Another year has passed, and with it, another candle has been added to Kane Tanaka’s birthday cake.
Many of us will have ambitious resolutions heading into 2022, but Kane has seen more new years than anyone else on this planet, and is presumably not naive enough to bother at this stage.
Kane was born on 2 January 1903, six months before English novelist George Orwell.
The mathematicians among you will have figured out this meant her latest birthday bash yesterday (Sunday 2 January) was her 119th.
She spent it at the nursing home where she resides in Fukuoka prefecture, south-west Japan – and she’s already got her sights on the big 1-20, according to her family members.
Eiji, her 62-year-old grandson, told Kyodo news agency: “I would like to personally congratulate her soon.
“I hope she remains healthy and has fun everyday as she grows older.”
The seventh of nine siblings, Kane married when she was 19 and ran a noodle shop after her husband and eldest son went to fight in the Second Sino-Japanese War, that started in 1937.
She was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the oldest living person in March 2019, going on to achieve an all-time Japanese age record when she reached 117 years and 261 days in September 2020.
She’s still got a few years to go though before becoming the oldest person ever, with the record set by Jeanne Louise Calment from France, who died at the age of 122 years and 164 days old.
【大快挙】119歳到達🎉
無事に119歳を迎えることができました！
サラ・ナウスさん以来22年ぶりの119歳到達です🎊最新のカ子さんの写真です📸
12月に親戚が会いに行った時のものです。たくさんの方々に支えられてここまでくることが出来ました🙌
これからも楽しく明るく元気に過ごしてほしいです😊 pic.twitter.com/K38jXDTIQ3— 田中カ子 (@tanakakane0102) January 1, 2022
As for Kane’s secret, she enjoys spending her days solving puzzles, eating chocolate and drinking fizzy drinks.
So mental stimulation and errr, loads of sugar, would appear to be the key.