According to Shu Yi, his father Lao She "was the friend of all ordinary people."
Lao She's literary pursuits also attest to this observation.
Few Chinese writers have captured the spirit and struggles of ordinary Chinese people on the lower rungs of society with more sympathy and more perception than Lao She. His most deeply loved works are also those featuring the lives of common people, such as Rickshaw Boy (Luotuo Xiangzi) (1936), Yellow Storm (Sishi Tongtang) (1950), and Teahouse (Chaguan) (1957).
In 1951, the Beijing municipal government granted Lao She the special title of "artist of the people."
Since then, the title has accompanied the Chinese people's memory of this great writer.
His appeal also lies in his unparalleled scrutiny of Beijing's culture in a period of transition. He treated its excesses with both sarcasm and affection.
His works give such a panoramic description of the tapestry of Beijing culture that his name has almost become a hallmark of the city.
Born in 1899, Lao She was the youngest child of a poor Manchu family in Beijing.
He was born when "the God of the Stove was leaving for heaven" to report the business of the household he had supervised during the year, and the Spring Festival was only days away.
So his parents named him Shu Qingchun, which means celebrating the spring.
Before Lao She was even 2-year-old, his father, a soldier serving in the palace guard with a meagre salary, was killed. He died in a street battle against the allied forces of the eight Western powers when they raided Beijing in 1900 under the pretence of "suppressing the Boxer Uprising."
The Shu family shared a residential compound with the working-class people of downtown Beijing. Lao She's memory of his childhood and teenage years was both bitter and full of warmth.
His family lived in dire conditions which Lao She wrote about in the unfinished autobiographical novel Beneath the Red Banner (Zhenghongqi Xia): "I need only mention one thing; every time there was a thunderstorm on a summer night, we had to sit until daybreak, lest the dilapidated roof collapsed and buried all of us."
It was his mother's fortitude and backbreaking labor that pulled the family through. Lao She was full of gratitude and affection for his mother throughout his life.
Lao She became the headmaster of a primary school immediately after he graduated from Beijing Normal School at 17.
From his mother, who he described as the "teacher of my character," he also inherited the distinctive traits highlighted during some of the most significant incidents in his life.
Like his mother, he cultivated what scholars call a gentle, peaceful, sometimes timid attitude towards the world, which was typical of the underprivileged and kind-hearted lower-class natives of the capital.
"However, just like my mother, when there is no better alternative, I dare not withdraw anymore, and must make myself available to answer whatever responsibility is incumbent on me," Lao She said.
Such was the case when he was elected president of the Chinese National Federation of Anti-Japanese Writers and Artists when the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out in 1937.
At first, Lao She declined the nomination firmly. He pleaded that he "dreaded meeting strangers, carrying out practical business, and being the focus of the public."
But when he saw there were no other suitable candidates, he stepped out and shouldered the responsibility with all the energy and dedication in the world.
Lao She also inherited an unbending spirit and an unyielding temper from his mother.
"I can make do with anything and put up with anything, provided it does not go beyond my settled principles," he said in Beneath the Red Banner.
His death in 1966 showed the importance he placed on his principles.
It happened at the very beginning of the "cultural revolution." The day before his death, Lao She was savagely beaten, along with a dozen other then-famous cultural figures, by the Red Guards, a fanatical organization of middle school students.
The next morning he quietly left home without giving his family cause for alarm. The last words he said were to his 3-year-old granddaughter: "Say goodbye to your grandpa."
By the pond in desolate Taipinghu Park where he committed suicide, he was seen sitting on a bench all day long.
The park is not far from his mother's last residence before she died.
It is said that Lao She must have recalled his mother's struggle to maintain dignity in her family's life. Before he walked into the water, he carefully hung his coat on a tree and left his ID in its pocket.
Just as Ba Jin, another monumental figure of modern Chinese literature, said: "Lao She's death is the protest of a people of courage."
(China Daily February 11, 2004)
