Shaoxing is an ancient city with a history of more than 2,400 years. Encompassing 7,950 square kilometres the city has a population of 4.32 million. It boasts over 4,000 bridges, which are unmatched anywhere else throughout China. Within its boundary there are many rivers, big and small, totalling more than 1,900, and it has been regarded as a famous water town in South China. Its industries include light textiles, iron and steel, machinery, building material and brewery.

Shaoxing Wine

Shaoxing Wine has a history of over 2,000 years and has been known for its flavour and golden colour. The wine is one of the best and mildest intoxicants made from rice. It is processed at a low temperature using prolonged fermentation. In 1920s and 1930s, Shaoxing Wine won several gold medals in international fairs.

In 1956, there were in Shaoxing more than 700 private distilleries that were merged into 4 wine factories. The traditional quality was preserved, modem technology being introduced. The output was increased and quality improved. In 2000, total production of Shaoxing Wine chalked up to 50,000 tons, of which 8,000 tons were exported. As increasing demand exceeds supply, new mechanized workshops have been built in order to double its output.

Many stories are still told about Shaoxing Wine across the nation. In 353, during the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the local county official and famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi (321-379) invited 41 well known scholars to Lanzhu Hill outside Shaoxing city, East China's Zhejiang Province, for a religious service. After the ceremony, he asked the guests to take a rest on the banks of a winding stream and let a cup filled with wine to drift with current. If the cup stopped or turned, the person nearest to it had to compose a poem or drink three cups of wine. Thirty-seven poems were written during the gathering. Drunk but elated, Wang Xizhi wrote a preface for them on a silk paper with a brush made of mouse whiskers. His running hands have been considered to be one of the best ever seen.

Shaoxing Wine is produced in the town of the same name in Zhejiang Province. It won two gold medals in international competitions in 1985-one in Paris, France; the other in Madrid, Spain. The output of Shaoxing Rice Wine reached nearly 100,000 tons in 2003.

The Orchid Pavilion

Located at the foot of the Lanzhu Hill 12 kilometres from the city of Shaoxing, the Orchid (Cymbidium) Pavilion and the garden were moved here and rebuilt in 1548 in the Ming Dynasty. It got its thorough renovation in 1980. It used to be the place where Goujian, King Yue (?-465 BC, reigned 497465 BC during the late Spring and Autumn period) planted orchids; while in the Han Dynasty a post pavilion was erected here, hence the name. In the East Jin Dynasty (317-420) it was the place where Wang Xizhi (321-379 or 303-361), the great calligrapher of the East Jin Dynasty met with his friends for a romatically poetic experience. Now it has become a Mecca for both Chinese and overseas calligraphers. Wang Xizhi was known as the "sage of calligraphy" in ancient China and was particularly good at xingshu (running hand) and caoshu (cursive hand).

Lu Xun Former Residence

This is an ordinary house, the former residence of Lu Xun. He was born in 1881 and lived in this house until 1899. Between 1910 and 1912 Lu Xun returned home and taught in Shaoxing High School and Shanhu Normal School. Many of the exhibits are originals. Hundred Grass Garden is in the rear of the house, where Lu Xun spent his childhood. Located east of his former residene is called Sanweishuwu where he studied.

Lu Xun (1881-1936) was a great modem Chinese writer, thinker, and revolutionary. The late Chairman Mao Zedong paid Lu Xun this tribute: "the chief commander of China's cultural revolution, he was not only a great man of letters, but a great thinker, and revolutionary." Born in Zhejiang Province in 1881, he went to Japan in 1902 to study medicine but eager to change the spirit of the Chinese people until 1909 , he decided to become a writer. He tried to arouse his fellow-countrymen to make China strong. Literature was to be his means. During the polemics for 1905 to 1907 between the revolutionaries headed by Dr Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) and reformers led by Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929), Lu Xun supported firmly Dr Sun Yat-sen. Lu Xun returned to China in 1909 and started teaching first in Hangzhou and then in Shaoxing. Soon the bourgeois revolution of 1911, led by Dr Sun Yat-sen, broke out. He welcomed the new republic with great hope and in 1912 he assumed a post in the Ministry of Education under the provisional government in Nanjing. In May that year he moved with the rest of the Ministry to Beijing, where he lived for 14 years. Here he witnessed the failure of the 1911 Revolution, and his bitter disappointment led to frustration and dejection. Between 1907 and 1936, he finished three collections of short stories. Two of the stories there in, "A Madman's Diary" and" The True Story of Ah Q," stand as the epitome of his work. And his 16 collections of essays made him one of the most significant essayists of 20th century China. In his introduction to "The true Story of Ah Q," one of his immortal works, he declared that he wanted to portray the "silent soul of the people" which for thousands of years, "grew, faded and withered quietly like grass under a great rock." Ah Q is the leading character in The True Story of Ah Q, the famous novel by the great Chinese writer Lu Xun. Ah Q typifies all those who compensate themselves for their failures and setbacks in real life by regarding them as moral or spiritual victories. "Fierce-browed, I coldly defy a thousand pointing fingers; head-bowed, like a willing ox I serve the children ." Many who see in it the epitome of the character of Chinese people cherishes this couplet, taken from a poem by Lu Xun: Righteousness, honesty, and respect for humanity. As a youth he lived in a gloomy, failure-ridden atmosphere. Among his family, who lived in a typical courtyard home, were several unsuccessful uncles who were addicted to opium. The imprisonment of his grandfather, a government official, together with the sickness and death of his father, exhausted the family's wealth. In spite of the family shame, he worked hard and in 1902 won a government scholarship to study in Japan. He later returned to China to devote his life and writing to the nation's new cultural movement. In the May 4th Movement in 1919, he worked together with Li Dazhao (1889-1927), one of the earliest Communists in China, for a progressive journal The New Youth. From 1930 on, he joined the League of Left-Wing Writers and the China League for Civil Rights, and was active in revolutionary political and cultural activities. During his lifetime, he translated more than 200 works by over 90 writers from 14 countries, totalling 2 .5 million characters and making up nearly half of the 20 volumes of his Complete Works. The play "Kong Yiji" is about the life story of "Kong Yiji", the hero is one of the short stories of the late literary colossus Lu Xun. The play tries to show the cruelty and degeneration of the imperial examination system and the entire feudal system. Lu Xun devoted all his life to the cause of Chinese culture. He died of tuberculosis in Shanghai on October 19, 1936.