Li Zhaokun, a 71-year-old vagrant, turned himself in to the police in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province on November 9 for committing arson. "I was told that one could be imprisoned for setting the vegetation on a hill ablaze. I will be able to get fed and clothed in prison and don't have to lead a vagrant's life," Li said in explaining his motivation for the crime.

During their investigation the police discovered a shocking fact: Li had just completed a five-year prison term for setting a forest fire. In that case, he had also turned himself in to the police and gave the same reason for starting the fire: a prisoner's life is better than that of an old vagrant.

While Li's experience appears to be an extreme example, it does ring alarm bells over the social problem of supporting China's rural elderly population.

According to a white paper entitled "The Development of China's Undertakings for the Aged" released by the State Council in the past December, the first of its kind in the country's history, at the end of 2005 there were 144 million people in China over 60 years of age, accounting for 11 percent of the total population. Over 60 percent of the senior population, or 90 million, lives in rural areas. Yuan Xin, a sociology professor at Nankai University, estimates that China's rural senior population is growing at an annual rate of 850,000, and thus will reach 120 million in the next 20 years.

Zhai Yuhe, a representative of the People's Congress of Heilongjiang Province, the provincial legislature, conducted a survey of living conditions of 10,000 rural senior citizens in 2005. The survey report says 45 percent of the senior citizens did not live with their children; 93 percent could not afford a new piece of clothing in a year; 67 percent could not afford medication for minor illnesses, and 85 percent support themselves by farming.

Self-support

Wu Jiayao, 74, has got diabetes for almost a year. Sometimes, he can only stagger along. However, he cannot afford medication from a hospital and has tried various inexpensive herbs from folk medicine practitioners, but these still cost a "fortune" to him. Despite his poor physical condition, Wu still must do farm work to earn a basic livelihood for himself and his wife.

Wu, a farmer in Jiangxi Province, devoted half his life to raising five children-four sons and one daughter. For many years, the children have worked as migrant laborers in cities, seeing their parents once a year.

Since earning a living is equally hard for his children, Wu has rarely asked them for money, although the country has an ancient tradition of "raising a son to prepare for old age." In this poverty-stricken area, the concept of social security is still quite new to farmers like Wu.

Under such circumstances, the elderly couple is used to earning a living through labor. Despite her poor health, Wu's wife takes whatever odd jobs she can find to ease the financial burden on her husband. The work she does most frequently is stringing pearl necklaces, which strains her eyesight. The payment for a full day of this work is 4 to 5 yuan, which cannot even buy a McDonald's hamburger in this country.