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Happy Dreams
From one of China’s foremost authors, Jia Pingwa’s Happy Dreams is a powerful depiction of life in industrializing contemporary China, in all its humor and pathos, as seen through the eyes of Happy Liu, a charming and clever rural laborer who leaves his home for the gritty, harsh streets of Xi’an in search of better life.
After a disastrous end to a relationship, Hawa “Happy” Liu embarks on a quest to find the recipient of his donated kidney and a life that lives up to his self-given moniker. Traveling from his rural home in Freshwind to the city of Xi’an, Happy brings only an eternally positive attitude, his devoted best friend Wufu, and a pair of high-heeled women’s shoes he hopes to fill with the love of his life.
In Xi’an, Happy and Wufu find jobs as trash pickers sorting through the city’s filth, but Happy refuses to be deterred by inauspicious beginnings. In his eyes, dusty birds become phoenixes, the streets become rivers, and life is what you make of it. When he meets the beautiful Yichun, he imagines she is the one to fill the shoes and his Cinderella-esque dream. But when the harsh city conditions and the crush of societal inequalities take the life of his friend and shake Happy to his soul, he’ll need more than just his unrelenting optimism to hold on to the belief that something better is possible.
After a disastrous end to a relationship, Hawa “Happy” Liu embarks on a quest to find the recipient of his donated kidney and a life that lives up to his self-given moniker. Traveling from his rural home in Freshwind to the city of Xi’an, Happy brings only an eternally positive attitude, his devoted best friend Wufu, and a pair of high-heeled women’s shoes he hopes to fill with the love of his life.
In Xi’an, Happy and Wufu find jobs as trash pickers sorting through the city’s filth, but Happy refuses to be deterred by inauspicious beginnings. In his eyes, dusty birds become phoenixes, the streets become rivers, and life is what you make of it. When he meets the beautiful Yichun, he imagines she is the one to fill the shoes and his Cinderella-esque dream. But when the harsh city conditions and the crush of societal inequalities take the life of his friend and shake Happy to his soul, he’ll need more than just his unrelenting optimism to hold on to the belief that something better is possible.
492 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
September 7, 2017
Wonderful story.
So very glad I picked this book, learned how millions of people in small villages of China lived. Author also comes from little village, met the real Happy character, with his help talked to trash pickers. Story is somewhat fictionalized story of these characters. Imaginative, humorous but some parts was hard to read. Hardship and obstacles they faced in their daily lives, brought tears to my eyes. Not only men from small villages but young girls with hope and dreams came to big cities. It's also love story too.
Translator Nicky Harman did very good job, she only missed couple places U.S. currency was exchanged, instead of Chinese currency.
"Imagination gives you wings like a bird, so you can fly."
So very glad I picked this book, learned how millions of people in small villages of China lived. Author also comes from little village, met the real Happy character, with his help talked to trash pickers. Story is somewhat fictionalized story of these characters. Imaginative, humorous but some parts was hard to read. Hardship and obstacles they faced in their daily lives, brought tears to my eyes. Not only men from small villages but young girls with hope and dreams came to big cities. It's also love story too.
Translator Nicky Harman did very good job, she only missed couple places U.S. currency was exchanged, instead of Chinese currency.
"Imagination gives you wings like a bird, so you can fly."
March 8, 2018
I liked this book. It was a Kindle First Book this month and I'm glad I chose it.
This is the story of Happy Liu, a trash picker in Xian, China. But he's really from the countryside. He has migrated to the city, determined to make something of himself. He brings along his friend, Wufu, also from the same village, Freshwind.
What you learn right away is that Happy is a decent, kind, upright human being. Wufu, who's not too bright and definitely not worldly, depends on him entirely. But Wufu is also basically a good man, who loves his wife and children back in the village. He's just childlike in his assessment of situations, his reactions and his understanding. So he sometimes makes mistakes. Wufu was my favorite character.
At first this is a sort of brother/adventure story. But it's also a pretty picaresque journey through Happy's days in the city. There is a LOT of detail: describing people, food, bodily functions, weather, trash, you name it. If you have a delicate stomach, don't read this book. Also, it's long--close to 500 pages in print. (I read it digitally.) It's a commitment.
