friendship

Friends Make a Pact To Retire and Die Together

Photo: JGI/Jamie Grill/Blend Images/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

If you’ve ever joked with your friends about growing old and living in the same house together until you die, it might not be such a crazy idea. A group of seven friends in China made a pact to retire together and are actually going through with the plan. According to Shanghaiist, the women first came up with the idea in 2008, promising to get together when they turned 60 to live “the retired life” as a group. The friends, who have known each other for over 20 years, weren’t serious about it at first, but the thought of hanging with your best pals in your old age like some kind of real-life Golden Girls must have sounded too good to resist.

At some point, the women began looking for a place to build their sanctuary, and in 2018, found an old brick house in a village about an hour away from the city of Guangzhou. After pulling together four million yuan, which equals out to roughly $584,000, they renovated the space into a stunning three-level glass house that would make an incredible Airbnb rental.

The house has floor-to-ceiling glass windows with views of paddy fields, a tea room, a pool, and separate bedrooms upstairs. “Laying on the bed you can see morning mist and sunrise,” one of them narrates in the video. The first floor is a communal area, which doesn’t look too different from a modern-day womens’ co-working space. The friends also decided that they would each master different skills, whether it’s cooking, farming, or practicing Chinese medicine, to lessen the chance of fighting. Everyone plays a part!

The women spend their time cooking, barbecuing, singing, and drinking tea under the moon. Well, it looks like they’ve got everything figured out. Where can I sign up for this dream coven?

Group of Friends Makes Pact to Retire and Die Together