Old people in China do all kinds of stuff, they’re usually out and about chilling with friends and family. Public parks are full of them dancing and exercising. There is a social life available to most they is missing in Western countries.
my parents sort of retired around 65, and that was because they were boomers who saved and were fortunate. and even with that, though they have traveled a lot–not what i would do with my retirement, but whatever–a lot of their time is spent managing the symptoms of physical decline.
the retiring genXers at my work are retiring far later than they’d like, because the retirement options are shit, they are broke, and they need the bumped up healthcare because they all seem to be in far worse shape now than the boomers were at their age. one guy is like wiped out, mid 60s and gonna have to work another 10 years, because his wife has health problems and she’s 10 years younger than him, so he’ll be 75 by the time she can get medicare.
the job lock aspect of private health insurance is brutal. even if you have worked your whole life at a decent job, paid off your little house and vehicle, have a really solid amount of savings, and don’t have kids to support you still gotta work because getting a new hip or a stent without insurance is like game-fucking-over in bills.
Yes and that is the one-two punch of American private healthcare. The industry itself is parasitic, sucking up massive profits for doing nothing except prevent care and haggle down treatments. And for the wider bourgeoisie, by tying healthcare to employment, it disciplines labor better than any Pinkerton ever could.
The toll it takes on human life is incredible given how completely unnecessarily all of it is.
we should all aspire to become chinese-level aunties and uncles before we’re 60. just hanging out doing taiji in the park in our pajamas, loudly playing chess with our buddies, evening guangchangwu in ugly tights with a suitcase speaker blasting old people bass, then hanging out at the night market before going home for 9hrs of solid sleep
And best of all, China makes sure to build enough stuff so everyone can enjoy life. One thing boomers in the US do that I don’t necessarily fault them for is that they love life and keep participating in society, where it irks me is their nimbyism so they refuse to let more stuff be built so everyone, young and old, can participate in society. Of course, when there’s scarcity, people with deeper pockets (like older people who’s homes have seen some of the fastest value appreciation in world history) will always win.
Sure, sometimes I can envy that boomers got “lucky”, but seeing those videos of people young and old coexisting helps establish its largely a non-antagonistic contradiction.
