Lu Xun’s Pen Sketches Garden (Zhu Family Courtyard)

Lu Xun’s Pen Sketches Garden (Zhu Family Courtyard)

Lu Xun’s Pen Sketches Garden is the Zhu Family Courtyard, also known as “Old Panlu,” situated northwest of the Lu Xun Memorial Hall in Shaoxing. It borders Zhou Family New Courtyard to the west, Zhou Family Old Courtyard to the east, and Dongxianhuan River to the north. The Zhu Family Courtyard boasts an elegant setting and historic relics, and it is the most intact and representative garden-style courtyard building preserved in the ancient city of Shaoxing. The owner of the Zhu Family Courtyard was Zhu Langxian, the “descendant of Zhu Wen Gong” who purchased Zhou Family New Courtyard.

The Zhu Family Courtyard was originally the site of King Yue’s Wanghua Palace and part of the official residence of the famous Ming Dynasty general Hu Dahai. Within the courtyard are numerous valuable plants including a century-old podocarpus, a winding-leaved scholar tree, red plum, and green calyx plum, as well as a 400-square-meter pond that never dries up even in drought. In the first year of the Xuantong reign during the Qing Dynasty, the Shaoxing scholar Cheng Baitang personally inscribed, “This place was once the site of King Yue’s Wanghua Palace, and this pond connects underground to the Dragon Spring,” and had the words engraved on a stone by the pond. The name “Panlu” originated from this stone.

Due to historical reasons, Zhu’s Garden had long been a crowded residential compound. Around the 2003 Spring Festival, with the full-scale launch of the Lu Xun Hometown Renovation Project, residents gradually relocated. The renovated Zhu Family Courtyard uses characters and customs depicted in Lu Xun’s works as its theme, presenting to visitors the unique cultural essence and historical anecdotes of Shaoxing. It serves as an excellent supplementary exhibition for understanding Lu Xun’s writings. “Lu Xun’s Pen Sketches Garden” covers a total area of approximately 3,000 square meters and includes several themed exhibition halls arranged in sequence: “Shaoxing Customs – Blessings,” “Yue Customs – Miscellaneous Talks,” “Festivals & Ritual Parades,” and “Marriage Traditions.”

Transportation

Accessible via bus routes 10, 11, 13A, 13B, 33, BRT1, 2, 32, 36, 5, 9, 24, 88, BRT1, 66, 603, 35, 130, 22, 25, 28, 38, 50, 57, among others.

Attraction Location

No. 229, Lu Xun Middle Road, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing