Tan Yiliang: Redefining senior care

Dear teachers, entrepreneurs, media friends and colleagues online and offline:

Good morning, everyone!

I. The era of an aging population is coming before we are ready for it

My name is Tan Yiliang. I have been engaged in the senior care industry for 10 years, sticking to the original principle that "righteousness is the way and goodness is the base". In the past decade, I have deeply felt the fast pace and the scale of population aging in China. The aging population is not only a fact that we have to accept, but also a depressing phenomenon. How many of us present here can face the reality of aging? How many families are fully prepared for it?

We are afraid of getting old, but everyone will get old someday. I still remember my father's words that his life passed by in a flash.

Over the past decade, I have met countless senior people. I have seen that the first thing that the elderly face is the decline in physical abilities and increase in illness. Compared with the physical challenges, what they find more difficult is to face deep loneliness.

They live in smaller social circles and feel disconnected from mainstream society due to a lack of entertainment activities and communication facilities suitable for them. They watch TV in empty houses from sunrise to sunset every day and carry the feeling of "idleness" and "loneliness" all day long.

As time goes by, the elderly unconsciously accept that the older they get, the more they are going downhill, waiting for the end of their lives.

The era of an aging population is coming before we are ready for it. Has the aging population changed us, or have we changed the aging population? The situation of the elderly is always connected with sadness. Are we defined by senior care, or is senior care redefined by us?

Every elderly person yearns for a brighter life, instead of a dull and powerless life. Their children often think that it is the greatest filial piety to provide food and shelter for the elderly, meet their material and safety needs, and ensure they can spend their remaining years in comfort. Instead, the greatest pain of the elderly is to be "fed" like this.

Care for the elderly should focus on their psychological needs. As the years pass by, the elderly are eager to be respected again, to integrate into the development of the times, to continue to make contributions to society and to realize their abundant life value.

After we heard the call of the elderly and understood their inner desire, Joru Senior Care Group comprehensively implemented the "community strategy". From addressing the day-to-day needs of people aged 80 or more to building the spiritual quality of energetic and healthy senior citizens aged 60 or more, from caring for the elderly to caring for the family, and from serving the elderly to serving the whole family, we hope to promote the spiritual growth of the elderly, help their children achieve success and bring happiness to hundreds of millions of families.

If the elderly can acquire new knowledge, enjoy their life, contribute to society and keep pace with the times, they are bound to bring more joy to the family and more harmony to society. Therefore, we have determined the strategic path, "from senior care to education", helping the elderly find the value of their lives through elderly education, bringing happiness to the family through family education, and helping more people build their spiritual quality through community education.

II. Recharging life: Starting a new life journey and achieving self-worth at the age of 60

Zhang You is a 61-year-old volunteer at our Xuzhou Community Service Center. He retired from the Public Security Department at the end of last year. He devoted his life to his career and devoted his youth to his motherland without any regret, so he deserves to enjoy a peaceful and happy life without any worries after retirement. However, when he retired, he felt quite uncomfortable. Zhang had to wait for meals, wait to go to bed, and wait for children and grandchildren to come back. He was becoming less and less talkative and felt that his world was becoming smaller and smaller, and his mental space narrower and narrower.

He attended the Greats-in-the-Making Exchange Session in August this year. After attending the session, he rediscovered the meaning of life, encouraged his friends to participate in the three-hour workshop and learn to discover themselves and purify their souls, called on the elderly in the community to help each other and learn from each other, and established a service team dedicated to helping seniors living alone, enquiring about their physical condition and the help they need by call or door-to-door visit every day. Now, the team serves more than 3,000 elderly people living alone and has provided 180,000 home services in total.

When I saw Zhang again recently, he said with shining eyes, "My life has just begun at 60. I have found the value of my life!" I deeply felt the changes in Zhang You.

It's never too late to start building spiritual quality. Thanks to the three-hour workshop, he understands the thoughts of sages and the spirit of the times, reigniting his life, starting a new journey of life and giving himself a better and brighter 20-30 years to achieve his dream, progress with the times and the motherland and bravely pursue the perfection of life.

III. Lighting up life: Moving toward happiness and perfection at the age of 70

We propose the strategy "from senior care to education" for the purpose of cultivating the elderly who maintain good physical and mental condition and keep pace with the times and transform the "silver hair tide" into a strong positive energy. The three-hour workshop lights up the seniors' lives and enables them to keep learning, strengthen their minds and improve themselves. Meanwhile, they pass on the knowledge to their offspring and encourage family members to participate in activities together, so that their children can truly understand filial piety and build happy families.

