Ageing in contemporary China : The Ziran approach

Based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with older women and men in two cities in mainland China, this article reports respondents’ experiences of ageing. Interviewees’ attitudes to health and their changing bodies suggest an orientation unlike the ‘medicalization’ approach. They report personal strategies that navigate conditions of ongoing social and economic change by both drawing on and modifying traditional norms, including those related to filial obligation in their relations with adult children as well as to terminal disease and death. Practices of ‘getting old’ in contemporary China reshape gender norms and expectations. The examination of ageing reported here identifies the notion of ziran as an approach to ageing quite distinct from discourses frequently reported in the literature.