(Reuters) - A 107-year-old Hong Kong villager, who still enjoys an occasional smoke, has attributed his longevity in part to decades of sexual abstinence, a newspaper said on Sunday.I don't know why I have lived this long, Chan Chi -- one of Hong Kong's oldest people -- was quoted as saying during an annual dinner for the city's elders. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I have lived a sex-less life for many years -- since I was 40, said Chan, a widower whose wife died during World War Two.
Chan, from Hong Kong's less built-up New Territories hinterland, was pictured looking sprightly and eating heartily at the banquet.
A former chef, he said a low-fat diet and regular dawn exercises had helped him fight off the ravages of old age.
But the centenarian, who's had no difficulty living a monastic existence for nearly 70 years, admits the pleasures of tobacco have been harder to resist.
"Now I want to quit," he was quoted as saying of his decades-long cigarette addiction.
"Maybe the government should ban cigarette sales so I can give it up," he added.
Meanwhile a study done on Mr. Chi by scientist from a Boston Medical Center said his actual age was closer to 80 and he just looked that old through a combination of heavy smoking and lack of sex!
Your "not over the hill yet" scribe;
Allan w Janssen
