My Old Home
by Lu Hsun

"They should have a new life, a life we have never experienced."

Vocabulary:

1. bean curd:            (n) soft, spongy like food made from fermented soybeans, that is regularly eaten in China
2. clan:                      (n) a number of households which claim descent from a common ancestor
3. concubine:           (n) a mistress
4. contemptuously: (adv) expressing lack of respect for something or someone
5. dissipation:          (n) the state of being separated into parts
6. to flabbergast:     (v) to overwhelm with shock, surprise or wonder
7. indignant:             (adj) unworthy
8. lamentably:          (adv) expressing regret
9. miserly:                 (adj) cheap
10. mummy:                (n) a body that has been treated for burial and is well preserved
11. to rationalize:       (v) to reason
12. sedan-chair:         (n) a portable, covered chair designed to carry one person that is borne on poles by two men
13. talisman :              (n) an object that is worn and thought to act as a charm to protect one from evil and bring good fortune

Materials:

• “My Old Home”,by Lu Hsun (Friend and Friend)
  Lu Hsun, Selected Stories of Lu Hsun (China Books & Periodicals, Inc., 1994), 54- 64.
• Graphic Organizer

Procedure:

• Students will jigsaw the vocabulary, working in groups on vocabulary from one particular part of speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs).
• Students will read the story, “My Old Home” both silently and as pairs.
• Students will answer questions as they are reading.
• Students will complete the graphic organizer for the story when they are finished reading.
• Students will discuss the different ways friendships are depicted in this story.

Questions:

1. Describe the childhood friendship that had existed between Hsun and Jun-tu.
2. How is this different from the way Jun-tu treats Hsun when he sees him as an adult?
3. From the way Jun-tu treats Hsun, what are two things you can see he is supposed to do when visiting a superior?
4. What do the following similes tell us about Jun-tu:
   mother and I both shook our heads over his hard life… all had squeezed him as dry as a mummy.”
   “…yet, although his face was lined with wrinkles, not one of them moved, just as if he were a stone statue.”
5. How does Hsun feel when the bean curd lady says he is being miserly?
6. What message is Hsun trying to give the reader in this story?
7. How do you think Hsun feels about change in position and how he is viewed by his former friend?
8. Why do you think their friendship changed?
9. What does Hsun hope for his nephew and Jun-tu’s son’s friendship?
10. Which friendship in this story best matches the Confucian ideal of friendship?

Writing:
Students will complete a Venn Diagram contrasting Hsun’s and Jun-tu’s childhood friendship to their relationship as adults. Students will use this to help them write an essay describing what their friendship had been like, how and why their friendship changed, and what if in any way, could their relationship change back into the friendship they’d had as children.