Liu Kewen, or "Grandpa Liu" as he is affably known, lives in an apartment building near Chen's. When the woman rushed to his aid, she found the 82-year-old lying on the floor, his eyes shut and hands clenched on his chest, trembling in pain. Chen immediately called an ambulance and escorted the senior citizen to hospital.

"I would have died of that heart attack if it wasn't for Chen's help," Liu, a widower, recalls. "When I fell, the only thing I could do was press the emergency button in my home that triggers an emergency bell in her apartment."

Liu Kewen is one of the 578,000 senior citizens in Beijing who are either childless or do not live with their children. They account for 34 per cent of the city's ageing population of 1.7 million. For Shanghai, the corresponding figure is 36.8 per cent; for Guangzhou, 30 per cent; while for Tianjin, 55.06 per cent.

Chen Huiqin, 43, "pairs" with Liu as a volunteer at Chongwaidajie Street in downtown Beijing. She visits "Grandpa Liu" regularly to see if she can do anything to help, and will respond whenever the emergency bell rings.

Traditional values

The Chinese capital has 300,000 volunteers like Chen, who offer free services to aged people in need of help. It is difficult to estimate the number of such volunteers throughout China, given the size of the country and the increasing population.

"We believe there must be millions," says Cheng Yong, a leading researcher at the China Association for the Aged, which operates under the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The concept of extended families with members of four generations all living under the same roof has been a notion cherished by the Chinese for thousands of years.

However, the tide began turning about 20 years ago, following the implementation of a family planning policy that encouraged one-child families.

As the size of Chinese families continues to dwindle and the country becomes increasingly market-oriented, aged people, particularly those in cities, are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their offspring with them.

"Young people have to struggle to earn a living,"Cheng explains. "Even though both law and tradition require them to take care of their aged parents, many find it difficult to juggle a career with aged-care."

Back in Chongwaidajie Street, in Chongwen District, there are 8,050 men and women aged above 60, with 403 of them from "empty nest" families - childless couples or even worse, composed of just one person, either a widow or a widower like "Grandpa Liu."

According to community workers in the area, more than 90 per cent of the senior citizens suffer from chronic or geriatric diseases.

Elderly people in cities, in general, are covered by the pension system and, therefore, their basic material needs can be met. "But many of them are too weak or ill to take care of themselves and besides, they need emotional interaction, the feeling of companionship," says Cai Fang, a professor of population studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

In theory members of "empty nest" families can choose to settle in homes for the aged, where nursing and medical care is available and elderly residents can forge friendships to counter loneliness. However, such homes in downtown Beijing, most of which were established during the 1950s and 60s to accommodate senior citizens who had neither incomes nor relatives to depend on, are now in poor conditions.

In recent years, new homes for the aged have been springing up on the outskirts of the city, where services are much better. The primary dilemma is that many old people are not willing to abandon their homes in downtown Beijing for a place scores of miles away.

Money is another problem. New homes for the aged are commercial facilities and can charge residents up to 1,500 yuan (US$181) per month for food and accommodation, while the average pension is no more than 1,000 yuan (US$120) per month for a retiree.

Increasing numbers of volunteers like Chen Huiqin have stepped in to help, adhering to the Confucian maxim "give care to elders of your own family, and extend the same care to elders of other families."

"Traditional Chinese values continue to hold sway even though the society is becoming more and more commercialized," Professor Cai concedes. "The so-called 'spiritual civilization' the government is working hard to promote is traditional values that have been conducive to the development of good social and ethical standards."

Neighbourhood committees

According to the fifth national population census, the number of senior Chinese citizens - men and women aged above 60 - had, by October 1, 1999, reached 126 million, accounting for 10 per cent of the country's total population, suggesting that the country had become a "society with an ageing population." Beijing, for its part, had become such a society back in 1990.

The government has warned that the number of aged people in China will keep growing, at an annual average rate of 3 per cent, peaking at around 400 million by 2050.

"Given the high proportion of aged people and their diverse needs, it's not practical for the government to be solely responsible for meeting their needs," said Professor Cai.

The government, to a large extent, relies on "neighbourhood committees" to get volunteers mobilized so that this large-scale task can be accomplished. "Neighbourhood committees" are grassroots organizations whose members are chosen through democratic elections.

And that is exactly what the Neighbourhood Committee of Chongwaidajie Street is busy doing. It has organized 500 volunteers to help their aged neighbours. Like Chen Huiqin, each volunteer is paired with a family or a person in need of help. In addition to responding to emergency calls from "Grandpa Liu" and helping him do things like cleaning and washing, the woman often goes to his apartment for companionship.

"Grandpa Liu is lonely and he needs somebody to talk to and interact with," she says.

Members of the Communist Party of China are always the first to get organized to help their aged neighbours.

At Chongwai, nearly 400 volunteers, including Chen Huiqin, are Party members. "The Party is the vanguard of the Chinese nation," Chen explains. "As Party members, we are obliged to play an exemplary role and motivate others to work as volunteers."

The Chongwaidajie Street Neighbourhood Committee is responsible for co-ordinating the voluntary work. After conducting door-to-door visits, a decision was made to "pair" each volunteer with a family or a person in need of help and install an emergency bell in each unit.

Each family or person in need of help has also received a card from the neighbourhood committee. On one side of the card there are telephone numbers for the nearest power bureau, gas company and plumber. On the reverse of the card are telephone numbers of relatives and friends the holder may contact for help when the volunteer is not available.

Help everywhere

Besides neighbours, aged people in Beijing like "Grandpa Liu" may count on people from "elsewhere" for assistance - doctors from nearby hospitals who come to offer free physical check-ups, school children who sing and dance for their "grannies" and "grandpas," etc.

An army unit stationed not far from Chongwai has made it a rule that before a group of soldiers are demobilized, they will escort senior citizens in the area to Tian'anmen Square to watch the national flag raising ceremony at sunrise.

It may be interesting to note that aged people, if in good health, can also become volunteers. Sun Shumin, 70, is a retired barber. For the last eight years she has offered free hairdressing services to other aged people in her neighbourhood.

The Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau provides financial assistance to neighbourhood committees in organizing voluntary work and in the training of volunteers.

In September 1997, it set up a special division for protecting the rights and interests of senior citizens. From 1997 to 2001, the bureau issued "preferential treatment cards" to 1.26 million citizens. Holders of the cards enjoy a range of privileges and concessions. For just 50 yuan (US$6.04) a year, they may purchase a ticket to visit any of the 12 major parks in Beijing any time they like. In comparison, a single visit to the Summer Palace, one of the 12 discounted spots, costs a person without the card 30 yuan (US$3.62).

Like many other senior citizens in the Chinese capital, "Grandpa Liu" hopes to live long enough to see the 2008 Olympic Games. "I'll work even harder to make sure that he can realize his dream," Chen Huiqin says.

"Nobody can escape the ageing process," she says. "I believe there will be volunteers to help me when I'm too old to take care of myself."

(China Daily February 25, 2003)