Reflecting on the pursuit of a simpler life
By: August Hagen
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Reflecting on the pursuit of a simpler life
August Hagen (left) is working on a farm in Xuling village, Zhejiang province, on Nov 5, 2023. CHINA DAILY
Last autumn and again this spring, I went to visit a small locale, Xuling village, in the hills of Zhejiang province. While I was staying there, I got to meet some members of a new community that had settled among the abandoned houses in the old village — where, they had started an "eco-village".
The members of the eco-village that I got to talk to had all come to this place for their own personal reasons, but they shared many core beliefs: they all found the lives in the cities to be too stressful, too harsh, and too suffocating. They had come to the eco-village to try a different way of living that they hoped would suit them more and fulfill them in other ways.
The eco-village offers a two-year program, where you pay an initial deposit; and if you complete the program, you get your payment returned.
During their stay in the village, the residents live communally, sharing living spaces and the duties of cooking, cleaning, and farming. All the farming is, of course, organic. The members are also expected to study ecology and spirituality and to practice meditation.
When I had the opportunity to visit one of their study rooms, I found the contents of their bookshelves to be quite fascinating. On the one side, they had ecological magazines and books on the topics of climate change, green technology, and sustainability, and on the other side, they had the classical Chinese texts of Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Chuang Tzu in addition to various Buddhist writings, both classical and modern.
I found this combination to be very insightful into their way of thinking in the eco-village. Not only do they want to learn about and practice living sustainably by producing their own food, living closer to nature, and minimizing their CO2 footprint, but they also seek to study and practice meditation and spirituality.
However, the eco-village didn't work for everyone: many left before they finished the two-year program, perhaps because the drastic lifestyle change was too much for them, or that communal living left too little room for individuality and personal space, or perhaps they just did not enjoy the rural life.
But it certainly worked for some. One woman told me of the stress and pressure she had felt from home since she did not conform to a traditional female role. However, by coming here and learning about and practicing meditation, she learned to overcome this stress and found peace and quiet.
Countryside dreams
The idea of escaping cities and retreating to villages is a big topic in China nowadays, and this is not only based on my own anecdotal experience but can be seen statistically as well. Eight eco-villages have been established in various provinces in China just this past decade, with the largest boasting 3,200 members.
The idea of fleeing the stressful life of the urban centers in favor of a down-to-earth, simpler life in the countryside is nothing new in China. The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring is a famous narrative poem written by the poet, bureaucrat-turned-recluse, Tao Yuanming, in 421 AD. It describes a veiled world of wonder, inhabited by people who live in a rural paradise and who know nothing of the outside world. The story encapsulates some ideals of what a good life is — something universally sought among humans.
Thus, this notion that paradise is not to be found in the cities but somewhere in the countryside is an ancient idea in China that is still very much alive in 2024, as it was in 421 AD.
Written by August Hagen, a 22-year-old Norwegian who is passionate about learning Chinese language and culture. He is currently studying for a master's degree in Chinese language and culture at Fudan University in Shanghai.
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The eco-village community described here is very much like the Israeli kibbutz or a hippie commune. When I was still single in the early 1970s, being a weekend hippie myself, I spent many weekends in the very rural area of Ontario east of Algonquin Park, called the KIllaloe area, where Canadian hippies mixed with American draft dodger hippies forming communes, living in old farmhouses and even in Buckminster Fuller geodesic domes and mostly living off the land (yes, many growing "that plant"). On one of my trips up there I saw a farm that was for sale because the owners were old and wanted to move into the local town.
Let me tell you about that farm, which I could have bought, but my life would have been very different had I done so. First of all, here is a photo of it, which I took of it from the entrance to the county gravel road, while standing beside the abandoned one-room brick schoolhouse that was part of the property.
It was 300 acres, made up of 200 forested acres, 65 acres cleared, a wholly enclosed (i.e. totally private) spring-fed clean 35 acre lake, a tight little bungalo farmhouse in good shape because it was still lived in, that had a drilled well and septic tank, indoor bathroom so it did not require an outhouse, a barn and a little fishing cabin down by the lake. I wondered why no wires led to the house and the owner told me that when the local municipality wanted to build the schoolhouse there the deal was they had to sweeten it by burying a cable and phone line to the bungalo. Can you see a little dot just above the trees horizon near the centre of the picture? It's a forest ranger tower, used for sighting forest fires. The cost? The owners wanted $30,000. and were willing to take back most of it, $25,000. as a mortgage because they wanted the monthly payment income. Can you believe what a deal that could have been? I thought I could get by with a local small law practice, preparing wills for food products like eggs or butchered chicken or cuts of meat or fruit, grow my own vegetables, and there were lots of fish in the lake - what a different kind of life it would have been had I chosen to do it.
Later on I realized what more I could have done there. I was very much involved in folk music, a director of the Mariposa Folk Festival and having attended the small family Beers Family Fox Hollow Festival in upstate New York, camping there in my "snoring tomato" little pop-up red tent, what a spot this would be for a similar small Folk Festival. A stage could be set up down by the lake and people could sit on the hillside leading down to it, power could be fed from the schoolhouse, where there were washrooms in the basement, and people could camp or sleep in the barn. It's fun to have a "pipe dream" about it.
But my life is very very different than it could have been and I think I made the right choice.
It takes all kinds, as they say. I am happy for those who choose to live a bucolic life, but its not for me.
It takes all kinds to make up this world, and at the time a bucolic life style was attractive to me - quite a contrast from big city life and the stress of a busy law practice. But these days I do what's best for me and because of my age it's best to be close to all the needs that my wife and I have, including a small clinic next door and a good hospital a short taxi ride away.