June
1 2015 Monday
Longevity
Chinese aspire to a good life blessed with the three attributes of prosperity (福), status (祿) and longevity (壽) each personified with a deity. With advances in science, longevity has become more possible and ageing can be graceful too.
Just
take a look of ourselves or the people around us. When tribal villagers living
in deprived remote areas suffer from blurred eyesight, hard of hearing, toothless
mouth or crippled movements, we are supported with artificial lenses, hearing
aids, dentures and prostheses. We can perform daily activities such as reading,
eating, walking or dressing nearly as well as when we are young. These put
meaning to a long life.
My
mother has been wearing hearing aids for a few months now. She is getting used
to it. As to me, cataracts have developed in both eyes and I am undergoing the
two surgeries next week. We are both attended to by a very patient domestic
helper. Not all old people are so fortunate.
Many
elderly have to live in homes either because they are bed-ridden and need
intensive care or their children are either too poor or too busy. This does not
mean they are not loved. And yet once in nursing homes, their fate is in the
hands of the nurses and attendants. When I saw on television how the staff of
the privately owned Tai Po Cambridge Nursing Home were filmed stripping female
residents bare before they took a shower on a balcony in full view of
neighbours, I was heart-broken. These elderly are herded like cattle with every
ounce of dignity taken away from them. They sat there helpless, voiceless,
waiting for the final call!
Life
is a cycle. Infants are feeble at the mercy of the adults and so are the old
who can no longer take care of themselves. There is one difference, though.
Infants have not been “socialized”. They do not know they should feel shameful
when being stripped naked in public! Such acts of brutal abuse of the elderly
must be severely penalized but the root of the issue is the urgency to tackle
the aging problem. I am sure this incident of abuse is only the tip of the
iceberg.
Just
take a look of ourselves or the people around us. When tribal villagers living
in deprived remote areas suffer from blurred eyesight, hard of hearing, toothless
mouth or crippled movements, we are supported with artificial lenses, hearing
aids, dentures and prostheses. We can perform daily activities such as reading,
eating, walking or dressing nearly as well as when we are young. These put
meaning to a long life.
