China Scene: East

Ex-monk and divorcee in May/Sept-wedded bliss

Xia Huan, a 97-year-old resident of Duchang county, Jiangxi province, became a monk at age 17 and returned to the secular, 72 years later, in 2000. When Xia went to a marriage agency in 2003 to find a life partner, he happened to meet Hu Zaimei, a divorced woman 52 years younger than him.

Finding Xia to be an honest man as well as a practitioner of Chinese traditional medicine, Hu fell in love with him and they married in 2005.