Happy gets in and out of scrapes, makes money, loses money, falls in love with a prostitute....all the while musing and thinking philosophically about life. There doesn't seem to be an arc. But that's okay, because this book is VERY Chinese, and its structure isn't meant to follow a plot arc as found in Western literature.
Pay close attention and you will learn (or re-learn) an enormous amount about Chinese culture and thought. While a lot of the situations and characters are universal, there are parts of the plot that could only happen in China. This is what I found fascinating.
A word on the translation: It certainly flows. Happy narrates, and there is a lot of dialogue. Kudos to the translator who makes it come alive in English. My only concern was that the entire book, especially dialogue, switched back and forth between British phrasing and American slang. Some of the slang was outdated--perhaps this was intentional, but it made me stop. More than once.
I also recommend that you read the afterword. It's fairly long, but it gives insight into how the book was written and why. This is not the China the tourist brochures want you to see. This is modern China at a time when business is booming and a wealthy class is developing...but others are living at the bottom of society. The author wants to show us, the readers, the dignity and humanity and variety of trash pickers. Here, he succeeds.
This is the story of Happy Liu, a trash picker in Xian, China. But he's really from the countryside. He has migrated to the city, determined to make something of himself. He brings along his friend, Wufu, also from the same village, Freshwind.
What you learn right away is that Happy is a decent, kind, upright human being. Wufu, who's not too bright and definitely not worldly, depends on him entirely. But Wufu is also basically a good man, who loves his wife and children back in the village. He's just childlike in his assessment of situations, his reactions and his understanding. So he sometimes makes mistakes. Wufu was my favorite character.
At first this is a sort of brother/adventure story. But it's also a pretty picaresque journey through Happy's days in the city. There is a LOT of detail: describing people, food, bodily functions, weather, trash, you name it. If you have a delicate stomach, don't read this book. Also, it's long--close to 500 pages in print. (I read it digitally.) It's a commitment.
Happy gets in and out of scrapes, makes money, loses money, falls in love with a prostitute....all the while musing and thinking philosophically about life. There doesn't seem to be an arc. But that's okay, because this book is VERY Chinese, and its structure isn't meant to follow a plot arc as found in Western literature.
Pay close attention and you will learn (or re-learn) an enormous amount about Chinese culture and thought. While a lot of the situations and characters are universal, there are parts of the plot that could only happen in China. This is what I found fascinating.
A word on the translation: It certainly flows. Happy narrates, and there is a lot of dialogue. Kudos to the translator who makes it come alive in English. My only concern was that the entire book, especially dialogue, switched back and forth between British phrasing and American slang. Some of the slang was outdated--perhaps this was intentional, but it made me stop. More than once.
I also recommend that you read the afterword. It's fairly long, but it gives insight into how the book was written and why. This is not the China the tourist brochures want you to see. This is modern China at a time when business is booming and a wealthy class is developing...but others are living at the bottom of society. The author wants to show us, the readers, the dignity and humanity and variety of trash pickers. Here, he succeeds.
February 18, 2018
This book reminded me a little of a Dickens novel, but one where everything is a little less dire and the characters are more content, and I enjoyed it. The main complaint reviewers seem to have is that it has little to no forward momentum, and that is definitely true. For the most part, it’s about the main character, Happy Liu’s, thoughts on his day to day life spent with his friend Wufu as a migrant trash picker in Xi’an China. The book blurb makes it sound like Happy Liu’s search for the man he donated a kidney to and his quest to find a woman to love serve as a current pulling Happy through the book, and they eventually begin to a little, but not until almost halfway through, and even then, the book is still awfully meandery. For whatever reason, it still worked for me. Maybe it’s because I like books that detail the workings and hierarchy of large portions of a society, especially the lower echelon. I like learning why a trash-picker’s life is easier than a vegetable vendor’s, and that there are five levels of trash-pickers in Xi’an society and what they are. I even enjoyed the multiple sections dealing with what these two eat for their meals day after day. A lot of page space is dedicated to this issue alone. (Looks like it’s noodles and pickled vegetables again today, but tomorrow it might be mutton dumplings! Yay!) It also helped that I liked Happy Liu enough to enjoy wandering around in his thoughts for almost 500 pages. I can see why not everyone would. He can be a bit full of himself, but he’s also funny, observant and he tells it like it is. I was worried when I started the book that he was going to be too “chipper” for me, with a name like Happy, but he wasn’t. The man knows how to knit-pick and criticize with the best of them while keeping himself elevated above the trash that he picks. I liked him.
