Lu Xun (1881-1936) was a Chinese writer, thinker and revolutionary. He was born on September 5, 1881 in Shaoxing in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Lu Xun went to Japan in 1902 to study medical science. He gave up on what he had learned and instead taught in Hangzhou and Shaoxing after he came back from Japan in 1909. He worked in the Nanjing interim government after the Revolution of 1911 which was led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and overthrew the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). He then worked in the Ministry of Education in Beijing.
In May 1918 Lu Xun began to write and publish novels like Diary of a Madman, The True Story of Ah Q and Kong Yiji. In 920 he started to teach in the Peking University and the Peking Senior Normal School.
In 1927 he settled in Shanghai. During this period he published nine collections of essays and a collection of short stories entitled Old Tales Retold. He also edited and translated foreign works on art and literature.
In 1930 Lu Xun set up the League of Leftist Writers which he led.
Lu Xun first lived at Jingyunli in Hengbin Road of Hongkou District. He moved on to No. 9 New Continental Village, Shanyin Road. This was Lu's last residence in Shanghai. The red brick and tile house is a three-story building with a floor space of 222.72 square meters.
The front area of the first floor is a reception room and the back a dining room. The second floor was Lu's bedroom and study. Lu's personal belongings like his bed, chest of drawers, tea table, two cane chairs, mirror and table are all placed where they were during his life. A clock on the table reads 5.25 PM showing the time when Lu Xun passed away on October 19, 1936. The third floor was occupied by his son.
When Lu Xun lived in Jingyunli he frequently went to a Japanese Uchiyama bookstore and made friends with the owner, Kanza Uchiyama. Many Chinese and foreigners in cultural circles gathered there and the bookstore became one of the major venues for cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.
Lu also had very friendly relationships with Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), one of the leaders of the Communist Party of China in its early years. Lu spent his last days translating Qu's Collected Narrations Written at Sea (Haishang Shulin) after the author was killed by the Koumintang government on June 18, 1935. He was seriously ill and weighed only 37 kilograms. On October 19, 1936, he died at home, aged 56.
Details：
Add: No.9 of 132 Shanyin Road, Hongkou District;
Entry ticket: 8 yuan;
Opening hours: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM;
Traffic: Bus No.s18, 21, 139, 47, 70, 97 and 23;
Tel: 800-620-0888, or 021-5302 0661.
(China.org.cn May 26, 2006)
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