"Big pot" - The Beginning and End of the Public Canteens

Author: Luo Pinghan
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Features: For thousands of years, Chinese farmers have been accustomed to a carefree lifestyle. Overnight, they were forced to eat in public canteens, which was indeed a major change in their way of life. However, there is no inherent connection between dining habits and social systems. Whether farmers ate at home or in public canteens was, at most, a matter of lifestyle. Yet, during the Party's "anti-rightist" campaign after the Lushan Conference, the issue of where to eat—a mere question of daily life—was elevated to the height of a struggle between two lines, with public canteens given the special significance of a "socialist stronghold." To insist on public canteens meant holding fast to the "socialist stronghold," while resisting them was seen as undermining socialism and attempting to take the capitalist road. As a result, the once-defunct public canteens were restored, and the country experienced a second wave of large-scale efforts to establish public canteens.