baleeted-for-opportunity-cost
September 2, 2017PW Starred: Pingwa (I Am a Farmer), winner of the 2009 Mao Dun Literature Prize, again explores China’s rapid industrialization, the prospects of rural workers, and the consequences of deepening class inequality in this optimistic yet heartbreaking tale of the life of Hawa “Happy” Liu. The novel follows Happy as he moves from his hometown of Freshwind to the bustling city of Xi’an to find both the man to whom he donated a kidney and the better life he believes he deserves. Along with best friend Wufu, he slowly integrates into the city, finding work first as a trash collector before moving on to other, less menial jobs. While Happy works hard to be mistaken for a native of the city and an educated man, Wufu misses his rural life and a world that made sense to him. Through Happy’s adventures in the city, Pingwa introduces the reader to a China still reeling from its recent modernization; Happy studies the class divisions in his new urban environment almost like an anthropologist as he tries to achieve his lofty ambitions. Interwoven with references to China’s tumultuous political history and rich artistic tradition, Pingwa’s novel captures a nation undergoing change and brutally illustrates what that change might actually cost. (Oct.)
November 12, 2017
Four and a half stars! Although I usually only give five stars to books I'm totally blown away by, I liked this book A LOT! I've been to Xi'an, and although I don't remember any garbage pickers and didn't go to the poor suburbs where Happy Liu and Wufu live in Happy Dreams, rural/small town China is EXACTLY like that. People spit, they clear their phlegm, and the public toilets are often just a hole in the ground.
The voice of Happy Liu is awesome. Just read the first page and you'll see what I mean. But what I didn't like is that Happy Liu is an arrogant MF who thinks he's so much better than Wufu. And sometimes, because of the translation, the prose doesn't flow. That's the minus 1/2 stars.
For a Kindle First pick, this book was one of the best so far.
The voice of Happy Liu is awesome. Just read the first page and you'll see what I mean. But what I didn't like is that Happy Liu is an arrogant MF who thinks he's so much better than Wufu. And sometimes, because of the translation, the prose doesn't flow. That's the minus 1/2 stars.
For a Kindle First pick, this book was one of the best so far.
December 8, 2021
This is a book that had surprised me in many ways. First of all I had not expected this book to make me laugh but it certainly has (and books very rarely make me laugh). There were at least four funny incidents in the first half of the story that made me laugh out loud. Granted, they were rather stupid things like someone getting stuck on a circular road - but when I told these things to my yoga teacher they made her laugh too! So clearly I am not the only person who finds this rather stupid stuff funny. And sometimes a person needs a good laugh.
But this book is not a comedy. The humor vanishes in the second half. And I actually read the second half much faster than I read the first half. Is it because I had more time? Or was it more interesting? Both?? Either way I flew through the pages in the second half of the book.
The second thing that surprised me about this book is how fascinating I found it.. You see I am doing a challenge in the one group I am in. It is an ABC location challenge so I needed a location that started with an X. Well you can guess how rare that must be! So I went to my library's website and luckily they have a good search engine. After using google to learn there is a city in China named Xi'an I had typed that into the search box at the library. And poof! This book came up! I had no idea what it was about really but I ordered it. I had expected another serious story like the one I had just finished - The Island of Sea Women - so the bits of humor was a nice surprise. But more surprising was how interesting this book was! Very quickly I had fallen into the world of Happy and Wufu as these two best friends tried to make a living in Xi'an as garbage collectors. Garbage collectors are NOT garbage men (like we have in the US) that haul garbage away in a truck and get paid a salary from the city. Instead they are people who go out on their bikes and try to find items in their area (they are assigned an area of so many city blocks) they can profit on by selling it to a certain place. I guess they are more like can collectors you see going around picking up aluminum cans? Except they pick up and sell a much wider variety of items. And sometimes they have to actually buy the garbage! Yes, they have to buy it. They then haggle over the price. And some of the stuff they pick up to sell is very surprising.