Grandma Wang Fengxian is at our Yixing Day Care Center. She was a teacher before she retired. When it came to her grandchildren's education, she had great differences and endless conflicts with her children, which often made the whole family unhappy. After she arrived at the Joru Community Activity Center and began learning Chinese culture and regularly participating in the three-hour workshop, she began to reflect on herself whether, after being the dominant voice in the family, she was unwilling to accept the fact that she was already old, and whether the family tensions were caused by her inability to accept her children's ideas. Later, she brought home Cultural Confidence and National Rejuvenation. The whole family read the book together, communicated in the same context and gradually understood each other. Family meetings were held for each member to reflect on themselves, creating a good educational atmosphere at home. The family now lives happily together. Now her children have also become the leading participants of our three-hour workshop, leading more people around them to read the book together, creating happier families and contributing to society together.

Joru Group launched the three-hour workshops in September, holding 1,236 sessions by October 22 and benefiting 62,072 people. Countless old people are grateful to the motherland and the great times and are determined to become the ambassadors and volunteers of Joru Group to spread the culture of conscience and filial piety to more and more people.

There are endless treasures in everyone's heart. The work that benefits people's minds has such energy to tap the potential of life and reveal the value of life; the service that helps others succeed has such power to release the light and heat of life, and illuminate the meaning of life.

To better meet the expectations of the elderly for a better life, we launched Snowstorm Action with the aim of reaching millions of families in 2019, tens of millions of families in 2020 and hundreds of millions of people in 2021!

IV. Bringing joy to life: Moving toward warmth and brightness at the age of 80

During the course of three-hour workshops, someone asked me why Joru Group would spare no effort to firmly carry out these activities. I didn't hesitate to tell him that because I believe in sages and the ZS Institute is guiding us to a bright road! I firmly believe it is a broad road for the development of Joru Group to benefit others and help others succeed under the guidance of sages' thoughts.

The old people who have experienced hard times need more spiritual comfort when their life is about to reach the end. Therefore, the status and role of the elderly education cannot be ignored or replaced. The three-hour workshop is a good starting point, and the community is a good foothold for the elderly to find their spiritual guidance and belonging and move toward warmth and brightness even at the golden age of 80.

Recently, Shanghai Huaxin Home Service Center accepted Grandpa Wang, who is 81. When he was young, he became addicted to alcohol and that addiction took its toll when he suffered a stroke in his old age. He could not take care of himself, so he was always in a negative and paranoid mood. He was always complaining about society and his children and felt that it was better to die than to live. When the Home Service Center visited him for the first time, the old man was living alone in a messy and smelly house that saw no sunlight at all. He was living in a terrible condition. Our volunteers realized that warming his heart was key to improving the old man's life. Our service staff members made countless efforts to persuade Grandpa Wang to participate in the three-hour workshop in the community, so that he could learn from the thoughts of sages, discover himself and purify his soul, and realize that his life was still valuable.

More than a month later, we visited his home again. The messy room had become clean and bright with the help of volunteers. Along with the family's smiles and laughs, a warm ray of sunshine entered the heart of Grandpa Wang. He said with a happy smile that, "Now I can finally live like a normal person!"

I think this is the infinite charm of Chinese culture. Age is never a barrier for learning Chinese culture. A positive mind can resolve a lot of troubles and complaints in life.

So, how can Joru Group redefine senior care? I firmly believe that we must rely on the integration of sages' thoughts and the spirit of the times. We should take the conscience culture as the link, serve as the inheritor of cultural confidence and the striver of national rejuvenation, sincerely care for the elderly, and make our own contributions to building happy families and solving major problems for the society in the new era.

To benefit others is to benefit ourselves. No matter which city we visit, we are highly praised by local leaders and even central leaders for our inheritance of Chinese culture and propagation of conscience and filial piety. They always say that, "ZS Institute is unique in that it dares to take responsibility. If we don't trust you, who else can we trust? If we don't cooperate with you, who else can we cooperate with?" Leaders' words inspire and spur us and motivate us to move on without distractions. Joru Group vows to follow the spirit of sages and inherit their thoughts forever; follow the leaders and unite as one forever; and contribute everything to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!

I'm particularly proud to tell you that after learning, disseminating and practicing the sages' thoughts, the business growth capability of Joru Group has improved unprecedentedly:

In 2018, our business grew by 150 percent over 2017. As of October 20, we have achieved 200 percent growth compared with that in 2018. Our growth rate is expected to reach 250 percent this year.

In 2019, we become a major enterprise in the industry. In 2020, we will rank among the top three in the industry. In 2021, we will lead the industry to develop at full speed and contribute our wisdom to solve the problem of senior care for all of society.

It is true that there is still a long way to go to meet the diversified and multi-level needs of the elderly. But I believe that with the guidance of sages' thoughts and the encouragement of the spirit of the times, we can create a new commercial civilization together, take the sunshine into the hearts of the elderly and let all children honor their parents in proper ways.

The happiness of the elderly is our goal. I deeply wish that all senior citizens can live with more vitality, more dignity and more happiness!

Tan Yiliang, chairman of Joru Senior Care Group