LIFE / Lifestyle

At 119, she was a symbol of how to live with wit and vitality

Kane Tanaka, who died in Japan last month, survived two world wars, the 1918 influenza outbreak, paratyphoid and two rounds of cancer.

Kane Tanaka (right) in 2019, when she was 116, during a ceremony in Fukuoka to recognize her as the world’s oldest person. | KYODO

By Hisako Ueno, Makiko Inoue and Mike Ives
The New York Times

May 2, 2022

In September 2019, the mayor of Fukuoka, Japan, made a pilgrimage to see Kane Tanaka at her nursing home. She was 116 years old then and fielded questions from a gaggle of reporters with the cocky confidence of a prizefighter.

What, they asked, was the secret to living so long?

"Being myself,” she said.

At 119, she was a symbol of how to live with wit and vitality

Kane Tanaka, who died in Japan last month, survived two world wars, the 1918 influenza outbreak, paratyphoid and two rounds of cancer.

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