Lu Xun's spirit carried on
Updated: 2011-09-23 16:02
By Mei Jia (chinadaily.com.cn)
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Reading Lu Xun's work is part of the collective memories of generations of Chinese.
That's why news headlines of a so-called Lu Xun retreat hit so many hearts, caused a big stir and became a hot topic.
On the 130th anniversary of his birth on September 25 this year, China Daily found out Lu Xun has not been withdrawn from the teaching curriculum, and his legacy is to be carried on.
"Lu Xun knows about the Chinese people. Though nearly a century has past from the time he wrote, his works still are relevant," says Li Shi, Chinese teacher of 26 years, teaching experience at a high school in Chengdu, Sichuan province.
"I feel lucky to have Lu Xun's works kept in the new textbook in use from 2010. Actually I think he can't retreat, but to stay on the stand guard for the young people," Li says.
Lu Xun's works including essays, short stories and poems have been in textbooks for Chinese classes. Most provinces nationwide had been using the same textbooks until 2004, when a gradually increasing reform on textbooks and teaching of senior high began.
Using Lu Xun's works, high school teachers usually spend several lectures to focus on a single text and its relevant background and others. Students extensively study for tests based on his works. Outside of class, students even joke with each other by calling others after names from Lu Xun works. Ah Q, Aunt Xianglin and Kong Yiji are names to be remembered after graduation, even when memories on school days faded.
As the reform began in the earliest provinces (Guangdong in 2004), and extended to more provinces (like Sichuan and Qinghai in 2010), the news of the Lu Xun retreat has turned out to be an exaggerative, eye-catching "headline" alone, but not a reality.
The reform allows different regions to apply different versions of textbooks from several publishers, replacing the formerly unified one. It also divides the teaching section (including textbooks) into two parts: compulsory and optional.
The so-called "withdrawing" means that different versions of textbooks have varied selections of Lu Xun's works, among which some of the formerly "all compulsory ones" have been turned into optional sections.
Xu Mei, spokeswoman of the Ministry of Education, confirmed in a May press conference that in all the six commonly used versions of Chinese textbooks, Lu Xun's works have not been withdrawn and changes are slight.
The one on memorizing Liu Hezhen is still there, and in two of the six versions. Some others have included new selections that previously did not appear in textbooks, like Casting the Sword, a short story based on old tales, hailed by some as one of Lu Xun's best. However, the short story The Real Story of Ah-Q has been withdrawn.
In some schools, like in the high school affiliated with Beijing Normal University in Beijing and in schools in Jiangsu province, teachers even give a optional class called "Selected Reading on Lu Xun's Works", offering chances of months' close examination on more works by the master.
Teacher Li says she played the movie adaptation (a version featuring Bai Yang) to go with the teaching of New Year's Sacrifice (Zhufu).
"Unlike in other situations that the students may break into laughers on irrelevant details, I saw them show strong emotion when watching," she says.
Her student Dai Anmei, 16, said she and classmates were too taken by the sad and powerful emotions that they came to the realization that “valuing the life we have and respecting the progress the country has made”.
"People of my age might be innately prone to read and learn about happy things," Dai addsed. "The tragedy Lu Xun depicts and the sense of historical mission on us generation arrived with that have brought breathless heaviness on me."
"I support Lu Xun's works to stay in the textbooks: being a Chinese, you need to know about your own past," she said.