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Mu Xin (author), Toming Jun Liu (translator), An Empty Room: Stories, New Directions, 2011. 192 pgs.

Translated into English by Toming Jun Liu, An Empty Room by Mu Xin (1927–2011), a revered Chinese writer and artist, is a collection of short stories that elicits similar sentiments to its title: a sense of void that cannot be filled, asking questions that bring forth no answers. 

Mu Xin’s own complex past offers some insight into his inner world. An established poet and writer from a young age, he had his first essay published in a local newspaper at 16. Then, while he was working as a teacher in the 1950s and 60s, he began to write books secretly, which were later confiscated during the Cultural Revolution. He was then imprisoned three times, and exonerated in 1979 before leaving for New York in 1982. Indubitably, he understands first-hand the arbitrary twists and turns of fate. Reflected in his writings are characters of varying personalities that met ambiguous ends. 

For instance, in “The Moment When Childhood Vanished”, the narrator reminisces about his experience losing a precious bowl as a child when it slipped from his touch and fell into a river. It was a foreshadowing event, as his mother had put it, “such things won’t be rare occurrences in the future”. In “Fong Fong No. 4”, the narrator pondered if his brief love affair could have survived political upheavals, as the woman might not want to be associated with a criminal. In “An Empty Room”, the narrator gave his own imagination free rein on what could have happened in a furniture-less room strewn with aged love letters. In “Eighteen Passengers on a Bus”, a driver burdened by family matters drives the entire bus and its passengers to their demise while sparing the narrator. In each tale, there is no clear sign of motivations and intentions, and each character is as much of a mystery as the circumstances. 

What I like most about Mu Xin’s stories is their honest reflections on real life without the need for exaggerated drama or embellishments. Tragedies are often drawn out and tolerated; there is no declaration of hope or heroic breakthroughs. Rather, the book reads like the meanderings of a river: calm retellings of how the lives of different individuals panned out, with speculations taking its place where knowledge is limited. It is indicative of perhaps the kind of man Mu Xin was, as well as the nature of his times, where in the backdrop of monumental events, the unimportant fates of the common people were merely characterised by a collective sense of disquiet. This is a great book for anyone who loves stories set in China in the past century, and anyone who appreciates the tenderness of clean writing. 

How to cite: Huang, Yimin. “Like the Meanderings of a River: Mu Xin’s An Empty Room.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 27 Jul. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/07/27/empty-room/.

Yimin Huang was a full-time editor at Expat Living and an aspiring full-time writer and actress. She majored in Global Liberal Studies at New York University, where she began to write seriously, and is now a student in the MFA fiction program at the University of San Francisco. She likes to travel and take note of the idiosyncrasies of people in everyday life who sometimes inspire the content of her stories. Though a fiction writer, she believes that truth is actually stranger. Her entries “Teacher’s Pet” and “Extra” were selected as finalists for Writing The City 2021 and 2022. She is currently working on a short story collection and looking to be published. [All contributions by Yimin Huang.]

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