In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion;

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

—As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)

Shakespeare classified a man's life into seven stages. He began with the "mewling and puking" in infancy, to the "whining" youth, the "round belly" of middle age, and ultimately ending in the "second childishness" of old age. For Shakespeare, man starts out his life as an innocent baby, and then he enters childhood and goes to school, not yet adult and not ready to be independent. Next, he becomes a lover and expresses himself creatively. Stage four is the soldier—now he thinks less of himself and more of others. Stage five sees our man as a justice—by now he should be financially successful and also wise. The sixth stage is old age, when our man loses his charm, his firm body and his status in society. At the final, seventh stage, we find our man loosing his senses and heading toward an ignoble death.

How very different is the Confucian view! Here, clearly, the older one gets, the better life becomes. In Chinese culture old age is revered; it's not such a terrible trial and source of humiliation. Instead, as Confucius stated, the confident elder is now free to exercise his wisdom and his will.

What about other cultures' thoughts on aging? The Jewish Talmud views man's life as vanity, and also divides it into seven stages. The first is the infant, a cozy king embraced by his family. The second stage is the child around the age of two or so, a creature that crawls and delights in dirt. Then, at around 10 years old, the child becomes a thoughtless, carefree boy, who lives in the present, enjoying his life fully. The fourth stage happens at around the age of 20. It is the young man who looks for love and labor. The fifth stage is the married man, who now must work like a donkey to support his new family. Children follow in the sixth stage, turning our man into a parental hound guarding his brood. The final state is the decrepit old man—a helpless, docile and distrustful creature heading for another ignoble death.

Again, the attitude of these sagacious Israelites is not as attractive to me as that of Confucius. As I meander toward my golden years, my goal is to remain in China, where I can be as Confucius professed—spry, confident and without fear.

The author is an American living in China