The Chen Clan Museum 3—Ah Q And Other Stories 1
Lu Xun is widely considered to be the father of modern Chinese literature. He was writing between roughly 1920 and 1940, during a turbulent period in the history of China. I had the extreme pleasure of stumbling onto a group of vivid sculptures showing some of the characters from his stories in a little garden behind the buildings of the Chen Clan Museum. Enjoy!
Ah Q is the central character in Lu Xun's famous work The True Story of Ah Q. The story describes the life of a peasant during the revolutionary period in China. Here is Ah Q.
This quote, "I haven't much as it is," comes from Lu Xun's famous story "Kung I-chi," which describes some events in the life of Kung I-chi, a poor man who worked only when he had to and stole as he needed to. He would enter a wine shop in Luchen, order some peas, and sometimes give one apiece to children who begged him. When they begged for more, he would shrug and say, "I haven't much as it is." The picture below shows three children begging for a second round of peas.
Among other things, these sculptures give a sense of the ragged clothes that Kung I-chi wore. They sometimes appears not to have been washed in ten years.
"Evenly matched antagonists," from Ah Q.
Ah Q believed that all Catholic monks and nuns were involved with one another. One day when he was in a bad mood, a nun with a freshly shaved head walk by. He went up to her and tried to rub her smooth head. She challenged him, and he replied, "If the monk paws you, why can't I?" From The True Story of Ah Q.
A close-up of Ah Q.
Ah Q and some villagers.
The villagers.