Documentary director: there is no typical old age, only specific people
Fan Shiguang, who shot two seasons of Qian Lang, says most marriages end up lukewarm or worse, and growing old together to the very end is rare. What we lack most isn't stories — it's money, and the habit of seeing old people as specific human beings.
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A five-million-yuan estate, and the law fighting the will
An elderly woman with no close family died in a Shanghai nursing home. While alive she had made an advance guardianship notarization with notary Li Chengyang, but she never wrote a will. Sorting through her belongings, the notary found she had left an estate of five million yuan, including a house, cash and passbooks. She had said many times orally that she wanted to donate it to society and did not want it to go to relatives, but that wish had no legal form. Li Chengyang ultimately chose to follow the law and look for statutory heirs, tracing through archives to children and relatives she had not seen in years. There was disagreement inside the notary office too; some colleagues thought they should simply respect the old woman's wishes. The compromise was to propose to the inheriting children that 200,000 yuan of the five million go to a fund helping old people with no one to rely on. The children agreed.
— RuohanWhether they slept together decided whether the estate could go to her
An elderly man with a terminal illness gave his advance guardianship rights and his estate to a woman who had cared for him for years and was not a relative — and he had a biological daughter. The notary office debated this fiercely, and one key point was whether the two slept together: if they did not, the caregiver was just a nanny or a live-in housekeeper, and an old man leaving his estate to his nanny was morally acceptable; if there was a sexual relationship, the matter stopped conforming to public morals. The caregiver was herself married, but had had no contact for years, so in effect the marriage did not exist. So it became an open-relationship question, and the notary office did not want to bear the risk of offending public morals on the basis of that judgment.
— QingOld people finding new partners increasingly don't register the marriage
Li Kangmei, the subject of episode two, was with Lao Li for eighteen years and never registered the marriage, and there was no de facto marital relationship. The hosts found this far more common than they had imagined: after divorce or the loss of a first marriage, many older people entering a new relationship choose not to marry. They don't necessarily say they love this person; they say they want someone to keep them company, someone to take care of them, and behind that is a fairly deep need against loneliness. Lao Li already had a terminal illness, and Li Kangmei's choice was whether to stay to the last moment or to leave early because there was no de facto marital relationship.
— RuohanReality TV forces you to pick a side every five minutes
The hosts contrast documentary with reality TV: much of the tension in reality TV is manufactured, backed by a very strong narrative — for instance, knowing the audience has views about mama's boys, so they fabricate a mama's boy on screen. This destroys the audience's tolerance for the complexity of real intimate relationships: every plot beat, every five minutes, demands a position, and that position must be the morally correct one, then gets projected onto some character, and wherever that character goes you take his side. Documentary does the opposite: it shows that everyone has it hard, some characters get more screen time and some less, but you can see what each of them is up against, and quite a few of them appear pixelated and anonymous.
— QingThe older generation says I sleep badly, not I'm depressed
Medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman found that young people today have a rich psychological vocabulary and can quickly say I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm a bit bipolar; but older people, even when expressing psychological needs, still use somatized language — I've been sleeping badly lately, I have a bit of a headache — and won't say I sleep badly because I think too much, that I'm a bit depressed. The hosts explain: in our culture it is easier to talk about physical pain, everyone gets a headache or a fever, there's no stigma; the moment you talk about depression or anxiety, it's a different order of stigma and pain.
— RuohanThe idea he killed: all she wanted was to play mahjong
Director Fan Shiguang tells a story he killed himself: the most diligent auntie in a hospice ward, whose husband had bladder cancer and not long to live. Every day she took the bus in at seven or eight in the morning and left at five or six in the evening, like going to work, but you could see no love on her face — she just asked the doctors and nurses over and over how much longer other people's family members had. Only later did he learn that her son had died of a heart attack two years earlier; she was a shidu family, and her tears had probably run dry two years before. Someone asked what she wanted to do after her husband died, and she said she wanted to play mahjong, because he had never let her play. The first scene shot after the husband died was her finding workers to smash the legs off a two-meter bed with a sledgehammer, one by one, and buying a mahjong table to put in that spot. The story was never used, because the team could not find her real inner world — they only had part of the facts.
— Fan ShiguangGrowing old together is rare, not the norm
Fan Shiguang says the team camped out in fieldwork with roughly fifty families, across two seasons, and found that going from youth all the way to真正 growing old together to the very end is not the norm, it is rare; most marriages are lukewarm, or even bad. He tells of the first season's episode Lovers: an old man with Alzheimer's loses control and hits his wife, the daughter forcibly sends him to a specialized nursing home, and the old woman sneaks off to visit every few days, but the hospital won't let her come because it affects his mood. After the old man is sent to hospital, gravely ill, the old woman finally gets her chance to wait on him — cutting his nails, washing his hair, washing his feet. A month or so after he died, she said through tears: I looked down on him my whole life. When I was young I was a good student and he was a poor one; my family were intellectuals and his were workers; he insisted on courting me, and I had no way out, and in the end I muddled through a whole life with him.
