Elite nursing homes on the rise

Quiet time: Residents reading in the Yanyuan community’s library on the outskirts of Beijing. — AFP

Beijing: At a gated community for Chinese senior citizens, retired military personnel, film-makers and top university professors settle into a new routine: ballet lessons, weightlifting and catered dining.

As China’s population ages rapidly and the one-child policy left parents with only a single child to help them in their old age, the upper crust of Chinese society are spending the last years of their lives in luxury. A grand piano backlit by floor-to-ceiling windows stands in the Yanyuan community’s club­house living room.