Talk:Li Ching-Yuen/Li Qingyuan

is this true. where is the evidence!! if he spoke at chinesse uni at the age of 200 in the 30's, can you please show me a picture, audio or video of the event please


 * No, because as the article says hes almost certainly a marketing myth. Lumos3 19:02, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * okay, so where's the proof that it isn't true? Show me the money! Family Guy Guy 03:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

"quite possible"?
"Due to the extraordinary nutritive qualities(several times the next closest food) of the Goji berries on which Li Qing sustained himself, his claim is quite possible."

This seems like an extraordinary leap, especially considering the rest of the article.

pdw

I could see him and his son living that long: 125 + 125 = 250.

Did he eat anything other than goji berries? Family Guy Guy 00:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

= From the "Guinnes Book of Records", Ed 1972 = "No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity (...) The height of credulity was reached on 5 May 1933, when a news agency solemny filed a story from China with a Peking dateline that Li Chung Yun, the "oldest man on Earth", born in 1680, had just died aged 256 years" (sic).--Wstefano 16:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Carbon dating technique
One way to find out his true age would be to use carbon dating on a sample of his remains. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.192.137.58 (talk • contribs) 18:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

-- Nope. Carbon dating can be made from the point the organism died. Not when it had its umbilical connection severed. You could presumebly find out when he died, plus minus 73 yrs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.252.164.222 (talk) 21:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

-- Yep. "Radiocarbon dating of human tooth enamel provides a reliable and accurate dating strategy for determining the date of birth of an individual." from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957015/ --120.29.242.124 (talk) 05:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

-- Unfortunately, it seems the dating of human birth is dependent upon the radiation from man-made C-14 levels due to nuclear explosions that happened after Li Ching-Yuen died. 12:50PM April 5, 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John.j.slack (talk • contribs) 16:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Chinese folklore?
You may have fair doubts about his real age, but there are references enough about him to put him out from the "Category:Chinese folklore".

--Braxilian 02:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Tone
I believe that the tone of this article is not quite as formal/professional as it should be. I have attempted to alleviate this somewhat, but I think that somebody with better copyediting skills needs to work on it.

--Dylan anglada (talk) 21:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistency?
There seems to be a fairly obvious inconsistency here. Time Magazine and the New York Times state that he claimed to have been born in 1736, but the article says 1677. Is there any explanation for this? I feel like maybe it should be mentioned in the article.

--Nick Kalivoda 01:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

All the information I have seen says he was born in 1678, and died in 1928 (1 year after the picture was taken, while on the return trip to his home).

67.60.188.12 (talk) 04:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Page has been vandalised. 118.210.134.159 (talk) 00:57, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Question about use of fo-ti-tieng herb
"Jeanne Rose, author of the pop herb book of the 1970's, Herbs & Things (written when she was bed-ridden for several months with not much else to do after a car accident) listed fo-ti-tieng in the book. Under that heading, she told the story of Li Chung Yun (his actual name was Li Ch'ing Yuen; see Figure 2.), a Chinese herbalist who lived to the age of 256 years (he is the one in the newspaper article), presumably because he drank a daily tea made from, as she describes it, "an herb called Fo-Ti-Tieng." Thus, the sales pitch for a newly devised, caffeine-containing herb mixture becomes a part of modern herbal lore: the strange formulation invented just a couple of years earlier is ignored, and a new herb is invented. In the story of Li Ch'ing Yuen related by Da Liu (17), his longevity is attributed, primarily, to consuming lycium fruits and, especially, to practicing certain exercises of a type similar to Tai Ch'i Ch'uan. "

One might ask if his longevity was related to his lucky multiple marriage to so many wives, 25 wives means every 10 years he got a new wife. if one is to spread out the terms and not poligamy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.192.137.58 (talk) 18:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

http://www.therootofthematter.ca/cgi-bin/itsmy/go.exe?page=28&domain=12&webdir=therootofthematter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.223.164 (talk) 11:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The information I have seen specifies that he lived to the age of 250 years not because of some special diet, but because he practiced Chi Kung (Qigong) daily. Specifically, Da Mo's Muscle/Tendon Changing Classic, and Marrow/Brain Washing Classic. There are dozens of accounts of people living to similar ages through this type of training. In fact, there is a saying in certain circles, "120 years is dying young."

