When I was studying in America, I have heard lots of jokes making fun of women who never become older, at least by their own claims. It came as no surprise that a wife would lie to be a few years younger than her beloved husband in Archer's story.
Strangely, since I have returned home, I have come across only one neighbor who blatantly claimed to be at least five years younger than her legal age. In her case, it was futile to lie as there was a lady from her home town living a few doors away. The person who told untruth went to the same school as the other lady. In fact the former was a classmate of the latter's second elder brother. While the latter said she was sixty five, the former claimed her brother's sixty one.
All the while, I have been filling in forms that my father was born in the year 1923. When he died, by Taoist practice, there were to be two lanterns showing his age added to 3 (1 for heaven, 1 for earth and one for man kind). I was taken aback when it showed 91. I was expecting it to show 87, which means after deducting 3, he was 84 when he passed on. Apparently, according to his horoscope, we could tell his legal age was 4 years less than his biological age. After the funeral, I asked my mother about the discrepancy and the answer was ages were often reported lower for guys during the prewar years to avoid conscription into the army. If my father did not resort to lie about his age to the Japanese, he could have been sent to build the death railway that passed through Thailand to Burma and I might not be here today writing about him.
Well, I suppose I could buy the argument to lie to survive so that at least one son could stay home to look after the family. On my mother side, one uncle went to China to further his studies. Since his education had been interrupted by the war, he conveniently reported his age to be four years younger so that he stood a chance to compete for a prestigious placement in the medical faculty. His ploy was successful and years later he retired as a urologist. After he left for China, his elder brother conveniently took his identity and became five years younger. Until today, I could not fathom why he wanted to be five years younger. Could it be that he liked his younger brother's name? Or maybe he thought by doing that he had more years to make money?
Perhaps because women don't have the problem of being drafted, my mother and all my aunties went by their real age. If they lie at all, they often add to their legal age as old age is well respected in the Chinese society.
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