On the morning of June 23, 2016, Gu Cunxing rises from bed at 4:30 a.m. Cooking over firewood, he prepares some corn porridge for himself and his wife, Shen Haiying. Gu pours a spoonful of white sugar into the bottom of his bowl, waits for it to infuse slowly into the porridge, and eats it at a snail’s pace. Shen takes hers with pickled cucumber. She stands up as Gu makes to leave the house.

At 5:34 a.m. Gu cycles the four kilometers from his village to Shenjiang Road subway station. “Bleep! Senior card!” chimes the entrance gate. As if explaining to everyone in earshot: Please scrutinize this person. Are they old or not? Yet nobody is around, and there is no sign of the security staff. Gu takes the first train westward.

Gu’s zodiac animal is the Sheep. By the year’s end, he’ll have reached the ripe age of 73. He looks every part the wizened old man. Unlike some men of his age who dye their hair, he has his shock of white trimmed smartly at a barbershop that offers free haircuts every Wednesday for customers over 70. Gu cuts a slender figure in his freshly laundered shirt. Deep grooves emerge from his sunken cheeks to sketch a jocular expression. His smile has a few gaps for missing teeth. He has large, bright, thin-lidded eyes and a ruddy complexion, suggesting some breed of handsome monkey.

Gu doesn’t own a mobile phone or read books, and is content to watch the succession of people as they fill the train carriage. He rides for two hours, changing trains twice, until he reaches Huaqiao station. From east to west, the route spans approximately 55 kilometers.

Outside Huaqiao station, the bus stand displays two routes into the surrounding villages. The queue for the Route 151 bus to Kunshan stretches the length of the railing, while the Route 7, which came by just five minutes ago, has fewer people. Gu feels the 151 will arrive sooner, so he joins the back of the line. The queue consists of elderly people decked out in sneakers, backpacks, and hats, heading out for a day of recreation. The women all sport sunglasses; the ones traveling with men tend to be quieter, but the women traveling in groups seem astonishingly at ease, chattering away merrily in a way that hints they may repress something in the presence of men.

The seniors wait happily, with nary a care and lots of energy to spare. Somewhat surprisingly, it feels as if they have never experienced a desperate moment’s worry in their lives. Perhaps the people whose cares weigh heavy on their heart all shuffle off well before getting old. Or perhaps, if they’re lucky enough to last the distance, they loosen up at their own good fortune, entering the ranks of the joyous and content.