So Happy and Wufu are very different in personality. Happy is definitely wiser and has more smarts but even he doesn't know or understand everything about living in a city. Like he doesn't know what the word "restroom" means. He mostly refers to it as a "WC" and its more of an outhouse? One thing I liked about Happy is how generous he is and that he is willing to risk his own neck often to save others, even strangers. And if Wufu does things he thinks isn't right he tells him so (because Wufu often doesn't see or understand the bigger picture). In some ways I think Wufu may be autistic. He seems to take things literally which can be a sign of it. He also sometimes lets his emotions get the better of him and wants to get revenge on someone and then Happy has to explain to him why that is not a good idea. I actually liked both of these characters. And Happy devotes himself to staying with Wufu.
Towards the end of the book a medical mystery pops up and I have to admit this had me fascinated! I like puzzles and trying to use my knowledge of things to try and figure it out. What had really happened? I don't think it's meant to be a huge secret or mystery or anything but my brain just finds stuff like this intriguing and so I try to puzzle it out. I do have a few ideas...anyway it gave me something else to concentrate on as I had heard some bad news on Monday so this puzzle was just what I had needed.
Another thing: throughout the book they kept mentioning or going to Hibiscus Gardens which is supposed to be a very beautiful park of trees and rocks. Well I know nothing of Xi'an so I started to wonder did this place actually exist? So I went to Google and I found a video on youtube that actually takes you on a tour of this beautiful park! It is on the channel called Walking Tour in China and the video is titled "Walking Xi'an Botanical Garden Qujiang". There are big rocks, a waterfall, trees and flowers. People fly kites and have picnics. And you can actually see the city of Xi'an. Wow! The city is huge! So many tall skyscrapers! I hadn't realized it was such a huge place by reading the book! But you might want to check out the video. It's very peaceful. Unfortunately in the book neither Happy nor Wufu actually visit the park but they do go up to the gate. After I had translated the Chinese money to American dollars I found out it was just under $8 to get in. And translating the money also gave me a much better understanding of how much they were getting for things.
A lot of the story is also about how Happy and Wufu interact with others around them, how they struggle to get enough money each day, their efforts to try and save money and what they decide to do with the money they do get. The book also shows how they sometimes are cheated by scammers and how they interact with richer people. When you are poor garbage collectors you cannot afford the price to get into the park (but you may waste your money on other things).. I do feel that how they decided to spend their money caught up with them later and is related to the ending (but also due to their ignorance).
The ending was ok..you know what is going to happen because the first chapter states it. You just don't know how. Or when or why. But I am left wondering how Happy felt at the end. Not so good I would think. And I did think it had ended a bit abruptly.
But it is a great story and one I think I will remember for a long time.
But this book is not a comedy. The humor vanishes in the second half. And I actually read the second half much faster than I read the first half. Is it because I had more time? Or was it more interesting? Both?? Either way I flew through the pages in the second half of the book.
The second thing that surprised me about this book is how fascinating I found it.. You see I am doing a challenge in the one group I am in. It is an ABC location challenge so I needed a location that started with an X. Well you can guess how rare that must be! So I went to my library's website and luckily they have a good search engine. After using google to learn there is a city in China named Xi'an I had typed that into the search box at the library. And poof! This book came up! I had no idea what it was about really but I ordered it. I had expected another serious story like the one I had just finished - The Island of Sea Women - so the bits of humor was a nice surprise. But more surprising was how interesting this book was! Very quickly I had fallen into the world of Happy and Wufu as these two best friends tried to make a living in Xi'an as garbage collectors. Garbage collectors are NOT garbage men (like we have in the US) that haul garbage away in a truck and get paid a salary from the city. Instead they are people who go out on their bikes and try to find items in their area (they are assigned an area of so many city blocks) they can profit on by selling it to a certain place. I guess they are more like can collectors you see going around picking up aluminum cans? Except they pick up and sell a much wider variety of items. And sometimes they have to actually buy the garbage! Yes, they have to buy it. They then haggle over the price. And some of the stuff they pick up to sell is very surprising.