67.60.188.12 (talk) 04:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

"There are dozens of accounts of people living to similar ages through this type of training. In fact, there is a saying in certain circles, '120 years is dying young.'"

Um, citation needed?

98.14.103.25 (talk) 06:19, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

It look like this article needs citations rebutting this story. "Brain Washing Classic": well, there's certainly brain washing of some sort in certain circles to believe such ludicrous claim; citation is definitively needed. Are these circles composed of people aged more than 120 years old? How can they know each other and, in the same time hide their age to everybody? For which reason? Or are they just silly people with a normal age talking nonsense? Sultan Rahi (talk) 06:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Sentence I fact tagged
Have done some googling on this and the story is that he received commemoration of his 150 and 200th birthdays by the Qing administrations of the time. In short, it is more credible that this individual did in fact have by far the longest known lifetime than that there would be no ability to verify that he was at least older than Jeanne Calment at death. The story has him as a mature adult with some public standing (as a stratgic advisor) in a central province of China from the late 18th century until 1933 and the statement that the recordkeeping in China was simply too primitive to verify/refute the essential fact (that he was in fact the longest lived person known) is just not credible without some explanation. Lycurgus (talk) 11:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Since it's been tagged for over a year and no-one has provided a reference i am removing the statement about record keeping. Jerdwyer (talk) 03:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Date of death
Why does it say he died 1933, when it also says he died one year after the photo was taken - in 1927? Wouldn't that mean he died 1928? Where did the other years go?

This article is messed up.

Swiiman (talk)

Yes its a mess Togo (talk) 06:21, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Hayate Staso
Where does that guy come from in the middle of the article without any initial explaination? Togo (talk) 06:21, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Missing References to Longevity Herbs
I've noticed most of the in-article references to the herbs Ching-Yuen consumed to stay healthy have been removed. I can't find an entry in the History section. Was that done for a reason? Because I've found the science behind each herb contributes to the veracity of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SuperAnth (talk • contribs) 00:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Where did the documentation go?
I was very fond of this article -- I particularly liked the balance it struck between careful skepticism of an obviously unusual story, and guarded acknowledgement of what little documentation did actually appear to exist. I've returned to find that it's been visited by eager skeptics who are shocked and concerned that readers might not, unaided, reach the realization that a man living to the age of almost two hundred years is hard to believe.

It looks like there are some strong feelings about this article, so I hesitate to edit it straight off. My inclination would be to readd these apparently documented sections, which are now missing:


 * After Li's death, General Yang Sen investigated the truth about his claimed background and age. He wrote a report that was later published. In 1933, people interviewed from his home province remembered seeing him when they were children, and that he hadn't aged much during their lifetime. Others reported that he had been friends with their grandfathers.


 * the Chinese government has the most accurate census records and they show that Li was born in 1677. (source: Immortality by Dr. Joel Wallach BS DVM ND and Dr. Ma Lan, MD, Ms Lac page 304 -305)

... and remove specific, strongly worded statements such as these, which do not appear to be documented:


 * The census documentation of rural 17th-century China is so sparse by comparison to modern records as to make any sort of successful investigation improbable


 * experts universally discount his legendary age

... but I hesitate to leap immediately into the fray without trying to get my bearings. What reasonable objection could be made if I were to make those edits?

Subverdor (talk) 05:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * No response, so I've made some of edits I proposed.


 * Subverdor (talk) 16:14, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Longevity myths
Looking over Category:Longevity_traditions and Category:Longevity_myths, I don't see any good reason why this article shouldn't be a part of both (or even really what the difference is between them). Li Ching-Yuen's claim is clearly considered a myth ("any claim to age 130 or over is generally considered to be a myth"), but the "traditions" page includes people like Adam and doesn't indicate that there's any kind of maximum claimed age necessary for someone to be listed there.

