Dongshan Neighborhood

This guide to the Dongshan neighborhood in Guangzhou centers on a rented flat in the White Cloud Building on Baiyun Road, where the writer Lu Xun and his student-turned-companion Xu Guangping spent a sweltering nineteen twenty-seven summer writing past midnight, even as returning overseas Chinese were building the red-brick villas that still line these streets. It follows Lu Xun's arrival in Guangzhou to teach, his failed effort to free students arrested that April, and his decision to resign his university posts rather than stay quiet. The building still stands on Baiyun Road today, columns intact.