Chīrén Shuōmèng Jì 癡人說夢記
A Fool’s Dream Record by 旅生 (著)
About the work
Chīrén Shuōmèng Jì 癡人說夢記 (A Fool’s Dream Record) is a late-Qīng political and satirical novel in thirty huì 回 (chapters), attributed to the pen name “Lǚshēng” 旅生 (Traveling Recluse), whose identity is unknown. The title alludes to the idiom chīrén shuōmèng 癡人說夢 (“a fool talking in dreams”), meaning someone who talks nonsense or utters wishful thinking — here deployed as a frame device: the novel’s events are ostensibly a “dream” told by a foolish elder.
The narrative begins in a rural village (Yúcūn 愚村) in Húběi’s Xīngguó prefecture, where a farmer named Jiǎ Shǒuzhuō 賈守拙 dreams of crossing the ocean on a leaf and landing in a strange land. This dream launches the protagonist and his companions on a journey through the reform politics, overseas travel, constitutional debates, and social upheavals of late Qīng China. The thirty chapters take the characters through multiple reform crises — new-style schooling (xīn xuéxiào 新學校), overseas travel to Hawaiʻi (Bùwā 布哇) and San Francisco (Jiùjīnshān 舊金山), the promotion and destruction of the “New Policies” (xīnzhèng 新政), parliamentary constitutionalism (lìxiàn 立憲), and revolutionary movements.
The novel is a product of the late-Qīng fiction boom of the 1900s, when political novels (zhèngzhì xiǎoshuō 政治小說) — influenced by the Japanese political novel (seiji shōsetsu 政治小説) and mediated through Liáng Qǐchāo’s 梁啓超 translations of works like Disraeli’s Coningsby — were popular vehicles for political commentary. The content reflects events and debates of the 1902–1910 period: new schools, constitutional reform, overseas Chinese communities in the Americas, and the failed reform movement.
Prefaces
No formal preface is present. The text begins directly with the frame of the dreaming farmer.
Abstract
Chīrén Shuōmèng Jì belongs to the genre of late-Qīng political allegory and reform fiction. The pen name “Lǚshēng” 旅生 (“Traveler in Life” or “Sojourner”) is typical of the anonymous or pseudonymous authorship common in Qīng newspaper fiction of the 1900s. The work’s internal references — new-style schools, overseas Chinese in San Francisco and Hawaiʻi, constitutional reform debates, “new politics” (xīnzhèng) — firmly place its composition between 1902 (when educational reform and overseas travel become prominent themes in fiction) and 1910 (the end of the Xuāntǒng era reform debates).
The novel was likely serialized in or published alongside a newspaper or periodical press, following the pattern of Qīng late political fiction. The frame device — a foolish dreamer whose “dream” encompasses the entire reform era — is an ironic vehicle for the author’s commentary on the futility or disillusionment of the reform project.
The novel is not to be confused with the earlier KR4k0088 Chīrén Fú 癡人福, which shares the chīrén 癡人 (“fool”) frame but is a very different work of a different era.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The chapter heading “第九回 起沈屙雙探毛人島, 曆奇險同上舊金山” (Chapter 9: They explore the island of hairy people and adventure together to San Francisco) and “第二十七回 過布哇欣聞國事, 入仙島妙用強權” (Chapter 27: Passing through Hawaiʻi they hear good news about the nation’s affairs) indicate the novel’s engagement with the transoceanic Chinese diaspora (huáqiáo 華僑) as both a political constituency and a narrative setting — a characteristic feature of late-Qīng political fiction in the wake of the 1898 reform movement.
Links
- Kanripo text: https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR4k0089/