Community canteens a boon across generations

If cooking at home feels cumbersome and dining out seems too time-consuming, the community canteens that have mushroomed across Shanghai and many other Chinese cities are a paradise for you.

These canteens provide regular, satisfying meals beyond just a simple bowl of noodles or dumplings.

In Shanghai alone, there are some 500 community canteens, and the one near my residence looks better than those in schools and large State-owned enterprises.

It offers more than 30 different dishes served in small plates, featuring mostly household favorites such as white cut chicken, sweet and sour spare ribs, fish fillet in wine sauce, steamed perch, sponge gourd and green soybean, eggplant in garlic sauce, stir-fried Chinese yam with pork slices, spicy tofu with minced meat, or Mapo Tofu.

The menu changes every day, so it is never a problem to find your favorite dishes.

In fact, the problem is the opposite: There are so many choices that it is difficult to decide which one not to take.

Prices are very affordable, ranging from 3 to 20 yuan (45 cents to $2.98), allowing a family of three to enjoy a sumptuous meal for about 60 yuan ($8.92).

Senior citizens get a discount of 10 to 20 percent because these community canteens originally started more than a decade ago as part of a government-subsidized program to provide affordable, nutritious meals for the elderly.

Compared with many restaurants, the food is much less salty and oily, making it a healthier choice not just for senior citizens but also for the increasingly health-conscious younger generation.

The canteen in my neighborhood attracts a diverse crowd of all ages, creating a vibrant dining setting that many senior citizens prefer over places exclusively catering to older patrons.

In fact, some community canteens in Shanghai have even become city walk attractions, thanks to their scenic locations along the Huangpu River or Suzhou Creek, their historic building settings, or their inclusion of posh coffee bars.

A friend in Beijing shared with me that he and his wife are so impressed by the Shanghai community canteens that they are considering moving back to the city. Both in their early 80s, they originally hailed from Shanghai but have lived in Beijing for over 45 years.

Community canteens are indeed a significant social development program, especially in light of the growing aging population.

This is particularly true for Shanghai, where 37.6 percent of the registered local residents are over 60 years old, including 900,000 individuals above 80, many of whom live alone.

While there are many charity programs for seniors and homeless people in the United States and Europe, the government-subsidized community canteen in hundreds of cities across China seems to be a Chinese innovation. Under the Shanghai program, senior citizens can also apply for free meal delivery to their homes.

Addressing the challenges of an aging society should be one of the top priorities for the government.

Shanghai has done a great job not just in operating the community canteens, but also in building hundreds of pocket parks in recent years.

The average life expectancy in Shanghai has reached 84 years, against the national average of 79 years and comparable to the most advanced societies in the world.

By the end of 2025, China had 323 million people aged 60 and above, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Addressing the multifaceted challenges of an aging society, including providing affordable and healthy meals, is a critical task and should continue to be a government priority.

The author is a China Daily columnist.

chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn