In the face of DEATH, what this elderly famous writer learned about aging, and how the culture interact with those in the elderly years, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
“I’d only come to my senses, that I’d, aged after being diagnosed with cancer, that time is, almost up,” the eighty-two year-old writer, Chun-Ming Huang never saw himself as elderly, in 2014, he was treated for lymphoma, and that, was when he discovered the aging process happening to himself.
On one of his trips to Japan, Huang entered into a café, there were, “lonely elderly” sitting inside, with the smell of cigarettes, the T.V. blasting, but nobody made a single sound, this place was like the “platform without time”. He’d broken the silence, struck up a conversation, the owner said, that one day, one of his regular clients stopped showing up, and he’d later learned, that the person had, passed away. As the tale came from the owner of the café, it didn’t, seem so sad.
Huang said, that in the farming towns of Taiwan, there’s, similar scene happening too. In the countryside of Yilan, he’d fund the elderly population gathering in front of the temple, underneath the Ficus tree, he’d asked the elderly what they were doing, “Telling the tales of old, playing chess, and, waiting for death!”, the elderly he was having the conversation with looked natural, without a hint of sorrows on his face.
“Aging is a normal process, but, loneliness, that’s just, tragic”, Huang stated, that he hoped, that he won’t be in that same predicament one day.
Two years ago, Huang tripped and fell at home, he was rushed to the hospital, and gladly, he’d, sustained, no major injuries. He’d made fun, that this fall was like a zombie tripping, but introspected, that he’d, moved quickly, and yet, this time, he’d, fallen hard, and now, he’d, taken everything slower, and, separated the movements, for instance, he’d, steadied himself on the chairs, then, slowly get up.
The incidence of him tripping and falling made him realized that he was, “aging” now, and although, he’d walked steadier with a cane when he went out, he’d only used it a couple of times, then, casted the cane away. Turns out, it was because, that one time he was strolling with his cane, he’d thought, “although I’m aged and needed a cane, but, I looked awful with a cane”, he’d loved saving his own face, and in the end, he’d, done away with using the cane.
Huang felt compelled to admit that “the elderly surely ARE stubborn”, toward his article, “Release”, with the elders from the farming villages, fighting to buy the bus tickets, hoped, that the children and grandchildren who’d gone to the cities to live to come back home again, “Wait until this generation of elderly die off completely, there wouldn’t be any more issues of whether or not the offspring are fulfilling their filial piety obligations or not”, and from this, Huang told of how the shift of values are clearly at play in the aging communities in Taiwan.
And so, this, is sad, but it’s, inevitable, as we all age, and with the people living longer and longer, and longer (CURSE all those medical developments!!!), we are going to have more and more problems of the elderly years that will HIT us hard, and, there’s, NO way we can prepare ourselves, we can only, hope, that we are, well-equipped with everything we got, when it (the years???) comes toward us, and HIT us very hard!!!
Life, the Obstacle Course 