Lao She Anniversary 1 – His Courtyard Home

Like thousands of other intellectuals in China the great modernist writer Lao She experienced mistreatment in the Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s. Red Guards attacked him as a counterrevolutionary, paraded him through the streets and beat him in public. Greatly humiliated both mentally and physically Lao She committed suicide by drowning himself in Beijing’s Taiping Lake on 24th August 1966. His courtyard house in Beijing though stays as a monument to his life and work – the diary on his desk left open at 24/8/66 – however, the young students who work there on weekends steadfastly refuse to discuss the circumstances of his death, his persecution or his suicide. Apparently celebrating his work now is OK – remembering it was the zealots of the Chinese Communist Party who drove him to kill himself is, it seems, still verboten!

Lao She’s hutong – Fengfu Hutong

The entrance to Lao She’s courtyard

Lao She’s courtyard

his desk…

his living room…

and his writing desk with the 24/8/66 open at his desk diary…poignant but no discussion of the circumstances sadly…