I suspect that the back-and-forth editing over categories is an argument by proxy for whether or not Li Ching-Yuen's claim is actually true :-). Subverdor (talk) 03:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Subverdor! The issue is of course not truth but WP:V. It's OK for now to list both categories but the ongoing problem is that the article "longevity myths" has been maintained by more than one person who reacts strongly to the point in WP:RNPOV that the word "myth" should only be used in its technical sense ("foundational cultural belief"), i.e., by mythologists or sociologists, not in its informal sense ("something proven false") as occasionally by gerontologists. Thus renaming the article in accord with policy has not succeeded. These parties have seeded many articles with this nonpolicy POV; particularly, the quote you give about 130 is original research that is not supported by any source. AFAIK no scientist is willing to cite a firm year-and-day cutoff line and the magic number 130 (though it is oddly interpreted really as 131 in practice by these editors) is, according to one of them, taken from a guess by Jay Olshansky rounded to the nearest ten (see math abuse).
 * Since there's only one article, there should eventually be only one category, but the trouble is undoing all the seeding that has happened with this (a) policy violation and (b) original research about there being a cutoff point. The only sourced cutoff point of any kind is that longevity becomes significant at 110, which was long ago accepted as the definition of "supercentenarian"; but even there these editors refuse to work much with anyone under 113, another arbitrary magic-number selection chosen more for their own convenience than anything else IMHO. In short, there is no source whatsoever that cites Li's claim as a sociological (technically defined) myth (a point that invites a very simple counterexample, which has so far not arisen). JJB 17:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * John J Bulten's edits are akin to smearing the theory of evolution with creationism. He is a wiki-lawyer pushing a non-scientific and non-encyclopedic POV. He has no citations for his POV, and then deletes citations from the other POV. Ryoung 122 18:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Place of Burial
It's really a fascinating story but I highly doubt that any serious biologist or physician could agree that is possible for a human being to reach such long ages, like 197 or 256. The most likely and the existence of this person is totally proved is that he really had a very long life span, probably circa 120-140 years old, and popular lore created the legend that he had lived much more then any other known human being. It would be interesting to find out where he was buried, so perhaps an autopsy could determinate the aproximate age he lived.85.240.23.77 (talk) 01:13, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Interesting analysis. If we could find a published work that can be used as a reliable source for this, such as the legend part, it could be included. --Τασουλα (Almira) (talk) 20:38, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * He looks really young in the photo. How could he possible have lived two centuries? It just doesn't make sense. 209.86.226.27 (talk) 01:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.154.84.108 (talk)


 * It would be interesting to find any scientific RS which argues over the possibility of someone living that longer.82.154.84.108 (talk) 03:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Credibility
Interestingly, given the nature of the claims, the paucity of evidence and the range of belief and skepticism encountered here and elsewhere regarding the credibility of this tale, it seems lacking to me that this page has not assembled a section summarizing the case for and against, and referencing any researchers who've perhaps done work in the area.

It most certainly does seem like folklore, but today it would indeed be possible to radio carbon date the tooth enamel to establish a sensible estimate of birth date. One is left to wonder who is sufficiently interested in proving or disproving the legend to fund and organize such a venture if indeed it is even reliably possible to find the remains of this man.

It seems to me that some paperwork that is cited, suffers the self same confidence issues a exhuming of the body would, how can we be sure they are talking about the same guy even, let alone are accurate. No cultural disrespect intended but the Chinese are not real big on unique names, and nor are they free of either corruption, mistakes or a wanton desire to believe folklore and myth. All of which undermines the credibility of a couple of historic documents to some degree I would think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.29.242.124 (talk) 05:34, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Obviously fictional
I found people citing this article as a evidence that they ought not vaccinate their children. This is harmful, and I'm gonna go ahead and move the burden of evidence because exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.

