Because of the spiritual insensitivity of the Chinese people, they abandoned medicine and followed literature.
In 1902, Lu Xun traveled to Japan and studied medicine at the Sendai Medical College, hoping to enlighten the consciousness of the Chinese people through medicine. However, as a citizen of a weak country, Lu Xun was often discriminated against by the Japanese who had militaristic tendencies. In their eyes, all Chinese people are "imbecile".
Once, in a slideshow shown before class, Lu Xun saw a Chinese being captured and beheaded by the Japanese army, while a group of Chinese stood aside and watched the fun as if nothing had happened. Lu Xun was greatly stimulated. To change the tragic fate of the Chinese nation in the modern world with many powerful countries, the first thing is to change the spirit of the Chinese people. And those who are good at changing the spirit of the Chinese people are first of all literature and art.
So Lu Xun gave up medicine and followed literature, left Sendai Medical College, returned to Tokyo, translated foreign literary works, organized literary magazines, published articles, and engaged in literary activities.
Extended information
Lu Xun’s literary history thoughts are extremely rich and profound, shining with the characteristics of the times. He creatively engaged in the compilation of literary history and left behind two literary history monographs for later generations - "A Brief History of Chinese Novels" and "An Outline of the History of Chinese Literature", which made great contributions to the study of my country's literary history.
It is extremely regrettable that due to the realistic and objective conditions at that time that were not conducive to creation, a complete history of Chinese literature that he originally planned to write could not be completed in his lifetime. The two major concepts that supported Lu Xun's academic creation were, first, the early evolutionary view of literary history, and second, the middle and late literary history view guided by Marx's materialism.
Lu Xun is a great pioneer of Chinese translated literature. In his life, translating and introducing foreign literary works occupied a very important position. His translation thoughts involve all important aspects of translation, and his unique insights still have a huge guiding role in current translation theory research and translation practice.
Compared with many translation theories, Lu Xun's translation thoughts are simple and unpretentious, and are mostly expressed through metaphors close to life. Lu Xun was not only a great writer and thinker, but also an excellent calligrapher. Due to his great ideological and literary achievements, people often ignore his calligraphy achievements.
Baidu Encyclopedia——Lu Xun