Seniors seeking high-quality retirement

He Yongnai, known as Chef Ho in New York for more than three decades, no longer cooks in a Chinese restaurant. Instead, he prepares meals for himself and his wife at his home kitchen in Shanghai.

The 82-year-old, who migrated to the United States in 1969, settled in Shanghai, near his home province of Zhejiang, two years ago in a continued care retirement community, where the couple bought a two-bedroom apartment.

"I was eager to return to China for my twilight years, and such a retirement community makes my dream of both living independently and being partly taken care of come true," said He, whose siblings live in Shanghai and children are in the US.

He said he would never choose a traditional nursing home where "the elderly stay in bed most of the time and their main task is to wait for meals".

"Here, we have very diversified activities and I have a kitchen in which to make and cook food by myself. We can go out freely anytime," said He.

Like He, a rising number of seniors enjoy better health, educational backgrounds, activity levels, spending power and a willingness to live apart from their children. And this prompts them to choose high-quality communities such as these, mainly in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, to live out their retirements.