My Blog » Archives » Li Jin Hua’s Happiness

One man told me that Li Jin Hua is 100 years old. A sign near her chestnut stand says she is 92. Either way, she is pretty old. She is four feet tall or less and seems to be a permanent fixture in the Hongcun village. Although I did not get many photographs of her and none of them are particularly fabulous, I cannot stop thinking about her. She doesn’t have any teeth, is a bit hunched over and she has one of those amazingly weathered faces that elderly Chinese people get. To live that long, selling chestnuts, in an ancient village in Southern Anhui province is amazing. Her and her other cute old friends (on the right side cackling below) sit outside all day, chatting, smoking and laughing. She sells roasted chestnuts to tourists and art students. Everyone loves her and she has many drawings and paintings hung up around her chestnut stand that the art students have given to her. She also has hundreds of photographs of her with girls. Everyone refers to her as 奶奶, nai nai, which is a way to call an older women Grandma who isn’t your real Grandmother.

I asked if I could take a photograph of her and Chris and she refused. Instead she wanted a photograph with me because it is her custom to only take photos with girls. Then girls mail her a copy and sometimes a letter or a note. As soon as I figure out where to print out a copy of our digital photograph together, I will mail it to her so she can hang it with all of her other photographs.

When returning from Hongcun in Chinese I told a student, whose English name is Worry, about the 100 year old Li Jin Hua at Hongcun and her habit of taking photographs with girls and hanging them up. He replied in English, “It is her happiness.”