To be 107 years old is a proud achievement. The sisters Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama from Japan are also identical twins and have been record holders for a few days.
Two Japanese sisters over 107 years old are the oldest living identical twins in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records.
Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama were 107 years and 300 days old on September 1, breaking the previous record set by the famous Japanese sisters Kin Narita and Gin Kanie at 107 years and 175 days, Guinness World Records announced on Monday . Sumiyama and Kodama were born on November 5, 1913 on the island of Shodoshima in western Japan to a family of 13.
Their families told Guinness that the two twin sisters often joked about surviving the previous record holders. The twins, affectionately known as “Kin-san” and “Gin-san”, who died around 20 years ago, were considered national heroines in Japan with their old age and their humor and had achieved fame around the world through numerous television appearances. The two new record holders grew up separately after primary school.
Kodama was sent to Oita on the southwestern main island of Kyushu as a maid, where she later married. Sumiyama, on the other hand, stayed on his home island and started a family there. As they grew up, children of multiple births like her in Japan were often victims of bullying. The sisters later described this harassment as one of the toughest experiences of their childhood.
Since they lived more than 300 kilometers apart, for decades they mostly only saw each other at weddings or funerals. It wasn’t until they were around 70 years old that they began to make pilgrimages together to Buddhist temples and enjoyed being together again. As they celebrated their 99th birthday, Sumiyama looked at a photo of the world-famous twins “Kin-san” and “Gin-san” and joked, “I think we look younger”. Both twin sisters live in separate old people’s homes, according to Guinness.
Japan is one of the fastest aging countries on earth. Around a third of the island’s 125 million inhabitants are already 65 years of age or older. Around 86,500 are even 100 years or older.
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