part, for better or for worse, in the unceasing drama of humanity.
Lusin's real name was Chou Shu-jen.[1] He was born on September 25, 1881, in Shao-hsing (the "city of S" in several of his stories), Chekiang province. At the time, China was very much as it had always been, self-satisfied and unwilling to learn in spite of the shocking revelations of the country's weakness in the debacles of Opium War in 1841 and the Anglo-French occupation of Peking in 1860. Attempts at reform along Western lines were sporadic and halfhearted: for example, in 1876 China sent abroad the first group of students to study Western methods of war and technology; at home, that same year, she reclaimed and destroyed a product of Western engineering—the country's first railroad, a ten-mile stretch between Shanghai and Woosung that had been built by British concessionaires. Throughout these years the country as a whole was as complacent as if nothing had happened; the Chinese took comfort in the Ah Q-ish delusion that though China was defeated in war she was nevertheless superior to the barbarians from the West and that in the end the superiority of her civilization would enable her to prevail by her famous process of assimilation.
Lusin belonged, therefore, to the older generation. During his early years, his family was well-to-do and he was prepared for the examinations as were most young men in similar circumstances. Family reverses, however, made it necessary for him to seek admission into one of those much despised
- ↑ Lusin is also given as Lu Hsin or Lu Hsün. The last is the correct rendering as far as the Wade system of transliteration is concerned, but the first is more pronounceable for English readers and was the author's own choice. For a more detailed account of Lusin's life see Wang, "Lusin: a Chronological Record," in China Institute Bulletin, Jan., 1939.
