Opening the door of Lu Xun's Former Residence: Touching the "Human World" Beyond the Words

There's no need to mention the mulberries in Baicao Garden, nor the "Good Morning" character on the desk—stepping into Lu Xun's former residence, you will discover the man beyond the textbooks, hidden in a more vivid daily life.

This old house at Dongchangfangkou in Shaoxing, with its blue tiles and white walls, is soaked in the dampness of Jiangnan. Opening the black lacquered bamboo door, the first thing that catches your eye is the stone path in the courtyard, polished shiny by a hundred years of footsteps. The small room on the right is the study of young Zhou Shuren; the wooden lattice window lets in scattered daylight, and the inkstone on the desk seems to still hold traces of wet ink. The fierce warrior in the textbooks also once copied the Thousand Character Classic here, stroke by stroke. The "Good Morning" character at the corner of the desk was originally carved out of a boy’s worry about being late.

Passing through the main hall, the backyard is the Baicao Garden from the textbooks. It is not as spacious as imagined—just a few vegetable plots, a withered vine trellis, and a smooth stone well curb in the corner. By late spring, raspberries should be turning red, and in summer, cicadas should be singing over the low walls. Lu Xun once pulled out Polygonum multiflorum here and followed adults to look for crickets in the mud. The ordinary backyard of a Jiangnan family has become a spiritual landmark for generations because of that piece of writing.

Next to the former residence is the old main gate of the Zhou family, displaying old items from Lu Xun’s family. Faded blue cloth long gowns, yellowed thread-bound books, and a compass he used while studying in Nanjing. These objects quietly tell us: he was not just a symbol in textbooks, but once a boy in a long gown, a student studying hard under the lamp, an ordinary person growing up amidst the human world.

There’s no need to carry the heaviness of pilgrimage; just think of it as visiting an old friend’s old home. Seeing the rooms he lived in, walking the paths he walked, you might better understand: behind those sharp words lies the deepest love for this land.

Post by Lucas34 Ward - Luke | Jul 17, 2025