Village Identity in Rural North China: a Sense of Place in the Diary of Liu Dapeng

Abstract

In 1892, Liu Dapeng of Chigiao Village, Taiyuan County in Shanxi province was reflecting on the difficulties of academic study. It was, he said, like seeing a series of maps: first one sees the map of the province and sighs that the land of our sub-county occupies less than one hundredth of the area. Then one sees a map of China and sighs again at the size of the land of which our province is only a part. Then one sees a map of the world and realizes that its vastness makes even China small. (Liu Dapeng, manuscript: 24th of the 5th month of Guangxu 18). The analogy illustrates not only the difficulties of study, but also Liu Dapeng’s ideas about the spaces within which he lived. A country scholar like Liu Dapeng looking at the newly available maps of China and the world was part of the process by which perceptions of space changed around this time.