On April 3, 2014, the Students'U-nion of my school organized a visit to Kangning Nursing Home in Xi-angcheng District. A group of 20 stu-dents from senior grades 1 and 2 board-ed the school bus in the afternoon, heading for our destination.
I had been to a senior citizen's home before. In my mind, a senior citizens home should always be a quiet, peaceful and pleasant place. Much to my sur-prise, the senior citizens we visited that day were quiet but vigorous.
The dean of the facility showed us around. The whole facility is composed of three floors. On each floor there are many separate rooms like wards in a hospital. Most people living here stay in bed all day. They seldom move outdoors because of disabilities or old age. Being too quiet to enjoy their lives, the dean told us, some of the seniors had been ex-pecting our visit for a long time.
On the day of our visit, however, they were outside enjoying a performance. A few seniors stayed in the sunshine while the others remained in the shadow. The performer was a retired soldier, and that day they were celebrating the 75th birthday of his wife. The couple looked healthy and energetic. The performer was enthusiastic, and his wife insisted on pushing the wheels of her wheelchair on her own. We sang songs and per-formed crosstalk to cheer them up. We were well prepared and our perfor-mance was a success.
Most of the seniors in the facility have something wrong with their bodies. Some can't walk. Some can't hear or see or talk clearly. I felt so upset that they didn't have their sons or daugh-ters around who were busy at work. Nothing matters more than spending time together with sick lonely old people probably living the rest of their lives. There are nursing home workers to keep them accompany, but they cannot replace families. A senior citizens home is never a real home.
On the way back, I was still thinking about my visit to the senior citizens home. What should we do for the se-niors? Which is more important -- high-tech nursing or a real home full of love? How can we make sure that the se-niors are happy for the rest of their lives? Everyone will grow old someday. What we are doing to seniors now is what our children will do to us.