Là một lựa chọn

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It’s around 5 o’clock in the morning as I watch the temple stir to life. The sound of bamboo clappers (chổi tre) pierces the early morning calm (yên bình) and gray-haired seniors dressed in Buddhist robes quietly file into the chanting hall with their palms pressed together.

These aren’t and never will be monks (nhà sư). Rather, they are elderly laypeople who have chosen to spend their final years living in a temple instead of a traditional elder care facility.

Between a rapidly aging population, falling birthrates, and the emergence of the nuclear family (gia đình hạt nhân), China is facing an elder care crisis. While some families have turned to nursing homes for help, not everyone is willing to make that decision. In a society where children are expected to care for their parents in their own homes, the idea of sending the elderly to an institution is often stigmatized as unfilial (bất hiếu).

That stigma still exists, but the realities of home-based elder care for people in their eighties and nineties, many of them living with illnesses, have forced some families to consider alternative arrangements. Temple-based elder care is one such alternative. There were around 53 temples providing elderly care services in China as of late 2022, concentrated in the eastern provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian. Each temple houses anywhere from 30 to 500 seniors.

Bài trước: Vậy giống Việt Nam rồi