World Cruise, 1932–3: IV

From ‘Lusin looks at Bernard Shaw’, trans. from the Chinese version of Hsiu Hsia by Martin R. Ring, Shaw Bulletin, November 1956; first published in Japanese in Kaizo, April 1933. Lu Hsun was the pen name of Chou Shu-jen (1881–1936), author and social critic, who came to be regarded as China’s leading literary figure. He had lived in Japan from 1902 to 1909, he knew Russian and he had read a good deal of western literature in translation. Fiercely opposed to the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-Shek, he became sympathetic to the Communists c. 1930. On 16 February 1933 he received a telegrammed request from a Japanese literary group to cover Shaw’s visit to Shanghai the following day. He was unable to locate his quarry until the afternoon, when he was told that Shaw was with the widow of the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen (1867–1925).