We had planned to visit the Beijing Museum about
the late LuXun on October 19, which coincidently is the 77th anniversary
of the death of LuXun. Originally from a town called
Shaoxing, LuXun was an incredibly influential person in Chinese
history. A mile marker in his life was when he was studying medicine
abroad in Japan. However, while there, he realized that the Chinese
were in greater need of spiritual healing, rather than physical healing. At
this time in his life, he decided to become a writer. Although he
was before the Cultural Revolution’s time, he still had a huge impact because
Mao Zedong had a high regard for him. I have only had brief exposure
to him, but after today and learning so much of his life; I am in awe of
him. He is best known in the world for his short stories, and they
are still read today.
Although well known in few countries, the impact
was huge. He was extremely concerned about the way China was headed
politically and thus wrote many commentaries on the government. The
Kuomintang party was in power before Mao Zedong seized power. They
murdered many people including his colleagues, and he too was forced into
hiding a number of times. However, the party knew that his influence
was very powerful. So powerful that it would have made a martyr out
of him, and to avoid the inevitable conflict, he was spared.
But this was just one of his many
accomplishments. He had many hobbies, and pretty much seemed like
the definition of a boss. He spoke about a bazillion different
languages, taught courses regarding botany and rock deposits at a
university. He was involved in many positions at various
universities including Xiamen University, and he was an accomplished in the
skill of woodcarving (these were about 3 feet by 4 feet); if you don’t believe
me, just look bellow the pictures. The exposure that I had prior to
visiting the museum was the book, “China in Ten Words,” by Yu
Hua. But one of the things that was most interesting to read about
LuXun. As my Trenton Laporte so delicately put it, “The most exciting thing wall to wall
was when I saw a picture of a woman, because I figured they were talking about
his love life. It was one of the main pulls.”
Also, we saw cats outside, and they were very
adorable if a little scruffy.
(This is the front of the museum)
(Isn't the cat cute?)
(This is one of the wood carvings we saw)
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