Yan’an: A New Potential for Society & Fighting the Japanese

It seems that many here in Yenan share my sentiment of disillusionment with the Nationalist Party’s response to the brutal Japanese invasions. I was concerned before that the Communists were not stable enough to counter the Japanese, but now I see that they are the party that truly wants to defend China. Papers I read on the way here detailed Chiang Kai-shek’s rationale for destroying the dikes along the Yellow River, saying it was to stop Japanese forces, but it only goes to show how little he cares for the Chinese people, or rather the peasants that died in the process. He is too much a coward to endure what he puts his people through.

The same cannot be said for Mao. It is odd to hear so much about a man in the news, then see him sitting in plainclothes with people from all walks of life here at Yenan. It is said that he spends much of his time in his cave reading, but he is measured yet jovial when interacting with those around the camp.

Although I enjoyed my time at university, there was something stifling about academia that I cannot say I feel here. Everyone is filled with such exuberance for learning, building, fighting, and you do not feel the weight of hierarchy or academic competition pressing down upon you. However, the response to my education was rather jarring; I was hounded by young men and women around my age when they saw me writing in the dirt. I heard about the difficult lives that they had led, much like my neighbors back home in the countryside surrounding Chengdu. I learned quickly that they equate things that require learning, money and status to be bourgeois and thus, evil. Although I don’t think such essentializing is fair, it is understandable coming from their situation, and I choose not to share about my experience in university for fear of being ostracized.

I have, however, been instructed to teach basic reading skills to people here. The students are both young and old, and although it is bizarre to be teaching in such an informal fashion, I believe that I understand now why people come here. It is a new society, mostly free from the constraints of the old. Even former Kuomintang fighters are here; one young man told me of how he has more to eat here and is treated with more respect and freedom than he did under the Nationalists. It is clear that the appeal of the CCP in Yan’an is not only political, but interpersonal and even individual; one can foster relationships and have such opportunities here. There is still headway to be made for the rights of women, as the local women in this region of Shensi seem to be living decades behind. I hear from some women, who were previously in the Jiangxi Soviet before the Long March, that many communist men seem to be dialing back their efforts for gender equity. Yet, there is still hope.