A Literary Giant: Lu Xun

Uchiyama was Lu Xun's Japanese pal and the former then ran a bookstore, now a bank at Hongkou. Picture on right shows Uchiyama was also permanently frozen into the history of Duolun Road, the place where Chinese leftist writers then was active and now upgraded into a cultural street.

The 18.15m tall Xi-shi Bell Tower. The name of the tower is derived from another Lu Xun's famous novel Morning Flowers Gathered in the Evening.

The tiles for butterfly eaves and the typical Shanghai housing with stone framed doorways.

Hybridized architectural design of Chinese and Western influence, the church is capped with Chinese roof but medieval superstructure.

A villa subdivided into multi-family use and in organization unlike the mass housing as shown below.

With his unmistakable trademark mustache (Chaplin, eat your heart out!), Lu Xun (pron. Loo-She-in) has now passed on for 70 years since Oct. 19th, 1936. He was a leftist writer and he was only 56. He is now THE Mr. Lu. Though never the Beatle mania frenzy of 1960s (out-right poor use of analogy, Jeremy!), an estimated 20,000 mourners from the social elite as well as the nether regions had attended the solemn and grieving funeral, and the procession lasted for two hours and for several miles. This week, very few highly publicized formal activities including the literary circles themselves are seen here to rap his lifetime achievement in literary contribution as well as others, a rather settled delivery to remember his life moments.

In fact, Lu Xun is his pen name. Lu Xun's legacy lives on in China, perhaps, for the rest of the world. He is famed for his poetic line – in unbending eyebrows coldly facing thousands of pointing fingers, and would rather stoop like a calf. Well, what does this mean? Let me flex my skill in explication, and pardon me if it's not crisply explained. This is the story - in the pastoral landscape that still can be found in outlying areas, there was a kind of playful games where an adult would dress up as an ox to wow the feisty kids, as the calves. The poetic line was such that a righteous person is walking tall, serving people and peoples, and against all odds. A few of his cornerstone novels such as Scream, The Diary of a Wild Man and Mr. Q, to name a few, in turn, aggregately serve to define Lu Xun himself as a thinker. I'd rather let you explicate your personal understanding of the mentioned line and the rest.

Lu Xun has indelibly dented his presence in Shanghai, though not born but died here. He lived around the current day Hongkou District, nearby Duolun Road or Hongkou Stadium. A relatively large green park over there is named after him, the Lu Xun Park – for his connection to history of Shanghai and China, considering his thinking had influenced much of his contemporaries and the later generations.

Here's one of Lu Xun's parables: A bat attempts to join the animals but rejected for the bat has wings. The bat tries luck to join in the birds but also not received for the bat has four limbs. Yet, you and me - four limbs and without wings. Catch the drift? Let me know.


Jeremy
Shanghai, October 20th, 2006