| Wang Jinfeng | |
 Wang Jinfeng (sitting) on her 110th birthday in 2003. | |
| Birth: | 17 September 1893 Hengyang, Hunan, Qing dynasty (China) |
| Death: | 10 September 2004 Wuhan, Hubei, China |
| Age: | 110 years, 359 days |
| Country: |  CHN
|
| Unvalidated | |
Wang Jinfeng [Chinese: 王金凤] (17 September 1893 – 10 September 2004) was a Chinese supercentenarian whose age is currently unvalidated by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG).
Biography[]
Childhood[]
Wang Jinfeng claimed to have been born on 17 September 1893 in Hengyang, Hunan, Qing dynasty (China). She had five siblings: her older brother, and three younger brothers. Her father died when she was a child, and her mother took the habit to beat her daughter with slaps or a stick. Moreover, the family suffered of hunger. Wang was illiterate, and not very cultured.
At the age of 5 or 6, Wang said she often had some matches with her. Sometimes, she wanted to die, but rejected this idea because she wouldn't make her younger brothers sad, and tried to understand her mother. She thought: "I'm alive, no matter how it's hard, I must live."
When thinking about her mother who wasn't kind with her, Wang understood, at age 10, the following adage: "A daughter can't raise a mother, and sand can't make a wall." [Chinese: 女养不了娘，沙做不了墙]. When her children ate, Wang's mother didn't ate anything. The children ate rice that the brothers fished.
Adult Life[]
At the age of 19, Wang married Wanjia [Chinese: 万家], a little merchant. They lived without problems of food and clothes, and Wanjia never quarreled with Wang. Wang said when she was older: "Wedding is the second life of a woman, because nobody can forsee the future, so sometimes it's a kind of bet." She had a son and a girl.
At the age of 36, when Wang was pregnant of her second son (the third child), she must take care of her husband, who began to vomit blood because of his pulmonary disease. Her husband coughed, had difficulties to breathe, and had thin and dried hands; he also worried for her family's future. He died in August 1929, and Wang had a lot of pain: she said her eyes were swollen, because she cried a lot. In December of the same year, Wan Xiaoyi [Chinese: 万孝义] was born.
Wang's parents-in-law beat her (almost to death) two times in three days, to make her staying in the house of her deceased husband. She clang to the life because she wouldn't leave her children. The most difficult period was in winter, when the family was wearing simple clothes, and was warming them up by sitting around the fire. Wang felt the need of buying a house in the mountains, where she buried her husband. Each time she was sad, she went seeing her husband.
In 1950, Wang's oldest son was taken by the Kuomintang. Before his departure, he said: "Mom, wait me, I want to come back." However, he died during the Korean War (as China helped North Korea), and Wang only learnt it when the governement sent her a pension in the 70s. She had a lot of pain, but overcame it progressively.
In 1957, she moved to the power plant of Hankou (the city is now part of Wuhan), in Hubei Province . Two years later , she moved to Qingshan District (in Wuhan), then in Xingouqiao Subdistrict (in Wuhan) with her younger son.
Later Life[]
At the age of 107, Wang could do manual work without glasses. In 2003, Jinfeng accidentally fell, but insisted to keep on walking with a stool. According to her family, the secret of her longevity is drinking rice wine (which she brewed with her own method) every day, but also her optimistic character, as she used to say: "I can laugh without obstacles, so I can live a long live." Before her 110th birthday, Jinfeng's daughter (who was aged between 74 and 80, and stayed in Hunan Province) died.
On her 110th birthday, Jinfeng received three bowls of osmanthus pastry. Her family counted 50 people of five generations. According to her granddaughter, even if she has lost her teeth, she likes eating beef and chicken. She also likes eating chili pepper, kimchi, and powdered milk. At the time, Wang was reported to be lucid and in good health, and to can cooking for herself. When children asked her if she has prepared red envelopes, she replied: "Come back to have it, come back to have it." At the end of the celebration, she said to her family: "Don't worry, I can live many years." She was reported to be the oldest living person in Jiangcheng and even in Wuhan.
In July 2004, Wang reported that her white hair began to become black again. In August 2004, she was burned.
Wang Jinfeng died in Jiangcheng, Wuhan, Hubei, China on 10 September 2004, at the age of 110 years, 359 days. The cause of her death were heart and kidney failure, due to the burn she had. She was seven days shy of her 111th birthday.
Gallery[]
References[]
- Unvalidated Claims (Age 108 and Older) from China (not updated since 2011)
- 江城第一老寿星王金凤喜过110岁生日 Jingchu Online News (荆楚在线消息), 17 September 2003
- 王金凤110岁女寿星 Xueshizhai Net, 20 September 2003 (Archived)
- 性情温婉 江城第一寿星111岁王太婆白发转黑 East Net (东方网), 17 July 2004
- “江城第一寿星”10晚辞世 Jingchu Online News (荆楚在线消息), 13 September 2004