The sourcing for this article, with one exception, depends exclusively upon second to third-hand reference to two AP dispatches, one from 1928, and one from 1933. Neither constitutes any evidence for the claim of this individual's longevity, as the only thing reported by them is that the claim was made. Most sources listed for this article contradict one another with regards to the age of the subject.

The exception to this rule is the Yang Sen book, "A Factual Account of the 250 Year-Old Good-Luck Man". Unfortunately, the only place I can turn up any suggestion that this book exists is in the source list for this article. This clearly is not a high quality source, as would be required to support an exceptional claim.

In addition to this, we have reputable, peer reviewed research clearly indicating that the rates of age claims being false rises to 100% once the claimed age passes 120. The same source notes that the claimed age of Li Ching-Yun is a multiple of eight, a lucky number in Chinese mythology, making the claim even more likely to have been fabricated. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cggr/2010/423087/

I'm going to see if I can make a couple edits in light of this.

Note: Ha, I just noticed that this article says the Yang Sen book claims that Li was also 7 feet tall. It's remarkable this isn't noted anywhere else, as his home province is statistically the shortest in China, with an average height of over a foot and a half shorter than Li's proposed height. That's the kind of thing that, you know, would stand out. It's also the kind of thing you make up about someone when you're telling a folk tale. We can firmly say that this "Factual" source is anything but. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.234.124.203 (talk) 19:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding the last comment, Yang Sen certainly didn't write that Li was seven feet tall. He obviously wrote that he was some number of units tall, with such units being known in that region at that time.  This could easily be a translation inaccuracy.  Also, even if the conversion is dead accurate, it could be metaphorical.  The Chinese language is known for using fixed numbers to represent something else, or some unimaginable number.  For example, in Taoist writings, "the 10,000 things" means everything.  Yang Sen could have just meant that Li was unusually tall, which would then have no reflection on the truth of the story.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but he doesn't appear that small.  And if they are all pretty small in that region, then he could have been a giant at 5'8".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.183.123.29 (talk) 21:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, but. How about we talk about the obviously fictional part.  This article is 100% unadulterated fabrication (well, his death is probably accurate) and I find it hilarious that it is presented so relatively matter-of-factly here. 209.155.40.214 (talk) 23:38, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * "The Chinese language is known for using fixed numbers to represent something else" Therefore being 197 or 256 years old could represent being between 90 and 113 years old.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.221.70 (talk) 11:20, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think he was really that old, but there are lots of 7 foot tall Chinese people in certain areas of China. I saw an article on them related to sports (I think basketball?) several years ago. It really surprised me because they mostly tend to be shorter than Americans, but I think there are some tribes/rural villages where there are clusters of really real people;  inbreeding in those rural places is probably the cause in my opinion, but that's just my theory. There are even 8-footers floating around, and some of the documented ones aren't recent. Tabbycatlove (talk) 02:45, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Broken Link: Citation
Just wanted to point out that External Link #1 (A Story of Master Li, http://www.chinahand.com/qigong/a_story_of.htm) is missing. I attempted to search the main site, and no results for Master Li came up. This is my first edit to any Wikipedia and I am unsure of what the protocol is. I'll let more experienced users decide how to handle it. 24.105.183.2 (talk) 20:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I escaped a broken link and updated two other changed external links. Michael D. Sullivan (talk) 00:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Also added NYT Obituary direct link to text as footnote, with link to republished, nonsubscription version as alternate; deleted from "external links." Fixed the cite to the Portuguese WP article in external links, which was showing as non-external, breaking the format; put URL in instead of WP link, allowing this to be a numbered external link. Michael D. Sullivan (talk) 01:42, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Bogus
Old age has often been celebrated in China and it was a plus to be old, but unlike 141 years old Tang Yunshan 汤云山 who was awarded imperial poetry, Li Ching-Yuen only became famous from 1933. When his only photo and his story was told to then president Chiang Kai-shek by his General Yang Sen. When Yang Sen was instructed to bring Li Ching-Yuen to be introduced to the western media, Li conveniently died in his hometown. From there he suddenly become an overnight legend that everyone knew a long time about, and the western media reported the story according. No westerner ever met Li, his whole existence is based on hearsay and one photo of unverified origin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.159.154.30 (talk) 13:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Infobox
I removed the birthdate and age at death from the infobox. Adding such highly controversial and disputed claims to the infobox to be presented as if they are simple unequivocal facts is extremely misleading. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:55, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Nails
If I were one of the "lucky" guys having seen "master" li-ching yuen in person with such long nails in those old days, I would think that he was a charlatan actually, trying to fool -by his long nails- other people that he was 256 years old. Logos (talk) 18:42, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Size
isn't he a little bit small? 91 cm seems to be very tiny, specially when in the main article mention 7 feet tall. McCuack70 (talk) 17:33, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * He's said to be 7 feet tall, but it seems like the conversion in centimeters is based on US foot unit. It should be viewed as Chinese feet, which (there are 4 of them !) extends from 319.5 to 338.3 mm. So Li Ching-Yuen's reported height would be between 223 and 237 cm. Lesviolonsdautomne (talk) 02:57, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 June 2016
In Qijiang County, Sichuan province, in the year 1678 Li Qingyun was born. By age thirteen he had embarked upon a life of gathering herbs in the mountains with three elders. At age fifty-one, he served as a tactical and topography advisor in the army of General Yu Zhongqi.

