In Shaoxing, China's most celebrated modern writer Lu Xun has undergone a remarkable transformation from fiery critic to Communist Party mascot. The once-coruscating opponent of traditional Confucian culture and Chinese despots now appears as a Disney-style cartoon character, with fiberglass dolls dotting the streets around his childhood home. This repackaging reflects Beijing's effort to sanitize historical figures to serve contemporary political narratives.

The literary giant who authored "Diary of a Madman" and criticized China's 4,000-year history as encouraging cannibalism now represents national pride. His works have been pruned from school curricula, with critical essays like "In Memory of Miss Liu Hezhen" - which mourned a student protester killed by government troops - disappeared entirely. Mao himself reportedly acknowledged Lu Xun would have been silenced or jailed had he lived to see the Communist victory.

Lu Xun's grandson dismissed this political co-optation as a "serious misreading" of his grandfather's works. The writer who never joined the Communist Party and rejected Marxism has become a case study in historical revisionism. His image as a "diligent and reflective learner" at his childhood school stands in stark contrast to his actual description of the institution as a place so tedious he wished his teacher would "fall ill and — ideally — die."