, attention and hope on their child, and they expect to get a return from him when they get old. But the rapid development of the society has changed the traditional give-and-get social contract."