So Happy and Wufu are very different in personality. Happy is definitely wiser and has more smarts but even he doesn't know or understand everything about living in a city. Like he doesn't know what the word "restroom" means. He mostly refers to it as a "WC" and its more of an outhouse? One thing I liked about Happy is how generous he is and that he is willing to risk his own neck often to save others, even strangers. And if Wufu does things he thinks isn't right he tells him so (because Wufu often doesn't see or understand the bigger picture). In some ways I think Wufu may be autistic. He seems to take things literally which can be a sign of it. He also sometimes lets his emotions get the better of him and wants to get revenge on someone and then Happy has to explain to him why that is not a good idea. I actually liked both of these characters. And Happy devotes himself to staying with Wufu.
Towards the end of the book a medical mystery pops up and I have to admit this had me fascinated! I like puzzles and trying to use my knowledge of things to try and figure it out. What had really happened? I don't think it's meant to be a huge secret or mystery or anything but my brain just finds stuff like this intriguing and so I try to puzzle it out. I do have a few ideas...anyway it gave me something else to concentrate on as I had heard some bad news on Monday so this puzzle was just what I had needed.
Another thing: throughout the book they kept mentioning or going to Hibiscus Gardens which is supposed to be a very beautiful park of trees and rocks. Well I know nothing of Xi'an so I started to wonder did this place actually exist? So I went to Google and I found a video on youtube that actually takes you on a tour of this beautiful park! It is on the channel called Walking Tour in China and the video is titled "Walking Xi'an Botanical Garden Qujiang". There are big rocks, a waterfall, trees and flowers. People fly kites and have picnics. And you can actually see the city of Xi'an. Wow! The city is huge! So many tall skyscrapers! I hadn't realized it was such a huge place by reading the book! But you might want to check out the video. It's very peaceful. Unfortunately in the book neither Happy nor Wufu actually visit the park but they do go up to the gate. After I had translated the Chinese money to American dollars I found out it was just under $8 to get in. And translating the money also gave me a much better understanding of how much they were getting for things.
A lot of the story is also about how Happy and Wufu interact with others around them, how they struggle to get enough money each day, their efforts to try and save money and what they decide to do with the money they do get. The book also shows how they sometimes are cheated by scammers and how they interact with richer people. When you are poor garbage collectors you cannot afford the price to get into the park (but you may waste your money on other things).. I do feel that how they decided to spend their money caught up with them later and is related to the ending (but also due to their ignorance).
The ending was ok..you know what is going to happen because the first chapter states it. You just don't know how. Or when or why. But I am left wondering how Happy felt at the end. Not so good I would think. And I did think it had ended a bit abruptly.
But it is a great story and one I think I will remember for a long time.
September 16, 2017
I read this book while traveling in China, so was both happy and saddened to see actual trash pickers on the street, reminding me of the tough life of protagonist Happy and lovable friend Wufu. This is a really interesting book, at times quite funny, maddening and tear-jerking. I highly recommend this read.
October 9, 2017
This book goes nowhere fast. I could live without a plot if each chapter had some entertaining elements, but no luck. After getting 15% of the way through, I realized I was dreading picking it up again. So I didn't.
May 25, 2018
It is difficult for me to rate and review books from other cultures because I have no frame of reference for their native genres or other literary context. A friend told me to just base it on how the book made me feel, so here goes:
I liked this book. The characters are engaging and interesting. There is a combination of almost slapstick humor and painful social commentary that gives depth to the story, and the end really shocked me. I am grateful to Amazon Crossing for bringing this author to an American audience and look forward to reading more of his works.
I liked this book. The characters are engaging and interesting. There is a combination of almost slapstick humor and painful social commentary that gives depth to the story, and the end really shocked me. I am grateful to Amazon Crossing for bringing this author to an American audience and look forward to reading more of his works.
