In those extremely difficult and difficult times, the average life expectancy of Chinese was less than forty years old, and many babies and children were not yet adults and had died tragically. There is an old saying that people are rare in the seventy years, and even if the dignitaries and dignitaries at that time were high-ranking and noble, few people could live to the age of ancient rarity. However, there was a person who lived to the age of 112 at that time, and was still a weak woman. In her lifetime, she experienced the late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China, the New China, and even lived to the new era of China after the reform and opening up. This long-lived old man's name is Yan Youyun. So how did she manage to live so long? What's her secret?
Yan Youyun was born in Tianjin in 1912, and her ancestral home is Ningbo, Zhejiang. The Yan family was a well-known family in Shanghai at that time, and her grandfather was a famous industrialist and calligrapher in the late Qing Dynasty, and her grandfather's property spread throughout Zhejiang and Shanghai.
Born in such a family, Yan Youyun naturally did not worry about eating and wearing since childhood, and lived a good life. Her grandfather was not only rich and talented, but also good at writing and painting, so she could receive excellent enlightenment from an early age.
Such a beautiful embryo, she has always given others the impression of not eating human fireworks fairy, but no one thought that such a delicate girl, like a man, like to eat fat, although she looks delicate, but the body is very good, rarely sick, she never taboo in diet, do not have to avoid. She's slim and slender, but as you might expect, he's never had the habit of exercising. This is probably God's appreciation of rice to eat.
She lived in Tianjin until she graduated from high school, and after graduation, she returned to Shanghai with her family. In 1925, Yan Youyun entered Shanghai Hujiang University. Two years later, she transferred to Fudan University to study business. She was also the first female student to study business at Fudan University. During her college years, because of her outstanding appearance and excellent temperament, she was called "Fudan School Flower" by her classmates. As a result, Yan Youyun became famous in Fudan. And because Yan Youyun can drive, she often takes the self-prepared car with the license plate number 84 to go to school, so some people pronounce the English of 84 as "love flower", so she has another nickname "love flower".
When Yan Youyun was studying in Fudan, she accidentally met her later husband, Yang Guangjing, a famous diplomat in China, at a dance party. Like her, Yang Guangxin was born into a wealthy business family, and she studied at Tsinghua University at university, and later, she went to Princeton University, a famous university in the United States, and obtained a doctorate in law. Because Yang Guangxi was charming and personable, Yan Youyun fell in love with him at first sight. One is a rising star in the diplomatic world, and the other is a Fudan school flower. The two of them can be said to be talented and female, and the door is right. So they fell in love soon after.
In 1929, after Yan Youyun graduated from university, he and Yang Guangxin were officially married in Shanghai. Since the Yan and Yang clans are both noble families in Shanghai, the wedding ceremony of the two of them is also very luxurious. Not only were the invited guests either rich or expensive, but also Wang Zhengting, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China, personally came to officiate the wedding for the two of them. Not only that, as soon as the marriage news of Yan Youyun and Yang Guangxin was announced, it immediately became the front page headline of the major media in Shanghai at that time.
After a year of marriage, Yan Youyun's husband Yang Guangxing was transferred to Europe as Consul General in London. Yan Youyun also came to Europe on the other side of the ocean and began the life of a diplomat's wife.
In 1938, China was resisting the Japanese invaders with all its might, and there was no distinction between the north and the south, and no one, old or young, all had the responsibility of defending the territory and resisting the war. Yang Guangxing was also transferred out of London to Manila to serve as Chinese Consul General in Manila. During his tenure. Doing everything in its power to mobilize overseas Chinese in the Philippines to collect anti-Japanese materials and donations, the results were remarkable. Not to be outdone, Yan Youyun personally designed and organized the repair project of the Consulate General and accompanied Yang Guangxiu to attend many diplomatic activities. She has hosted many banquets at the Consulate General and in her own home to local patriotic overseas Chinese leaders and officials from the United States and the Philippines.
As the saying goes, women can hold up half of the sky, here Yang Guangxin and others are busy and happy, over there, the overseas Chinese women in the Philippines are not idle, and the overseas Chinese women in the Philippines have organized activities to comfort the anti-Japanese soldiers on the front line. In 1939, under the leadership of Yan Youyun and others, a large number of overseas Chinese women went deep into all corners of Manila and traveled to every inch of Manila to collect donations, and in just one month, they raised tens of thousands of pesos and remitted all the money to the motherland to support the War of Resistance.
However, with the large-scale expansion of the Japanese and the outbreak of the Pacific War, in just a few months, the Japanese army beat the US troops in the Philippines to the ground, the US troops fled the Philippines in a hurry, and Manila fell. Because Yang Guangxing's Chinese diplomats were not safely evacuated, they were captured and imprisoned by the Japanese army. During their imprisonment, Yang Guangjing and others were unyielding, preferring to die rather than surrender, and guarded the national integrity of the Chinese. On April 17, Yang Guangjing and a total of 8 other diplomats bravely sacrificed their lives for the country.
Yan Youyun and others escaped the disaster because they were not in the Consulate General. However, by this time she was already the mother of three daughters, and this sudden disaster. This big girl who has never suffered hardships since childhood, a rich family, bravely undertook all this and was not defeated. At the same time, she also took care of the widows and orphans of the other 7 diplomats. In this time of crisis, she took the responsibility of comforting, encouraging and caring for them on her shoulders.
At that time, there were about 40 orphans and widows. They were all delicate women with ten fingers that did not stick to the spring water, but they learned to grow vegetables, make shoes, and even learned to raise chickens and pigs.
In 1945, after the victory of the War of Resistance, Yan Youyun also escaped from the sea of suffering and came to New York to serve as a ceremonial officer of the United Nations. Although this was her first job, she did a very good job during her tenure, and she also met her second husband, Gu Weijun, during which time she also met her second husband. In 1959, Yan Youyun retired and married Gu Weijun in the same year. After marriage, Yan Youyun took meticulous care of Gu Weijun, Gu Weijun was healthy and long-lived, and completed his 5 million-word memoir, which required a lot of energy, which was inseparable from Yan Youyun's careful care.
Even when she is old, her habits have not changed, she still loves to eat fat meat, usually never deliberately exercise, still like when she was young, eat what you want, eat, never taboo.
After Gu Weijun's death, Yan Youyun never married again. In her spare time, she would read books, read newspapers, play mahjong with her friends, and cook together. She can even knit sweaters alone, which shows her eyesight. Even in her later years, she was energetic and often went out for meetings and travel. This centenarian has experienced a hundred years of ups and downs, and he is still in good spirits. When someone asked her the secret of longevity, her answer was only a short sentence: don't dwell on the past, always look forward. Yan Youyun's life is enough to describe it with magnificent waves, the ancients said that life to experience three realms, one is to see the mountain is a mountain, the second is to see the mountain is not a mountain, and finally to see the mountain is still a mountain. Only at the last stage can people understand the true meaning of life. Yan Youyun still faces life in the most difficult moments of her life and bravely moves forward, which is exactly to see whether the mountain is still a mountain. Her life, although it has gone through twists and turns, but the life of the spontaneous, she does not exercise, do not taboo, and even love to eat fat, but she still lives a long life, probably because of her perception of life.