:The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man's Life in a North China Village, 1857–1942

Abstract

The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man's Life in a North China Village 1857-1942, by Henrietta Harrison. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2005. xii + 207 pp. US$40.00 (hardcover), US$16.95 (paperback). This is a wonderful book, which I recommend highly for use in a variety of academic courses on Chinese history and culture as well as for general reading pleasure. By concentrating on the life of a single individual, Henrietta Harrison has significantly enhanced our understanding of Chinese history and culture in general during a critical period of transition. Her book is a splendid example of the value of studying particular individuals, areas and events to expand, refine and enliven the relatively abstract generalizations of more broadly based studies. The "man awakened from dreams" in the title is Liu Dapeng, an impoverished scholar living in a small village in Shanxi Province in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We learn about him principally from his voluminous writings-more than 400 handwritten volumes, including a diary, an autobiography, a local gazetteer, travel observations, a plan for local flood defenses, a collection of local superstitions, a family genealogy, family regulations, essays on various topics and many volumes of poetry. Harrison has judiciously used these materials, as well as interviews with Liu's descendents, local records and numerous other sources, to draw us into Liu's world. Liu Dapeng was not a typical example of his time or place ("Real people are never typical" p. 7); rather, he provides a striking example of idealized Confucian rectitude and propriety. He thought of himself as an exemplar of Confucian values and earned the respect of his neighbors for his honesty and sense of justice. But his Confucian thought and behavior were not sufficient qualifications for the appointment to government office to which he aspired; he considered himself a failure for never having passed the national civil service examinations, though he was one of a very select few who succeeded in county and provincial examinations, becoming a member of the lower gentry class. In his determination to lead a Confucian life, adherence to traditional expectations of filial behavior was Liu's foremost concern. He continually chided himself for caring insufficiently for his parents and ancestors, to the unrealistic (and unwittingly egotistical) extent that he was convinced that natural disasters, such as floods, drought, and personal tragedies like the death of a child were Heaven's retribution for his personal moral failings. As a Confucian exemplar, Liu had enormous respect for tradition and great distrust for the "modernization" efforts that characterized the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican period in which he lived. He felt increasingly isolated after the revolution of 1911, writing in his journal: "Everyone is for the reforms, and I alone hold to the old ways. Everyone is destroying the bonds of relationships, and I alone hold to principles" (p. 93). He felt that concepts of democracy and progress then in vogue threatened the essential moral foundation of society, though ineluctably he was forced to make concessions to the times and participate, albeit peripherally, in the process of change he abhorred. …