Page 23 - C.A.L.L. #38 - Summer 2014

‘Communist’ commune unnerves Chinese officials

New York Times
March 12, 2014

LINCANG - Members of an idyllic and big-city corporate refugees. “People
utopian commune tucked away in the do what they can and get what they
mountains of south-western China share need.”
an agrarian life that would probably have
delighted Chairman Mao: Every day they But Marxism does not often look like
volunteer six hours to work the fields, that in modern-day China, and New
Oasis has
unnerved local
officials in
Yunnan. Months
of official
intimidation
and acts of
sabotage have
destroyed New

Oasis’ water
and electrical
supply and
driven many
residents away,
emptying two
of the group’s
three
communes in
Making noodles at the New Oasis for Life commune, which attracted people hoping to
escape the smog, graft and social conservatism of contemporary Chinese life. the province.

feed their jointly-owned chickens and At Lincang, though, a few holdouts
prepare enough food to fill every belly in remain, determined to stay on. They are
the community. steeling themselves for a final raid by
public security agents, and their hopes
The bounty of their harvest is divided are pinned to a court appearance, when
equally and apparently without strife, they will defend the land contract that
part of a philosophy that emphasises they say officials are trying to nullify.
selflessness and egalitarian living.
Ms Xu Mengting, 25, who worked for a
“What we’re doing here is basically telecommunications company before
communism,” said Mr Xue Feng, 57, the joining New Oasis in 2011, dismissed the
soft-spoken founder of Shengmin government’s allegations of unlicensed
Chanyuan, or New Oasis for Life, whose production and sharing of wives as wild
150 members include illiterate peasants assumptions, saying officials had told

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