Kong Yiji is a short story by Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature. Originally published in April 1919 in the journal New Youth, it was later included in his first collection of short stories, Call to Arms. The story's narrator reminisces about Kong Yiji, an alcoholic failed scholar who frequented the tavern where the narrator worked when he was a boy. The story expresses Lu Xun's rejection of Classical Chinese in favour of the written vernacular Chinese which he helped pioneer. It is one of Lu Xun's best known and most analysed works.
Plot
The narrator reminisces about the time twenty years ago when he worked as a waiter in a tavern in Luzhen, a fictional town where many of Lu Xun's stories are set. Working class men wore short coats and drank standing at the counter, whereas the richer customers who wore long gowns sat and ate inside. Kong Yiji was the only customer who wore a long gown and stood. Kong Yiji is a self-styled scholar who has failed to pass the xiucai examination but arrogantly fills his speech with muddled classical tags, refuses to perform menial work and steals to avoid starvation. He is treated with cruelty and contempt by the other customers, one of whom gave him the nickname "Kong Yiji" based on his real surname Kong and a meaningless sequence of characters from a children's elementary text. Although Kong Yiji is a thief, he makes a point of always settling his debts with the tavernkeeper. He tries to teach the narrator orthographic trivia, but the boy rejects him; when he ingratiates himself with the town's children, they laugh at him and cadge food. Later, Kong Yiji is caught stealing and beaten until his legs break. He drags himself to the tavern and orders some wine, after which he is not seen again and presumably dies as a result of his injuries. The tavernkeeper remembers Kong Yiji's unpaid bills for a while, but he is otherwise forgotten.
Background
Written before the May Fourth Movement, this piece is the second Vernacular Chinese story written by Lu Xun after writing A Madman's Diary. Some people believe that Lu Xun wrote this story to express the unhappiness of the university students at that time. Others have suggested that Lu Xun wrote the story to explain the problems with China's feudal society, where people could waste their entire lives trying to pass meaningless examinations and where people were selfish and completely indifferent to the plight of others. Lu Xun rejected the traditional Chinese system of education geared towards the imperial examinations, and of the cruelty of Chinese society.
