There were many remarkable things about her, but the most startling, surely, was her age: She was 109. She was born as imperial China died—her arrival into this world coincided with two thousand years of dynastic rule giving way to a new republic. Over a century on, and she had lived through the entire history of modern China—indeed, she had aged in parallel with it. Even in a country of a billion people, there cannot be many who may lay such a claim.
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She was sat on a wall when I saw her, hands clasped over a walking stick. She asked where I was headed, and what I was doing, and wondered if I was there on business. Snippets of her life story were whispered to me by other villagers who had gathered around our conversation. Finally, she leaned back slightly, to deliver her verdict:
“I wish you all the best, and that no illness falls upon you. And, may your wishes come true.”
There’s no guarantee that age brings wisdom, of course, nor that understanding or hospitality will follow. So I will not put her kindnesses simply down to the passing of time. Rather, it is the mark of her character, formed as it has been by whatever experiences those 109 years have brought along the way. To have been there, even briefly, was a privilege.