When seventy-eight he retired from his military career after fighting in a battle at Golden River, and returned to a life of gathering herbs on Snow Mountain in Sichuan province. Due to his military service in the army of General Yu Zhongqi, the imperial government sent a document congratulating Li on his one-hundredth year of life, as was subsequently done on his 150th and 200th birthdays.

In 1928, Dean Wu Chung-chien of the Department of Education at Minkuo University discovered the imperial documents showing these birthday wishes to Li Qingyun. His discovery was first reported in the two leading Chinese newspapers of that period, North China Daily News and Shanghai Declaration News, and then one year later in 1929 by The New York Times and Time magazine. Both of these Western publications also reported the death of Li Qingyun in May 1933.

In 1908 Li Qingyun and his disciple Yang Hexuan published a book, The Secrets of Li Qingyun’s Immortality.

In 1920, General Xiong Yanghe interviewed Li (both men were from the village of Chenjiachang of Wan County in Sichuan province), publishing an article about it in the Nanjing University paper that same year.

In 1926, Wu Peifu (the famous Chinese warlord who dominated Beijing from 1917 to 1924), invited Li to Beijing. This visit coincides with Li teaching at the Beijing University Meditation Society at the invitation of the famous meditation master and author Yin Shi Zi.

Then in 1927, General Yang Sen invited Li to Wanxian, where the first known photographs of Li were taken. Word spread throughout China of Li Qingyun, and Yang Sen’s commander, General Chiang Kaishek, requested Li to visit Nanjing. However, when Yang Sen’s envoys arrived at Li’s hometown of Chenjiachang, they were told by Li’s wife and disciples that he had passed away in nature, offering no more information. So, his actual date of death and location has never been verified.

PDGoat (talk) 01:50, 24 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 04:33, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * You forgot to set "answered" to "yes".  Omni Flames ( talk ) 23:06, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I did set it. PDGoat reactivated it after refactoring the request. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 03:36, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, right. Sorry, my bad.  Omni Flames ( talk ) 06:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

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Protect article?
I have noticed that there is a consistent series of edit wars going on in this article, mainly based on editing the age of Li Ching-Yuen to either be confirmed or to be older than anyone ever claimed. I believe it would be an adequate decision to protect this article due to this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laganrat (talk • contribs) 15:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

died in 1969 or 1933
the article contradicts itself, in the beginning it's written that he died in 1969 and then that he died in 1933 176.230.132.42 (talk) 08:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Irrelevant caption
The bit about “Devi ram Parashar” does not seem relevant. AbeBehr (talk) 21:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC)