Older female students show that age is simply a number

Better self-esteem

After Liu Jie was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, she became depressed for about six months, not just because she lost her hair and looked pale as a result of chemotherapy, but also because she found that there were many beautiful things she wanted to do but hadn't.

"Before I got sick, I didn't think about myself too much; I was just following the usual steps like most people and had no idea what I wanted when I was working. But the illness made me suddenly realize that life is too short, so I have to pursue what I really like," she said.

After that, she began caring more about herself than her job and other trivial things, learning to embrace and accept herself by reading, singing and taking the modeling course.

"It's a way for me to become pretty and be myself," she said. "There is nothing more beautiful than being myself."

Xu Li also became her "better self" after learning folk dancing this year at Live In Journey, a Beijing company that provides educational and travel services for seniors.

"When I looked at myself in the mirror in class, it was as if I had met the teenage me, who had a dream of dancing," the 65-year-old said.

"Although I'm happy being someone's daughter, someone's wife and someone's mom, I don't want to lose myself. I have a great desire to be my own person."

Although she still has much housework to do－including looking after her mother, who has Alzheimer's disease, and her bedridden father-in-law－she has never been late for or missed a dancing class.

"Some women, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty because they simply move it from their faces into their minds, staying young at heart and being uniquely themselves," she said.