“In the Wineshop” Group Project Assignments

Individual Analysis- Abdulla Al Sudman

In The Wine Shop, by Lu Xun, is the text that I can relate to because when you’re born in a different country and then you move to another one as a child, going back you see everything in a different light. As a child, you think the place you were in is perfect and ideal, in every single way but once you go back that’s when you realize nowhere is perfect. You begin to see that the social norms have aged poorly and a certain style of thinking can be taken in an offensive manner. They may hold beliefs that you disagree with immensely and completely dumbfounded by, but that what comes with a traditional society. That’s their way of doing things and it has been done that way for a very long time, so change comes very slowly. Of course, you like to go back to that place because you love it and it’s a part of you so you could never let it go entirely, not that you would even want to. Although, you get a new perspective of where you came from. So when Lu Xun goes back and is completely surprised by how things have stayed the same but some things are bad, I completely get it. It’s your home so of course you care for it but doesn’t mean that you don’t expect more from it. Certain things need to change and so you would hope that would happen sooner than later. Furthermore, when a culture is blocked off from the rest of the countries, it stays the way it is much longer and consequentially, doesn’t grow as fast. It’s easy to judge another country for living their life in a reckless and uncivilized fashion but it’s hard to admit that the way that you live your own life could be seen in the exact same manner. This type of surprise about your own culture only comes up when you go far enough away from it to understand these flaws. The people that came from it don’t understand how they may seem to the outside world, but when you become the outside world, you get a great understanding of the potential of the place you came from. And that’s what Lu Xun wanted to express.

Individual Analysis- Yanyan Chen

Reading Lu Xun is compulsory for me even I was only in the first grade of middle school. Lu Xun is hard to understand since his meaning is always beyond the text, requiring lots of knowledge in history, imagination and empathy. I remember that my middle school teacher spent a whole week in teaching us to analyze his single text Kong Yiji. I also remember that I only got 30% of the total points in a test about Lu Xun.

So, come back to the connection between In the Wine Shop and the world, I really appreciate Lu Xun’s attitude towards the life. Late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was undoubtedly the darkest period for China, but it was also a time full of hope, revolution, changes and great literatures. In fact, teenagers took on the responsibility of saving the country in old days by writing and spreading new ideas. It’s a prosperous time of novel ideas compared to China today. Arrogant people and governors in the Qing dynasty finally finds out that China has already been behind the development of the world for a long time and the country is too weak to defend itself from invasions. Thus, criticizing the government and generating suggestions is pretty popular at then. Lu Xun says, “May the Chinese youth don’t care about the cold look and just go up, not listening to the words from depressive people. If you can do things, then do things; if you can speak out, then speak out. Generate a little heat, emit a little light, like a firefly flickering in the dark. There is no need to wait for the torch. If there is no torch, then I am the only light.” (I just translate this part myself, because I didn’t find the English version on Google. I apologize for that if I have made any mistakes in translation.) Yes, of course, Lu Xun is not an optimistic person, rather, he is a pessimistic writer. But pessimistic doesn’t mean passive. Pessimistic is the highest status of positive from my understanding. He is pessimistic about China’s future because he knows how lagging we were, how corrupt we are. But he activity participates in the revolution and writing criticizing essays. Even there is no torch, he is willing to be “the only light” in the darkness. Perhaps that’s why he can write such great works.

Individual Analysis- Kevin Chen

Lu Xun’s “In the Wineshop”, reminds me of my early youth and the unattainable dreams that I once had. We all had a dream in our youth, only to realize how ludicrous they’re as we grew older. In Lu Xun’s “In the Wineshop”, the character Weifu shared a dream with the narrator of revolutionizing China when they’re still young and naïve, only realizing how unattainable it is growing up. The narrator’s encounter with Weifu in the wine shop is very significant because it marks both the beginning and the end of their dreams.

At early youth, my parents had always been preoccupied by work, my sole companion is the TV set I have lying in the corner of my bed. I was so fascinated by the world it introduced, that I tend to fantasize about myself as the protagonist of the show. As a child, I was very immature and resorted to violence when I failed to get my ways. I still recall having my mother come and pick me up often from school because I injured someone from my class again. I was very egocentric at that time, and I didn’t experience any remorse for my actions.

It wasn’t until I gained a broader scope of this world did the fire inside me eventually died down. I became the person I despise the most and developed a case of introvertism. I was very socially active in the past and now I get anxious just thinking about interacting with others. My past reminds me of the character Weifu, who is now “willing to let things slide and to compromise”. Perhaps it’s the realization of how insignificant we’re compared to the entire world that our blood runs cold. I am much like Weifu, we’re similar, yet different. I am still young, the fire inside me had diminished but not fully exhausted.

Life is full of surprises like Weifu once said “Has any single thing turned out as we hoped of all we planned in the past?” We cannot guarantee our success, but we can guarantee our failure. We cannot succeed without trying, at least there is hope if we do.

In the Wineshop Presentation Link