Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
Book Review on Liu Dapeng’s Life
In understanding the Chinese society, in the twentieth century, it is important to comprehend the challenges that the society faced. To understand the challenges, it is good to explore the experiences of the Chinese society from the perspective of the book, “The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village, 1857-1942”. This book gives a reflection of one man who observed the society from the most basic aspect of the Chinese society, the family. Through the knowledge of the perspectives of the book, it is possible to know the challenges facing the Chinese society and how it confronted them in the past century. The understanding of the book required appreciation of the historical and personal perspective of Liu Dapeng. The review of this book will illustrate the challenges that the Chinese society underwent in the late nineteenth century and the early 20th century.
The book presents these challenges in a manner that is most striking because of the personal perspective of Liu Dapeng. One of the challenges that the Chinese society faces in the early 20th century is the military conflicts with other Asian countries. One of the main military conflicts in the book is the war with Japan, which broke out in 1937 (Harrison 159). The war broke out when Dapeng was an elder, and had a more mature perspective of describing the conflict and the factors that led to it (Harrison 159). The challenge for the Chinese society was deaths that the war presented as well as the losses. Taking Dapeng as an example, he personally suffered in the hands of the Japanese. According to Dapeng, the war was bloody, especially on the Chinese side who only managed occasional victories 159.
Another challenge that came from the war was the fear the situation created in the Chinese society. According to the Dapeng, the people in the villages feared that the Japanese bombs would land on the land any tie, to the extent of keeping away from the lamps (Harrison 160).This gives a picture of a society that was living in fear, not just from the Japanese invaders but from their own ability to front a fight. The diaries of Liu Dapeng therefore give a description of the war that influenced the Chinese society in the village.
Another major challenge that the story of Dapeng shows is the adoption of modernity in relation to the Chinese values. Modernity came to the country through many forms, Christianity being one of them. According to Dapeng, Christianity was introduced in the village by the merchants that met Catholics in their trade journeys (Harrison 84). This is a different way of influencing the society as Dapeng notes. They then came with the religion in the villages, which presented a challenge to the society because of the clash of the values of the new religion and the values of the Chinese society.
The challenge of religion was quite a concern as more people were used to worshiping several gods. So the introduction of Catholicism in the village gave them the challenge of leaving the old religion. For instance, Dapeng explains that there were people who still worshipped their traditional goals, such as the kitchen god (Harrison 163). This shows people had different worships, before Catholicism was introduced. Therefore, the introduction of the new religions presented challenges to the people in the society, especially those who still made sacrifices and prayers to traditional gods like the kitchen god.
The onset of religion was not the only challenge of modernity that Dapeng expresses in the writing. According to Dapeng, the Japanese military conflict with china led to the emergence of new immoral behavior among the people in the villages. Through the life of Dapeng in the village, the book presents the ignorance of the Chinese values, in favor of the modern Japanese cultures. For instance, the children of Dapeng himself started taking drugs (Harrison 165).These habits were introduced by the Japanese, especially in the regions that they had controlled during the war.
At the same time, the values of the society were being ignored by the Chinese despite being there for them. In the life of Dapeng, his own family started ignoring him and taking new cultures as seen by his boys. The society itself started ignoring his values and moral views, especially in his old age (Harrison 165). This shows the challenge that the society faced when trying to retain the old social values such as Confucianism. Therefore, the Chinese society during the early twentieth century faced the challenge of repelling the new ideas.
The balance if the Confucianism was also a challenge to the Chinese society that a being influenced by different external forces. While the war with Japan was influential to the Chinese society, the major influence came in the other aspects of interaction such as trade. This is because the people n the society held their own cultures, but was influenced to change them by the new aspects of life brought about by modernity.
The life of Dapeng presents another challenge of maintaining the values and morals of the society amidst modernity. While modernity has brought several changes, Dapeng struggles, the old values were threatened. For instance, Dapeng had both the formal education and Confucianism ideas. However, the values that Dapeng had held in the society were ignored, which shows the challenge that modernity presented to the old Chinese values. The challenge is that the people embraced the new cultures and ignored their main Chinese values such as Confucianism.
The life of Dapeng further illustrates the economic challenges that the Chinese society faced in the early twentieth century. Dapeng illustrates the high dependency of the society on agriculture at the time. Being a farmer, he used to farm to feed his family, and not even generate more of his income (Harrison 144). The people used to farm as peasant farmers, and had no other major source of economic livelihood.
According to Dapeng, the family could not be satisfied with the food he was harvesting from his agriculture (Harrison 145). This is because the food was little and below the amount they used to eat. This paints a life of a society that as living hand to mouth, and the food was not ready. Moreover, the life of Dapeng shows us the challenge of poor farming methods, as they did not irrigate their lands. Dapeng himself was producing low quantity of food because he did not irrigate (Harrison 145).
While the book provides rich information, it presents ways of how we understand the Chinese society faced challenges at the time. The life of Dapeng illustrates how the Chinese society faced challenges of different aspects, especially political, economic and social aspect. The war between China and Japan led to loss of lives and fear in the community and separated the society. The diary of Dapeng also illustrates the problems of agriculture and values as they were affected by the new cultures. Therefore, the life of Dapeng clearly illustrates the challenges that the Chinese society faced in the early twentieth century.
Work Cited
Harrison, Henrietta. The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man’s Life in a North China Village, 1857-1942. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005