LAUSR

Abstract Reminiscing contributes to the formulation of identity in later adulthood through integrating individuals’ recomposed past, perceived present and envisioned future. Aiming to understand rural Chinese elders’ identity construction through reminiscing, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 elders living in ShiGo, a village located in the south-west of China. Data analysis suggests the rural elders in this study constructed a hero–victim identity through telling stories about the hardships they went through and the sacrifices they made. The participants narrated suffering from lack of basic living needs in the past, in particular before the 1980s while they were involved in turmoil brought on by wars and national movements, from destructive relationships, from making sacrifices for the country and their families, and from adapting to challenges brought on by the hardships. The rural elders shared life experiences with other villagers in daily life through bitter-sweet telling and wanted their suffering and sacrifices to be witnessed. Witnessing connects suffering, sacrifice, hero and victim into a self-enforcing system that helps the elders maintain interdependence and defence against existential concerns like death anxiety. A hero–victim dialectic model was presented to capture the self-enforcing attribute of the hero–victim identity. Findings of this study could be used to make sense of rural ageing in China and benefit clinical professionals working with rural Chinese elders.