On a narrow dirt path, soft with morning dew, Tang Guanhua brushes through dense thicket. “When we first arrived, there was no path, nothing,” says the 30-year-old, clad in all-black baggy cotton trousers and a cardigan, breaking off some newly grown bamboo branches. “It was all overgrown, we had to clear the land and build these trails. It took a lot of time and effort.”
Sounds of a nearby village’s crowing roosters and puttering motorcycles recede with each stride though this verdant tunnel. Tang stops and surveys a clearing vista of rolling hills overgrown with purple wildflowers, ferns and rhododendron. Mist rolls down the sides of the framing mountains, into the valley, where deciduous trees hide myriad chirping birds, and only a keen eye can spot the traces of human existence, also, and very purposefully, hidden here.
“This,” says Tang, “is our land.”
Since 2015, Tang and his wife, Xing Zhen, have been living in a reclusive, mountainous part of Minhou county, in southeastern Fujian province, about two hours’ drive from the capital, Fuzhou. Joined by a small band of like-minded Chinese, most in their early 30s, they have turned their backs on city life to form “Another Community”.
Other, older, more successful self-sufficient communes in mainland China count at least 100 members. Tang’s Another Community numbers about a dozen, and some don’t live here full time as they cannot yet sustain themselves without working odd jobs. From a children’s book designer to a public-health expert, a filmmaker to a Cisco security expert, members used to grind out a living in the mainland’s megacities, which Tang describes as “a homogenous, single-minded value system”. The commune, on the other hand, formulates its goals by committee. It is aiming for 30 residents by the end of 2020, 150 by 2030 and 300 by 2036.
Laying the foundation, Tang and Xing believe, is the most arduous part. “In the future, with enough people, we can do everything ourselves,” Xing says.
Unlike Western hippies in the 1960s – many of whom found their own ideals of communalism in the misty mountains of Yunnan province, where some remain – Another Community has no political objective. Instead, it draws from environmental, spiritual and holistic communes, such as the monastic Taizé fraternity, in France, the ZEGG ecovillage, in Germany, and the Tamera peace-research village, in Portugal. But one of the biggest influences for Tang were the books of a British environmentalist.
Born in 1914, John Seymour spent time with African tribes, who depended only on nature and one another. The experience left him deeply affected, and inspired him to write The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency (1976), which sold more than a million copies in 20 languages, including Chinese, to the Love Generation. It has since been updated for the Tangs and Xings of late capitalism.
Instead of bragging about their careers or snapping photos of meals in fancy restaurants, commune members aim to live in harmony with nature, free of societal pressures and expectations, working towards self-sufficiency – in electricity, food, clothing, soap – and their mission statement, to “let natural energy flow and return to nature”. But far from being antithetical to urban existence, “we wanted society to see that there can be many other ways of life that give people dignity”, says Tang.
Having grown up in Qingdao, a city in Shandong province that now has a population of nine million, Tang saw pressure on resources increase, personal space diminish and housing prices multiply.
Wang Hailong, 34, used to work in management at a private primary school in Beijing, a good job that provided him with a small but comfortable flat. He had a loving family and enjoyed spending weekends with his friends. But still he felt a deep dissatisfaction. He travelled through the mainland as far as the Tibetan plateau, where he saw nomadic high-plains herders who, though poor, seemed at peace. When he learned of Tang’s attempts to start a self-sufficient commune through an online fundraiser, he was intrigued.
“I had no idea then what the community would be like,” says Wang. But four years after he first boarded a plane from Beijing to Fujian, he is now a cornerstone of Another Community. “In cities, you always compare yourself to others, what they have, and that makes you really nervous.”
His job and his flat in Beijing are gone, and he couldn’t be more relieved. “Even if we had money here, there’s no place to spend it,” he says.
In his black-rimmed glasses and brandedjacket, Wang still looks like a city boy, but his jeans hang loosely on skinny legs as he drives a spade into the ground. Farm work is “a new thing for me”, he says, unearthing rainworms and cockchafer grubs – some tiny, others thick as fingers, but once exposed, all wriggle back under – signs of fertile, healthy soil.
The lease for the commune’s 202 hectare plot – almost three times the size of Beijing’s Forbidden City – costs 200,000 yuan (HK$223,500) a year and is paid for by the Zhenro Foundation, which is committed to advancing society by supporting innovative projects endeavouring to use environmental resources more efficiently. “It’s a good match,” Tang says (out of the 100 or so organisations he wrote to seeking funding, it was the only one that replied).
Decisions regarding land use, which crops to grow, and consumption of electricity or water are reached through discussions in which each member’s voice is heard and respected. Though democratic in principle, Tang says it’s more “consensus-based”. And while Another Community does not elect a leader or have a hierarchy, there is a division of labour. Wang is in charge of farming.
Where he used to grow herbs in little pots in his Beijing flat, now he grows carrots, potatoes, beans and corn. He has to take scale into account, observe the weather, assess the fertility of the soil and find suitable crops. None of the members had any farming experience, so Wang took it upon himself to study agriculture, forestry cultivation and natural farming at the provincial university. Others are enrolled in classes that teach self-sustenance, including farming, sewing and how to safely work with electricity.
The hardest part, says Xing, has been making their own clothes – growing fibre, spinning it into thread, weaving it into textiles and sewing a wearable garment. Xing set up a studio on the ground floor of a rented farmhouse, equipped with three looms that she built from scratch; a beam of sunlight hits the indigo-dyed threads as she rhythmically pushes the strings together. A shirt takes about two weeks to make, and that doesn’t include the time needed to plant, grow and harvest kudzu, a fast-growing vine whose fibre has been woven into fabrics for more than 5,000 years. In the past, commune members tried growing cotton, and bought yak wool from Tibet, but neither seemed sustainable.
The meals they eat are another sign they have a long way to go. Rice for porridge is bought from a nearby organic farm, and though the dark-coloured, herbal liquor served after the evening hotpot is home-brewed, they rely on store-bought sauces and meat, purchased with savings or donations. But this doesn’t faze them. It is a long-term project, and given the concrete lives they left behind, returning to nature was bound to take time. As Tang plunges his chopsticks into the hotpot for a piece of spicy chicken, he explains that this hasn’t been his first attempt at creating a self-sustaining community.
Around 2010, Tang lived in a small hut on Laoshan, a mountain located about 30km from Qingdao. On a slope often shrouded in mist, he learned about planting seasons and natural fertilisers; how to extract salt from seawater and brew his own vinegar, soy sauce and beer.
“Another Land” inspired his Qingdao friends and attracted hundreds of volunteers, from university students to office workers, all curious about Tang’s attempt to be at one with nature. They made soap, crafted shoes and clothes, and installed solar panels and a self-made wind turbine. At times, they used a bicycle to generate electricity.
Tang says that until they learned how to make their own cooking pots, their diet consisted largely of raw peppers, but despite the hardships, he was content and would look out on the land and contemplate the day’s achievements and failures with pride – a feeling he says he never had in Qingdao.