Shu Qingchun, courtesy name Sheyu, best known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese novelist and dramatist.
He was one of the most significant figures of 20th-century Chinese literature and is best known for his novel "Rickshaw Boy" and the play "Teahouse" (茶館). Lao She was a major popularizer of humor writing in China, especially through his novels, his short stories and essays for journals, and his stage plays and other performing arts, notably xiangsheng.
Lao She experienced mistreatment when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966. Condemned as a counterrevolutionary, he was paraded by the Red Guards through the streets and beaten publicly at the doorsteps of the Temple of Confucius in Beijing. According to the official record, this abuse left Lao She greatly humiliated both mentally and physically, and he committed suicide by drowning himself in Beijing’s Taiping Lake on 24 August 1966.
(Source: Wikipedia)
