2010 Chinese New Year Day is on February 14, 2010. Chinese New Year Festival spans 15 days and the 7th day is “People’s birthday (人日)” , a birthday for all human. However, a lady in Hong Kong had already quietly celebrated her real 117th birthday a few days earlier on the 4th day of Chinese New Year.
Cheung Gwai Mui (張桂妹) was born in 1893, during the Qing Dynasty (清朝), China. She may well be the World’s Oldest Living Woman.
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Ms Cheung loves to eat and takes baths, but because of her old age, she is no longer able to chew, so she has to be fed nutrient liquid through a stomach pipe. She also loves to sing mountain folk songs. According to the nurses, She sings something like "A young girl loves a young boy, the young boy loves the young girl..." almost everyday from early morning.
Her memory and communication abilities has reduced recently years, when she had to renew her Hong Kong ID card a few years ago, the authority came to take her picture instead of having her go to their office. Her birthday on her ID card is actually 04th January 1893, but that was according to Chinese calendar. During Ms Cheung's time, only Chinese calendar was used for the common people in China, not the western Gregorian calendar.
The Oldest Living Man, according to Gerontology Research Group, is an American, Walter Breuning, who was born in Minnesota on September 21, 1896, now 113 years old.
World's Oldest Woman is Kama Chinen, Japan, born on May 10, 1895, now 114 years old. That makes Ms Cheung 2 years 4 months and 6 days older than Kama Chinen, at the current age of 117 years 1 month and 17 days.
Just hope that the Gerontology Research Group or the Guinness Book of World Records will investigate and make an official announcement and clear up the real title holder soon, whoever the oldest living woman might be, these are super-centenarian, but still they are human beings, very old human beings.
But then again, Ms Cheung probably do not care about this title, she is just as happy singing her mountain folk songs "A young girl loves a young boy, the young boy loves the young girl...".
Sources:
Ming Pao (明報): 117歲婆婆或全球最長壽
Gerontology Research Group: Validated Living Supercentenarians
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