Wandering – Lu Xun | Translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang

Again, as I had purchased all of Lu Xun's books printed by Foreign Languages Press, this volume exhibits the same problems: poor editing (lots of misspellings and missing words) and, although I cannot read Chinese, I got the feeling that it was a poor translation. Often, British expressions and language were used, rather than, I'm guessing, more literal translations. Does that make it colonized literature?

Despite the poor edition, this collection of eleven wonderful stories shows the real genius behind Lu Xun's writing. The stories mainly document the lives of particular individuals as they observe their loved ones or misunderstood acquaintances. A theme of return or returning to places and people once familiar but who have since changed reoccurs throughout. Often, the changes are absurd or seemingly unusual.

These stories are much longer than those from Wild Grass, a collection of Xun's stories I had previously read and, between two stories which take place on New Year's Eve, they carry the reader from scene to scene, from young to old, as naturally as any leisurely traveler might wander. The story I enjoyed the most was A Happy Family, which documents a man who, continually interrupted by his family, tries to think of a new story to write. One of the more comedic stories in the book, it contradicts the writer's enthusiasm to find an idea with the mundane reality of his family life.