December 21, 2017
I'd never read any Chinese literature before, but this new novel is a joy. The translation by Nicky Harman deals with multiple dialects, puns, jokes, and assorted other difficulties, but still it reads easily in English. It's the story of a trash picker fresh from the countryside to the big city of H'ian, his best friend from back home, the love of his life who just happens to be a hooker, and the assorted high and low points of their day to day life. Happy Liu is the main character - he changed his name to Happy because he sees the bright side in almost everything - and I already miss his voice in my head, where it's been these past few days, telling me of the foods he eats, the people he sees, the endless attempts to get more money, the dreams he has for the future, the attempts to make himself seem more dignified than his friends. Wufu, his friend, is equally compelling, an ugly man with less learned manners, but filled with the willingness to make a go of whatever he has to do. Pingwa is apparently a big deal in China - now he's on my radar for other works.
February 6, 2022
Smešno, a tužno, pisano prostim jezikom o vrlo zamršenim ljudskim sudbinama.
September 11, 2017
I think I became acquainted with this book through Amazon Kindle, & since I know little about contemporary Chinese culture, I thought it would be a good reading choice. Jia Pingwa's novel was just the right thing. Probably the most helpful section was the Author's Note: Happy and Me, at the end of the book. The book took several years to write & went through some serious revision multiple times. It's based on a living person, Liu Shuzhen who changed his name to Liu Gaoxing = "Happy Liu", and apparently he truly embodies his name. and Pingwa and Shuzhen grew up together & reconnected in Xi'an later in life, becoming good friends. Pingwa did much first hand research for his novel, visiting the community of trash pickers in Xi'an who shared their experiences, reluctantly at first. "Trash picking?", say Pingwa, "I realized [after meeting Suzhen again] I had never given that job a moment's thought...I reflected that I had lived in Xi'an for more than thirty years, and I had seen trash pickers pulling their carts or riding their three-wheelers every day...but I had never asked myself where these people came from, why they were collecting trash, and whether they could make a living from it..."
This motivated him to pursue his writing project. "I wanted to write about Happy Liu and others like him coming to town from rural areas, about how they get here, how they adapt to city life, their viewpoints, how they feel about the hand that fate has dealt them..." "So I made Happy Liu the subject of my novel. He was, after all, unique. Yet he was also typical. He had turned into the man that he was now because the more life weighed on him, the more he knew how to bear difficulties lightly; the more he suffered, the more enjoyment he got out of life. 'Happy Liu, now I understand you!' I exclaimed. 'Understand what about me?' 'You're a lotus growing out of pond mud!'...That was Happy Liu in a nutshell: a clean life in a filthy place...."
This is an honest portrayal of life lived in the raw among Xi'an's trash pickers. A heartwarming story, too, about the regard in which friends, simple people, hold one another & about the mutual loyalty they share.
This motivated him to pursue his writing project. "I wanted to write about Happy Liu and others like him coming to town from rural areas, about how they get here, how they adapt to city life, their viewpoints, how they feel about the hand that fate has dealt them..." "So I made Happy Liu the subject of my novel. He was, after all, unique. Yet he was also typical. He had turned into the man that he was now because the more life weighed on him, the more he knew how to bear difficulties lightly; the more he suffered, the more enjoyment he got out of life. 'Happy Liu, now I understand you!' I exclaimed. 'Understand what about me?' 'You're a lotus growing out of pond mud!'...That was Happy Liu in a nutshell: a clean life in a filthy place...."
This is an honest portrayal of life lived in the raw among Xi'an's trash pickers. A heartwarming story, too, about the regard in which friends, simple people, hold one another & about the mutual loyalty they share.
November 2, 2017
I honestly don't know how to rate this really. This is so far out of my wheelhouse, yet I did enjoy it almost all the way through. The book was very character-driven and for me that was good, I generally like a really character driven story. I just think that if you need a little bit more substance or meaning to the plot then you'll be disappointed in this. Or maybe that's just me. When I stopped trying to figure out if there was a point I was missing, it became much more enjoyable.
I loved the feel of the narration. Happy Liu is in my opinion the most likeable narcissist that I have read in a while. He's so determined to be happy that Happy is what he renames himself. Yet he's got these moments where I kind of hoped someone would smack him upside the head.
