The courtyard home of one of Beijing's best-loved writers (lǎo shě gù jū 老舍故居), Lao She (1899-1966), is the most charming of many converted homes scattered around Beijing'shutong.Despite being granted this home by Zhou Enlai in 1950, the writer refused to become a cheerleader for the regime, and his post-revolution years were remarkably quiet for such a prolific writer. He recently came in at no. 5 in an online survey of "China's leading cultural icons," ahead of pop diva Wang Faye but well behind the no. 1 choice, the iconoclastic writer Lu Xun (lǔ xùn 鲁迅) (who has a memorial hall in the west of town, see chapter 8). Lao She is renowned for the novelRickshaw (Luotuo Xiangzi), a darkly humorous tale of a hardworking rickshaw puller, Happy Boy.
Start in Hall 3, to the right, which records his early years in London, the United States, and Shandong Province. Hall 2 is an attempt to re-create the mood of his original study and sitting room, with his personal library untouched and his desk calendar left open at the day of his disappearance -- August 24, 1966. While the date of his death is certain, the details are murky. The official line has him committing a poetic suicide in nearby Taiping Hu (pictured in Hall 1) after enduring a "struggle session" at Kong Miao. It's possible that he was simply murdered by Red Guards.

About Lao She
Lao She was a member of the Cultural and Educational Committee in the Government Administration Council, a deputy to the National People's Congress, a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice-chairman of the All-China Federation of Literature and Art and vice-chairman of the Union of Chinese Writers as well as chairman of the Beijing Federation of Literature and Art. He was named a 'People's Artist' and a 'Great Master of Language'. His plays, such as Long Xugou(1951, Dragon Beard Ditch), became ideologically didactic, and did not reach the level of his former work. Shen Ruan written in 1960, on the sixtieth anniversary of the Boxer uprising, was a four-act play about the Boxers. Lao She emphasized the anti-imperialistic zeal of the Boxers and the burning and killing carried out by the allied powers. During the Cultural Revolution, Lao She was publicly denounced and criticized, as a number of other writers and intellectuals. On October 24, 1966, Lao She was murdered or driven to suicide. His last novel, The Drum Singers (1952), was first published in English in the United States.

His other important works include Si Shi Tong Tang (sì shì tóng táng 四世同堂, abridged translation The Yellow Storm, directly translated into "Four Generations under One Roof" 1944–1950), a novel describing the life of the Chinese people during the Japanese Occupation; Cat Country (māo chéng jì 猫城记) a satire which is sometimes seen as the first important Chinese science fiction novel, Cha Guan (chá guǎn 茶馆, "Teahouse"), a play written in 1957; and Lao Zhang de Zhexue (lǎo zhāng de zhé xué 老张的哲学, "The Philosophy of Old Zhang"), his first published novel, written in London (1926).

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Address: Fengfu Hutong 19 , Dong Cheng Qu (dōng chéng qǖ 东城区)
Transportation
From Wangfujing Dajie, go west at the Crowne Plaza along Dengshikou Xi Jie to the 2ndhutongon your right. Metro: Wangfujing (118, exit A)
Phone: 010/6514-2612
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