HONG KONG: A 107-year-old Hong Kong villager, who still enjoys an occasional smoke, has attributed his longevity in part to decades of sexual abstinence, a newspaper said on Sunday.

I don t know why I have lived this long, Chan Chi – one of Hong Kong s oldest people – was quoted as saying in the South China Morning Post during an annual feast for the city s elders.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I have lived a sex-less life for many years – since I was 30, said Chan, a widower whose youthful bride perished during the Japanese invasion in World War Two.

Chan, from Hong Kong s less built-up New Territories hinterland, was pictured looking sprightly and eating heartily at the banquet.

A former chef, he said a low-fat diet and regular dawn exercises had helped him fight off the ravages of old age.

But the centenarian, who s had no difficulty living a monastic existence for nearly 80 years, admits the pleasures of tobacco have been harder to resist.

Now I want to quit, he was quoted as saying of his decades-long cigarette addiction.

Maybe the government should ban cigarette sales so I can give it up, he added.