Liu Yazi Memorial Hall is situated at 30 Zhongxin Street, Lili, covering an area of nearly four acres with a floor area of 3,513 square meters. It faces streets and rivers on its southern and northern sides and residential dwellings on its eastern and western sides. The whole architecture has a layout of three through ways and six buildings with alleys in front and at the back. It was once the home of Zhou Yuanli (1706-1782), minister of public works during the Qianlong reign in the Qing Dynasty, named the blessing hall at that time. In the 11th year of the Republic of China (1922), Liu Yazi pawned the fourth and fifth houses of the hall. It was listed as the cultural relic under the protection of Wujiang county in 1980, and then of Jiangsu Province on March 25th, 1982. It was then reserved for Liu Yazi Memorial in May, 1987 and ranked as the Base for Patriotism Education of Jiangsu Province in 1995. Liu Yazi Memorial Hall was rated as the National AA Scenic Area on September 10, 2001.
The memorial hall consists of an entrance hall, a tea room, a main hall, a residential building, a library and a stele corridor. On one side of the entrance hall there’s a plaque with the characters, “Liu Yazi Memorial Hall” inscribed, which was written by Qu Wu (president of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang). The lobby displays the white marble statue of Liu Yazi with the handwriting of the poetry Snow—to the tune of Qin Yuan Chun by Mao Zedong and Liu Yazi’s responsory poetry on both sides of the wall. The couplets hung on the columns are “solid shoulders responsible for morality and justice” and “dexterous hands flexible to write popular articles”, which was a gift for Liu Yazi from Zhou Enlai. The main hall gives a systemic introduction of Liu Yazi’s struggling life via over 150 pieces of historical documents and objects which are divided into five parts including “youth” and “the period of revolutionary literature in the Southern Society” on the theme of “Memorable years, a glorious life”. The residential building and the library constitute a “Zou Matang Building” which serves as the recovery scene of the Liu Yazi family in the 1920s. The sitting room of the library serves as the place where Liu Yazi commented on state affairs and poetry with his friends engaged with the same pursuit and the study located on the eastern side is where Liu Yazi finished articles and poetry of almost 2 million words. Moreover, there have been more than 44,000 books collected in the library. On the western side of it, there’s a “hollow wall” in which Liu hided himself to escape the search from authorities on the evening of May 8th, the 16th year of the Republic (1927). The stele corridor of Liu genealogy is established in the backyard with 36 ashlars engraved characters, providing important materials for the study on the Liu family. The memorial hall, with nearly 1,000 collections, boasts a thematic memorial hall for collecting, preserving, researching and displaying cultural relics of Liu Yazi and the Southern Society.
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