Lifestyle of the privileged upper-class commies in a classless society: Animal Farm redux in Communist China

Organic vegetables grow behind a 6-foot fence at the Beijing Customs Administration Vegetable Base and Country Club. “Ordinary people can’t go in there,” a neighbor says. (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times / September 17, 2011)

September 16, 2011
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Beijing— At a glance, it is clear this is no run-of-the-mill farm: A 6-foot spiked fence hems the meticulously planted vegetables and security guards control a cantilevered gate that glides open only to select cars.

"It is for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don't sell to the public," said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. "Ordinary people can't go in there."

Until May, a sign inside the gate identified the property as the Beijing Customs Administration Vegetable Base and Country Club. The placard was removed after a Chinese reporter sneaked inside and published a story about the farm producing organic food so clean the cucumbers could be eaten directly from the vine.

Elsewhere in the world, this might be something to boast about. Not in China. Organic gardening here is a hush-hush affair in which the cleanest, safest products are largely channeled to the rich and politically connected.

Chinese waitress freed after killing official – and winning nationwide support [-A role model for Cambodian Beer Girls?]

Deng Yujiao (l.) exits a local court with her mother, in Badong County, central China's Hubei Province, on Tuesday. Deng, a Chinese karaoke bar waitress who became a folk hero after fatally stabbing a communist official who demanded sex, was freed Tuesday by a court that ruled she acted in self-defense. (Hao Tongqian/Xinhua/AP)

The trial of Deng Yujiao, who stabbed an official demanding sex, highlighted the power of the Internet to rally popular support.

June 16, 2009
By Peter Ford
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Beijing - A karaoke bar waitress who won nationwide sympathy and support after killing a local official who demanded sex was freed Tuesday by a Chinese court.

The surprise decision provided fresh evidence of the power of the Internet, where Deng Yujiao had become a popular heroine and a symbol of resistance to corrupt and licentious government officials.

"If the case had not attracted so much attention, the result would have been worse," says Lan Zhixue, a member of the legal team advising Ms. Deng.

Deng was found guilty of intentional injury and using excessive force, but was not punished because she was acting in self-defense, the state-run media reported after a two-hour hearing.

"The final judgment conformed to justice and to public opinion," says Wu Gan, an Internet activist who was among the first bloggers to bring the case to public attention. "This case has had a very positive outcome."

Deng had admitted stabbing Deng Guida (no relation) after he had insisted she have sex with him in the club where she worked. According to a local government account, he reportedly pushed her down onto a sofa twice when she refused, and slapped her across the face with a wad of banknotes as he demanded "special services."

The police, whom Ms. Deng called immediately to report the incident, initially took her to a mental hospital. Early reports from the police spokesman in Badong, Hubei Province, suggested that the young woman was a depressive who had lost control of herself during an argument with the victim.

Once details of her ordeal began to leak out, however, her case drew massive attention on Internet chat rooms and other online forums.

So fiercely did ordinary citizens, academics, lawyers, and women's groups express their solidarity with Ms. Deng that the authorities feared her case was becoming a focal point for public anger at Communist party officialdom, and banned media coverage on the eve of the sensitive June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Contradictory local police reports, however, only strengthened public suspicions that colleagues of Mr. Deng, who worked in the local government's business promotion office, were orchestrating a cover-up. Eventually the police allowed Ms. Deng to await her trial at home.

The outpouring of sympathy for Ms. Deng, and vitriolic attacks on her tormentor, echoed similar emotions expressed on the Internet last year during the trial of Yang Jia, who was executed after admitting to the murder of six policemen.

Mr. Yang said he killed them in revenge for torture he had suffered earlier at the hands of Shanghai police officers, and his plea of mitigating circumstances won widespread public support.