中央电视台国际频道的《今日话题》节目主要由海内外知名人士或专家学者就时事热点和典型的社会文化现象进行对话。我们的“对话”频道—Channel D栏目就是从该节目中撷取最精彩的片段进行加工整理，在浓缩其中智慧的同时也保持了其原本的口语特色，使你如同亲耳聆听他们的谈话。

　　逸云整理编写

　　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 in1937, Chairman Mao praised Lu Xun immensely and held him in great reverence.<注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.<注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.<注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'sswheresthe 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.<注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 fleshswherespeople 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 introducedsintosChina 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 emancipate<注5> 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 shackles<注6> of the feudal society.

　　Y: Many Chinese intellectuals joined the crusade against the feudal ideology, why did Lu Xun come to be considered so important and so special?

　　Z: I think there's a range of factors that made him outstanding. For one thing, there was no one like him who had spent a lifetime focus on a single battle, the battle against the old feudal traditions. And for another, no one could be compared with him in making literature or the pen such a powerful weapon to achieve that purpose. But above all, there is this great power or strength to his personality. As Xu Shouchang (许寿裳)，a very close friend of his, said, the power of Lu Xun is based on his personality, or the strength of his personality. Lu Xun's works are great because he's got a great personality, because he is a great man.

　　Y: Do you think Lu Xun felt lonely in those days?

　　Z: I think so. That's what usually happens to great personalities, isn't it? Being such a pungent critic, he was naturally subject to hostility. As a matter of fact, Lu Xun was the most vilified person in modern Chinese history.<注7>But like Engels's comment about Karl Marx, it's impossible for people who fight for a great cause to have personal enemies, for they have too many public enemies to have personal ones. The same thing can be said about Lu Xun.

　　Y: That probably explains why even those he criticized in those days could show great respect for him after he passed away.

　　Z: Yes, that's true. Lu Xun said, "It's true that I spend a lot of time examining and criticizing others but I spend more time examining myself." And he was aware of the fact that he could make people really angry. That's why he called himself an owl, the bird which predicts misfortunes and bad omen.

　　Y: What do you think would happen to Lu Xun if he were able to survive and live in those days during the Cultural Revolution?

　　Z: First of all, it's a different age and world after the founding of new China. However, feudal traditions and feudal ideas die hard.<注8> China experienced another cultural dark age in the 1960s. I think Lu Xun would be heart-broken to see that so much of what he was fighting against was back, like the deprivation of democracy and freedom of individuality. Secondly, I think he would remain out-spoken. As Chairman Mao said, Lu Xun had the hardest bone. He was the most brave, the most firm, and the most honest. It was not like Lu Xun who would stifle his mind and muffle his voice.<注9>And thirdly, I think he would be relieved to see another round of emancipation of the mind across the nation as the result of China's reform and opening up.

　　Y: Can you comment on the so-called "the Ah Q temperament?"

　　Z: Ah Q is an image of the typical victimized Chinese peasant in old society of China.<注10> The so-called spiritual victory is a kind of self-comfort or self-deception in the face of defeat and insult; it's a way to escape from realities of the world. For example, Ah Q was beaten up by someone, and he was not strong enough to fight back, so he cheated himselfsintosthinking that it was a case of the son beating his father. This way he felt better and even triumphant. When he tried to court<注11> Aunt Wu, he was turned down, so he comforted himself by saying that the woman had too big a pair of feet to be really beautiful, or to be worthy of his love. Even when he was going to be killed as a revolutionary, he still congratulated himself by saying that he would be reborn as a hero in 20 years time. Such mentality reminds us of the last days of Qing Dynasty when the rulers and the people continued to be blind to the fast changing world, to deceive themselves with falsely based arrogance. I remember Lu Xun said something like in China there was no personal arrogance, there was only collective arrogance.

　　Y: What do you think of Lu Xun's writing style?

　　Z: There's a saying—style is the man. Lu Xun's style is so unique and it's recognizable without his byline.<注12> Lu Xun is a fighter. Fighters use different weapons. For him, short stories and short essays are most effective. His style is often described in figurative terms like dagger, sword, spear or woodcutting—three inchessintosthe wood.<注13> In short, it cuts, it bites, it kills, and it hurts; it excites and it inspires. To use his own words, his writings were distilled from his blood and were the true voice of the awakened.

　　Y: Which is greater, Lu Xun the thinker or Lu Xun the writer?

　　Z: Lu Xun is widely considered the greatest writer in 20th century China and I think he remains one of the best writers of all times. But there's no doubt that he would not be a great writer without being a great thinker in the first place.

　　Y: What should we learn from Lu Xun today?

　　Z: Well, in a sense that's what we've been talking about. But I'd like to add two more points. Number one, it's crucially important for us to be closely connected with the changing world, to understand and to grasp trends of development of the whole world. And number two, which I think is more important, much of the legacy Lu Xun has left to us comes in the form of a mirror, and a mirror forever. To study Lu Xun is to understand ourselves. When we looksintosthis mirror, probably we would feel that Ah Q continues to live among us or inside us. And if we keep lookingsintosthis mirror, we would better understand who we are,swhereswe are from, andswhereswe are going.