Andrew, I do not know what the words ontological or exegesis mean. I suspect I do not understand these words because, when it comes down to it, I am a poorly educated American. I never heard these words spoken in conversation, and my readings and vocabulary tend to revolve around things that I am interested in (video games, movies, new business ideas, hot women other than my wife).

My memory for details is not that good…it has been a long long time since I tried to read AhQ…and since then I have lost my Chinese reading ability. But I think there are some things about LuXun that your readers may want to know. He is regarded as one the greatest of Chinese authors. That is partly because he was a reformer and social critic respected by the Communist Party. But more importantly, he wrote in a very “vernacular” style. He wrote sentences in a way that would make sense to common people if read aloud. Before him, most Chinese books were not written in this way. Note that Chinese writing is ideographic – characters are essentially pictures with no inherent sound. So a lot of Chinese literature was – how should I say it? Non-verbal. People had to know many characters (there are thousands), and writing rarely had a narrative voice. Hence, LuXun is considered one of the first “modern” Chinese authors

I cannot say he was the first to write in a vernacular style, but he was certainly the most influential. I have heard that he incorporated grammar, style, and structure from both English and Japanese authors. Modern Chinese grammar was more or less “standardized” around the style that LuXun used in his writings. In a sense, LuXun is credited for bringing Chinese writing into the Modern era.

For years, Lu Xun's position has been my default position on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

As anyone who has lived or worked for an extended period in China knows, having a "position" on TCM is pretty much mandatory.

To put it simply, Lu Xun absolutely hated TCM. He thought it was utter nonsense, practiced by evil con artists.

So my reply to the inevitable "So what do you think of TCM?" question that every long-term China expat gets sick of is the simple "I think of it exactly what Lu Xun thought of it."

It's an excellent answer for a couple of reasons, not least of which is that most Chinese are actually pretty unfamiliar with the breadth of topics on which Lu Xun wrote. Sort of like western high school students knowing about Macbeth and Midsummer Night's Dream, and not the sonnets... And in China, sometimes no answer is better than any other answer!

But the real modern beauty of Lu Xun is not his position on any one issue or other. The beauty of Lu Xun is that the Chinese Communist Party, having so extravagantly embraced him in times past, now cannot disown him, regardless of how divergent many of his views are from current doctrine (Japan "not different"! Unthinkable! TCM not "An ancient and effective system (and really really profitable!)" Nooo!)

He is also, as Andrew said, a world-class master of irony, sarcasm, and black, black wit.

Do yourself a favour sometime and pick up Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk, or indeed any other of his excellent collections.