Review on book In The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village Henrietta Harrison
Tags: books, essays
Published: 2022-04-13 12:05:26

In The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village Henrietta Harrison (2005) commences her narration with a brief introduction of a fieldwork narrative that shows the order of events revealed in the book. It starts with Henrietta visiting Liu Dapeng’s children and the place where the man initially lived. Doing so, the author positions herself as a historian who goes against the general assumption that most historians should not make judgments and makes her opinions known in the book. Additionally, immediately after the introduction, Henrietta follows this up with a preface, which tries to explain the association between Liu’s perception and writing pursuant to the principles of Confucian. In this case, Harrison shows that writing played a crucial role in Dapeng’s life based on the diary that he kept.
In the book, Liu was presented as a local prominent person residing in Shanxi province. Despite the fact that he was a degree holder, he had never become a government administrator, performed his daily chores as a middleman and lived in poverty and hated any potential progress. Harrison presents Liu as the most noteworthy titleholder and the last Confucian since most of these actions revolve around the interpenetration of the principles and guidelines of Confucius, and it is the backbone of his uniqueness in the book.
Liu Dapeng had recorded his activities in a diary meticulously even using newspaper scraps for five decades. It enabled Henrietta to use the complete version of his diaries to write a bibliography about him. Additionally, to some extent, the author of the book lets actions of Liu to clearly show his character and life story throughout the book. She makes the reader comprehend the historical context of Liu and provide sensitive appraisals of his conduct. However, Harrison explores them politely allowing the reader to make a judgment. However, one disadvantage of employing this strategy was that when Henrietta was in a position to respond to some of the questions audiences might ask, she ended up refraining from the book.
In this beautifully crafted bibliography of Liu’s life, Henrietta tried to address some of the themes that were quite evident in the Chinese history, while at the same time conveying the modern day textures and rhythms in the countryside that happened from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Through the exploration of the story of Liu Dapeng’s family, Harrison tries to explore the decline of the countryside in relation to modern urbanization caused by increasing levels of modernization and modifications in the Confucian ideology. Moreover, based on approximately 400 volumes obtained from the diary kept by Liu Dapeng and other writings, Harrison managed to illustrate what it was like to study in an academy and to be a school teacher in the past. She represented daily work routines in the industry, changing family relationships, experience of citizens with the government and the life under the Japanese occupation.
In conclusion, Henrietta’s work ends with the exploration of the diminishing ability of Shanxi because of urbanization. However, in this book, she does not give a full description of the whole process and the extinction of Shanxi but ends up providing details that are important in helping the reader to understand this issue, such as the fall of the Chiqiao’s industry. Moreover, the author goes ahead to offer a wonderful analysis of the everyday life, including some of the most common activities, such as clothing and food among other common elements found in society. In other words, the book ends with the culmination of the Shanxi and the Confucian principles.

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