— Fan ShiguangLearning to drive at 95: one sentence strips away the right
Fan Shiguang says the team worked hard to break stereotypes, because people love to divide into groups and stick on labels — old people are like this, they've gone senile — and there is deep prejudice in that. In season one there was the story of a 95-year-old man learning to drive and taking the license exam. He caught himself saying, offhand, "driving is all very well, but he is 95 after all," and then asked himself: in that sentence of mine, a 95-year-old has actually been stripped of his rights — that is, he doesn't deserve them. Public Security Ministry regulations never said a 95-year-old can't learn to drive, but in that verbal violence the right was taken away. The episode's bullet comments were full of people saying, can this old man really drive on the road, he's so selfish, what if he hits someone — and all those worries rest on prejudice.
— Fan ShiguangIn their own words · checked verbatim
Whether they slept together — that detail, why is it key? Because if they did not sleep together, this caregiver is merely, say, a nanny to this terminally ill elderly man, or a live-in housekeeper, that kind of role, and then this old man wanting to leave his estate to the nanny seems acceptable, from the standpoint of public morals. But if there is a sexual relationship between the old man and the caregiver, all at once the matter becomes not quite so conforming to public morals.
他们是不是睡在一起 就睡在一起 这个细节为什么关键 是因为如果他们没有睡在一起 这个照护者他仅仅只是 比如说这位得了绝症的 这位老年男性的一个保姆 或者说一个住家阿姨 这样的一个角色 那这个老人他希望把这个遗产 给到保姆 这个事情似乎是可以接受的 从这种道德风化上来说 但是如果老人跟这个照护者 之间是有性关系的 一下子这个事情就变得 没有那么的符合风化
Qing12:14
It's as if every plot beat, every five minutes, I need to have a position, and that position is utterly unassailable — it must be the morally correct one.
好像每一个情节出来 每五分钟 我就需要有一个立场 而且这个立场 它非常的坚不可摧 一定是道德上 最正确的那个立场
Qing24:46
She'll say I've been sleeping badly lately, she'll say I have a bit of a headache, but she won't say I sleep badly because I think too much, that I'm a bit depressed, or that I'm overly anxious.
她会说我最近睡得不好 会说有点头疼 但她不会说我睡得不好 不好是因为我想的太多 有点抑郁或者说我焦虑过度
Ruohan34:20
He said I want to play mahjong. People asked why. He said he never let me play mahjong before.
他说我想搓麻将 人家说为啥呢 他说他之前从来不让我搓麻将
Fan Shiguang45:29
From youth all the way to truly growing old together, reaching the very end is not the norm, it is rare — reaching the very end. Most marriages are lukewarm, or even bad.
其实从年轻到真正白头偕老 走到最后的不是常态 是凤毛麟角 走到最后 就大多数的婚姻状态 都是不嫌不淡的 甚至是不好的
Fan Shiguang52:28
He said, when I was young I was a good student, he was a poor student; my family circumstances were good too, his family were workers, we were an intellectual family.
他说年纪轻的时候 我是学习很好的 他学习很差的 我家庭条件也很好的 他家庭条件就是个工人家庭 我们是知识分子家庭
Fan Shiguang54:35
Ask yourself: a 95-year-old, in that sentence of mine, has actually been stripped of his rights — that is, he doesn't deserve them. Public Security Ministry regulations never said a 95-year-old can't learn to drive, but in our verbal violence I actually took away his rights.
问自己 95岁的人 在我这句话里边 其实都被剥夺了权利了 就是他不配 公安部的法律法规 也没有说95岁的人不能学车 但是在我们的言语暴力里边 其实我就把他的权利给剥夺了
Fan Shiguang1:04:42
Once you have this label, all these people get sorted into a prison — you lock them all into a prison, and word after word, it's all a kind of violence.
你一旦有了这个标签之后 其实所有的人 他就会被归纳为成一个监狱 你都把他们关到了一个监狱里边 用一个又一个的词语 他都是一种暴力
Fan Shiguang1:05:43
Figures
| Estate left by the elderly woman with no close family | 5 million (including a house, cash and passbooks) | 4:08 |
| Donated from the estate to the support fund | 200,000 | 6:09 |
| How long Li Kangmei and Lao Li were together | 18 years | 16:16 |
| Debt Li Yuan's mother owed after an online lending scam | 5 million | 48:29 |
| Families in Fan Shiguang's fieldwork | About 50 couples (both seasons combined) | 52:28 |
| Year advance guardianship was written into the Civil Code | 2021 | 1:00:39 |
| Year the team began filming advance guardianship | 2022 | 1:00:39 |
| Share of some local Shanghai communities that is elderly | Nearly half, 40%-50% | 42:26 |
| Age of the old man learning to drive | 95 | 1:04:42 |
Glossary
- Advance guardianship (意定监护)
- An adult with full civil capacity designates a guardian in writing in advance, who then acts once that person loses capacity.
- Somatization (躯体化)
- Expressing psychological distress as physical symptoms, e.g. saying you sleep badly or have a headache instead of saying you are depressed or anxious.
- Shidu family (失独家庭)
- A family whose only child has died, leaving the parents with no surviving children.
- Empty-nest elders (空巢老人)
- Older people whose children live elsewhere and who live on their own as a couple, common among highly educated families in big cities.
How to listen
Listeners following aging, caregiving, family structures and documentary practice; people in elder care, insurance, legal services and content work can treat the second-half director interview as a story-selection methodology.
0:11-3:53, the opening setup and impressions — you can start straight from the inheritance story at 4:08.