Lifelong Dancer

Wearing a necklace of pearls matched with earrings and sparingly applied makeup, Wu, still youthful and elegant at 91, strides over gracefully to welcome her visitor.

With her confident and elegant dance moves and poses, Wu Lin Meizhi conveys the beauty of old age.

Wu was educated in Japanese at a two-year vocational junior high school in Luo­dong, Yi­lan County, where she graduated first in her class. That performance, combined with her singing and dancing skills, made the school keep her on as a teacher in an attached kindergarten. Two years later she was sent to Tai­pei for more training, after which she returned to her old elementary school—now known as Cheng­gong Elementary—where she worked until retiring at 65. Including her later volunteering, she has worked a full 60 years as a teacher. In the Luo­dong and Dong­shan area, she has taught two generations of many families and in some cases even three generations.

Whether under a Japanese or Chinese curriculum, Wu, as a first-grade or second-grade teacher, always focused on the basics. To set a good example, her handwriting was always impeccable—and still is today.

After retiring, she returned to teaching at 78, when she was recruited as a volunteer teacher at the Nan-Yang Charity Institute of Elders. Once again she was teaching Japanese.

With her commitments as a volunteer, she can’t participate in the travel itineraries for elders sponsored by the local community center. People sometimes ask her, “Since you’re not even being paid, why are you so diligent a teacher?!” “When you make a promise,” Wu responds, “it’s important to follow through!”

 

She raised two boys and two girls, and she rejoiced at becoming a great-grandmother two years ago. Since her husband died seven years ago, she has lived alone in ­Luodong.

There is little she can’t or won’t do for herself, and she’s not in the habit of letting her sons or daughters-in-law help. Every time she goes to Tai­pei for a short stay, she finds their attentiveness hard to bear. Once, at her wits’ end, she laid it on the line for a daughter-in-law: “Unless I ask for something, there’s no need to bother. All this constant fussing over me—I can’t stand it.”

On New Year’s Day Wu slipped and broke her wrist, and her son brought her up north to have artificial joint replacement surgery. The hospital said she would have to return for physical therapy, but Wu “skipped out” and returned to Luodong. “Dancing every day is the best possible physical therapy for me.” And—voilà—three or four months later she had completely recovered thanks to her dancing.

Wu attributes her great health in old age to walking and dancing.

Rising at 4 a.m., she has a glass of collagen drink and a cup of three-in-one instant coffee for breakfast.

Leaving home at 5:30 a.m., she walks for half an hour. First she goes to Cheng­gong Elementary to teach modern dance to younger adults. Then she walks to a market building, where she leads a group of seniors in folk dances upstairs. “I’ve got to take responsibility for leading them. Otherwise, they’ll forget the steps.” She says that she dances at least two hours a day. She started when she was young and has never stopped.

“Dancing is what I’m interested in,” she says. “It’s never been tiring for me.” If she skips dancing for a day, she’ll feel strange, as if there were an important task she had forgotten to do.

But as she’s gotten older, the style of dance has inevitably changed. She explains that she used to dance folk dances for pairs. Now that her partners are getting up in age, they are scared of falling. Consequently, she has switched to dancing solo. “The fact is I’ve never fallen while dancing,” Wu says.

Apart from dancing, the form of exercise that Wu gets the most of is walking. Even though she is now 91, 20 or 30 minute walks are still commonplace. Perhaps it’s this habit that has kept her so fit.

“Modern people don’t walk enough.” It used to be nothing unusual for children to walk for more than an hour to reach school, she notes. Today kids get dropped off and picked up.

At noon Wu rests a little, and then at two she goes out to work as a volunteer teacher. She has one class of elderly students at the Nan-Yang Charity Institute of Elders and another at the local Confucian temple.

“Old people study Japanese to sing Japanese songs,” Wu says. She knows that using song and dance is an excellent way to excite their interest. An hour and a half class passes quickly when you’re singing and dancing.

“The Sake Love Song” is the grandparent cohort’s favorite Japanese song. Wu explains that it’s a song the Japanese dance to when drinking and making merry. “Japanese dancing is different from Western dancing. The emphasis isn’t on leaps and lifts, but rather on the fine details and flavors conveyed by every pose and gesture.” Wu then once again emphasizes: “If I don’t show them, they’ll forget!”

A lifelong teacher, Wu is also a model lifelong learner. She still reads newspapers and magazines to gain new know­ledge, and recently she’s had the notion that she should familiarize herself with computers. “By learning how to use a computer, I will be able to find some new songs to listen to and new films to see. It will make life more interesting!”

Wu, who stands 160 centimeters tall, always holds a gracefully straight posture whether sitting, standing or walking.

Having received a Japanese education, she applies a thin layer of makeup before leaving the house and wears neat and comfortable clothing. “That’s only polite,” says a smiling Wu. She believes that applying too much makeup at her age will make a woman look like an “old demon.”

When the discussion moves to diet and health, Wu says that she eats so sparingly that a single boxed lunch box stretches to two meals. To ensure that she’s getting proper nutrition, she takes vitamin and chitin supplements daily. To get enough calcium, she often eats whitebait. As a result, her body is firm and robust.

Having danced her whole life, Wu has no plans to stop. Yet much to her regret, her dancing peers are ever fewer. She has a half dozen students in their 80s who are having more and more trouble moving. Some of them complain that their feet hurt, and others that they are losing their vision.... Only Wu continues to move stylishly and with a straight back.

And what song, she is asked, does she like to sing most? “Jasmine” she replies. The lyrics are beautiful and “although it may seem that it’s unkind to compare a woman to a flower that is not particularly attractive, its sweet scent makes it hard for people to forget....”

As she speaks, her expression brightens and her lips turn up slightly.... Who says that you can’t see beauty and confidence in the face of an old person!