With a body that would put most 20-year-olds to shame, Wang Deshun has been a performance artist, a living statue, an actor in radio, film and theater, and most recently, a runway model. That last item has made him a celebrity in China, where respect for the elderly borders on deference.
At 80-years-old, Deshun is often referred to as “China’s Hottest Grandpa,” and has become a celebrity for his youthful outlook and active lifestyle that upends China’s traditional view of aging, which he admits can feel limiting and overly sentimental. “One way to tell if you’re old or not is to ask yourself, ‘Do you dare try something you’ve never done before?’” he told the New York Times, summing up his overall life direction in the process.
Born in 1936, Deshun was young when the Communist Party first rose to power, and he indulged his interest in the arts at the Workers’ Cultural Palace in Shenyang, which offered free acting, vocal, and dance lessons. As an adult, he organized the first proper fashion show in Changchun, and would later move to Beijing and work as a performance artist, which began his current fitness regimen.
Clearly, Deshun follows his passions, setting a bold example in a country that doesn’t typically highlight male attractiveness or encourage active lifestyles for older citizens. But Deshun doesn’t seem to be driven by anger or iconoclasm as much as by fulfillment and curiosity.
“People can change their life as many times as they wish,” he told the Times. His story is similar to that of Philippe Dumas, the 60-year-old Frenchman who found a new career as a model after he posted some photos of himself on the website Reddit, admitting a career in fashion had been a lifelong dream.
To hear more from the man himself, read the New York Times in full here. Or, watch Deshun tell the story behind his catwalk debut in the video above from Redstar Media.
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