Civic Joy

Lu Xun Park is a memorial to the revered Chinese scholar writer Lu Xun (1881-1936). He is celebrated for his powerful diagnoses of China's social and political crisis. The park has a museum which illustrates the massive contribution he made to Chinese literature and thinking. The surrounding park continues to be a place of cultural celebration in which one may find about 20 different groups singing and dancing. During our recent visit, we enjoyed some rich communal folk chorale, Chinese folk and modern karaoke groups, a ladies drum troupe and this particularly rousing and energetic group singing and dancing with gusto at the centre of the park. They were accompanied by the tambourine, wooden stick on large plastic water canister and home-made tianqin, single stick, string and bow ‘seated’ in a tin can.