Singapore, 2003

CHANGING STROKES: Samsui woman Yip Say Mui, 90, has to alter her clothes now and again because she's shrinking. She used to be 1.58m tall but is now permanently hunched—from carrying heavy loads all her life. Her eyesight is still good, but with her weakening hands, she finds it difficult to thread her needles, sometimes trying for over an hour to get a single strand through. She died of throat cancer months after these pictures were taken.