Y: 杨锐，中央电视台国际频道《今日话题》英语节目主持人
Z: 周树春，新华社国际问题研究中心高级研究员

Y:   In this edition of "Dialogue" we are going to talk about Lu Xun in commemoration of his 120th anniversary. Mr. Zhou Shuchun from Xin Hua News Agency will share his thoughts with us today. Welcome.

Y:  Back in Yan'an in 1937, Chairman Mao praised Lu Xun immensely and held him in great reverence.1 How would you comment on this?

Z:  It's true that late Chairman Mao spoke highly of Lu Xun. He regarded Lu Xun as the number one saint of modern China like Confucius in feudal China.2 I think Lu Xun had something in common with Chairman Mao. First, it's generally believed that Lu Xun's ultimate wish was to overthrow old China along with its establishments and its institutions.3 And that was what Mao and his comrades were doing at the time. The only difference is that Mao mostly fought with guns and Lu Xun with his pen. Secondly, despite the fact that he was one of the leftist writers, the more relevant fact is that Lu Xun was the spokesman of the weak and the oppressed and that's where the Communist Party had their roots and basis. So it's a kind of common goal for Mao and Lu Xun to liberate the weak and the oppressed.

Y:  In fact, Lu Xun was hailed as a national hero, which is an unusual status for a writer.

Z: Yes. You know, the day Lu Xun died, in 1936, thousands and thousands of people in Shanghai gathered to mourn and bid farewell to this giant. His body was covered with a huge flag bearing the words that read "Soul of the Nation." That's the status. And the status remains as such that his position as a great thinker in modern China is considered unshakable. As Yu Dafu（郁达夫） said in the last century, if one wants to learn about the national character of China, there is no better way or shortcut than to read Lu Xun. Well, that's the idea that he is the soul of the nation. He is one of the few who best understood China and its people of his times.  He made it a career for himself to study the conditions of what you may call "the Chinese Patient," to examine with a microscope the ailments and ugly or sickening aspects of the national character. And there he magnified what he found in front of the eyes of the people. So people would be better aware of the ugly aspects of the national character.

Y:  What ugly aspects is he most critical about?

Z:  Well, he is critical about many things and it's very hard to generalize. But as his works show, he is very much critical of hypocrisy, of being a liar, of saying one thing but meaning another.

Y:  A Madman's Diary（《狂人日记》）is an example, isn't it? I remember Lu Xun relentlessly condemned the hypocrisy of the feudal culture in that masterpiece.

Z:  Right. Lu Xun voiced his loudest denunciation of the old world through the diarist.4 As he wrote between the lines of the history he came to see only two words, that is, "eating people." And in a different piece of writing he said that the old culture in China was nothing but a huge banquet of human flesh where people eat people. He said that in old China the Chinese had never won the status of being human beings; they were but slaves.

Y:  Why did Lu Xun show his concern for the Chinese nation in such a critical manner?

Z:  Lu Xun's times were characterized by two major events. One is the 1911 Revolution and the other is the May-Fourth or New Culture Movement.（五四运动或新文化运动） Before the 1911 Revolution, new ideas were beginning to be introduced into China and attempts were being made to reform the country. But such efforts hardly got anywhere. Then, after the 1911 Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen（孙中山） which toppled the Qing Dynasty-the last of the feudal society, people with wisdom and foresight came to realize that China as a nation was not really much nearer to real democracy, real independence, real peace or prosperity. So during the New Culture Movement, leading intellectuals in China came to agree that the most important task at hand was to enlighten and emancipate5 the mind of the general public. So, as far as Lu Xun was concerned, he focused on what he considered the root of the problems, that is, the character of the nation as a whole.  He believed it was depressed or distorted by the old culture. That's probably why he is so violently critical of the old establishments.

Y: One part of the New Culture Movement is about learning from the West. Did Lu Xun do much in this respect?

Z: An underlying purpose of Lu Xun's attack of the old culture is to open people's eyes to the outside world. Throughout his life Lu Xun stressed the importance of understanding the trends of development in the world. Actually his own exposure to Western culture made him realize that it was crucially important to get rid of the shackles6 of the feudal society.

《英语学习》2002年第1期（J-04）