Circulating Blood and Qi : Leisure, Ageing‐In‐Place and the Internal Bodily Mobilities of Older Hong Kongers

ABSTRACT Ageing‐in‐place is a strategy for enabling quality of life among older people who age in their own homes and neighbourhoods instead of care institutions. Various forms of bodily mobility and leisure are recognised as essential for successful ageing‐in‐place strategies. However, such strategies would be improved via the integration of culturally specific understandings of well‐being with human geography work on mobilities. This would further emphasise the importance of internal bodily mobilities to older people, the related role of place and the culturally specific forms of leisure performed by older people to facilitate such mobilities. Internal bodily mobilities refer to the combination of physiological and cultural processes of movement within the body. Based on interviews and observations among older people in two districts in Hong Kong, we found two mobile leisure practices were of deep importance—walking and Tai Chi. Both were highly valued not only for the physical and social benefits they enabled, but also for enabling the circulation of blood and qi . Significantly, certain environmental features such as pebbled walking tracks, greenery, habitat for local wildlife and shaded areas were required of public open spaces in order to facilitate blood and qi circulation via leisure mobilities. Such internal bodily mobilities extend theoretical notions of corporeal mobility that have overemphasised the interactions between moving bodies and their surroundings at the expense of mobilities inside the body. The paper also extends the theory of therapeutic mobilities by highlighting that what is required to maintain well‐being is not just mobility for the purposes of medical treatments or physical exercise, but facilitating circulations within the body itself. Successful ageing‐in‐place strategies must recognise culturally specific notions of well‐being and the role of place in facilitating internal bodily mobilities.