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Lu Xun, Father of Modern Chinese Literature
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Click Here for Luxun Memorial Hall

Beside Xiamen University’s Anthropology Museum (China's 1st!) is a statue of Lu Xun (1881-1936), author of “True Story of Ah Q” and other modern classics. Lu Xun (a pen name for Zhou Shuren, broke 5,015 years of literary tradition with his first story, “Madman’s Diary,” because he wrote in the language of the people—which is worlds apart from the hallowed written language that scholars had perfected over the centuries.

For over 2,000 years, any scholar worth his salt mastered the classics of Confucius and Laozi, and then wrote brilliant essays about the brilliant essays written by his forebears. The writing was stylistic and terse, and totally unlike oral Chinese, which like oral English is a living language, and changes constantly. So Lu Xun decided to write like people talk. It was a bold move—akin to Westerners’ translation of the Bible from dead Latin into common English. Fortunately, unlike Tyndale and Bible translators, Lu Xun wasn’t burned alive at the stake—but he did make a lot of enemies.

Lu Xun taught in Xiamen University the last few months of 1926, but he disliked the professors’ constant bickering and politicking (common on any campus, in China or elsewhere!). He wrote curt essays like “How to Write?” (Zenme Xie?) And having said his piece, and having disturbed what little peace the place had, he packed his bags and moved to Guangzhou in January, ‘27.
In “Old Tales Retold,” Lu Xun wrote,

“In some places the narrative is based on passages in old books, elsewhere I gave free reign to my imagination. And having less respect for the ancients than for my contemporaries, I have not always been able to avoid facetiousness.”