I thought the author did a really good job of painting a vivid picture of the area. Sights, sounds, smells, etc.. and food. There were a lot of descriptions of food. And not a single one was anything I was even slightly familiar with. I liked that. What I didn't like were all the references to bodily fluids - snot, piss, excrement, blood, etc.. At times I felt like I could have been reading the story of a couple of 10 year old boys. Only somehow it also managed to make them more endearing in a way. There were some truly humorous moments in this and some really sad ones too.
I didn't like how the book felt to me like it just abruptly ended. I think the whole process of waiting to see what was going to happen with Wufu was one of those things that bothered me subconsciously in a way. And then when it did happen, it kind of felt like, Ok so what now? Is this it? I thought that carrying Wufu home was kind of the whole point. And what about Yichun? There was a significant lack of resolution in that regard.
I loved the feel of the narration. Happy Liu is in my opinion the most likeable narcissist that I have read in a while. He's so determined to be happy that Happy is what he renames himself. Yet he's got these moments where I kind of hoped someone would smack him upside the head.
I thought the author did a really good job of painting a vivid picture of the area. Sights, sounds, smells, etc.. and food. There were a lot of descriptions of food. And not a single one was anything I was even slightly familiar with. I liked that. What I didn't like were all the references to bodily fluids - snot, piss, excrement, blood, etc.. At times I felt like I could have been reading the story of a couple of 10 year old boys. Only somehow it also managed to make them more endearing in a way. There were some truly humorous moments in this and some really sad ones too.
I didn't like how the book felt to me like it just abruptly ended. I think the whole process of waiting to see what was going to happen with Wufu was one of those things that bothered me subconsciously in a way. And then when it did happen, it kind of felt like, Ok so what now? Is this it? I thought that carrying Wufu home was kind of the whole point. And what about Yichun? There was a significant lack of resolution in that regard.
October 16, 2017
I really had hoped there was going to be a happy ending of sorts....
but instead the book ends on a somewhat down note where Happy's best friend dies, he doesn't have a steady job and his woman is off in prison. The way Happy talks about himself and the moments in the book where he says things like "I wasn't used to dealing with contracts in those days" made me hope he would hit it big in this book itself and we'd get to see some positive transformation.
I think the message is more subtle than that. There's something to be said about keeping going even when everything feels like it's fallen apart and I think that's what the message is here. This one will stay with me with its memorable characters and locations. A really enjoyable read.
but instead the book ends on a somewhat down note where Happy's best friend dies, he doesn't have a steady job and his woman is off in prison. The way Happy talks about himself and the moments in the book where he says things like "I wasn't used to dealing with contracts in those days" made me hope he would hit it big in this book itself and we'd get to see some positive transformation.
I think the message is more subtle than that. There's something to be said about keeping going even when everything feels like it's fallen apart and I think that's what the message is here. This one will stay with me with its memorable characters and locations. A really enjoyable read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 14, 2017
If the book had been shorter I would have given four stars. In the afterword the author reveals that he intentionally made the narrative and voice of Happy, the trash picker, awkward and crude. Makes sense, but also makes for tough reading! The dialogue was clipped and rife with scatology, but I had to love Happy who sums up his raison d'etre "…everyone should have a bird singing inside them as well as a crow cawing". This book, written originally in Chinese, was unconventional, but a welcome change of pace for me. Happy wonders, "What kind of man was happy even though he was not fortunate?". He only needs to look at himself.
October 20, 2017
First Chinese author but certainly not the last.
The story line kept me into the plot even though it wasn't focused at times for me. When one of the characters dies it shocked me and felt sad. This is the first time I have felt this from reading a book.
The translator did an outstanding job.
The story line kept me into the plot even though it wasn't focused at times for me. When one of the characters dies it shocked me and felt sad. This is the first time I have felt this from reading a book.
The translator did an outstanding job.
February 27, 2019
Really disappointed
The book really doesn't have a story. I really wanted to leave it after I was half way through,. But kept reading with the hope that the story will lead you to somewhere. But its just a tale of two friends and their daily chores.
The book really doesn't have a story. I really wanted to leave it after I was half way through,. But kept reading with the hope that the story will lead you to somewhere. But its just a tale of two friends and their daily chores.
July 8, 2019
One of the things that I found interesting during my early days in Dubai was the sight of construction workers being transported on the highways. These white busses, travelling back and forth every sunrise and sunset was something new to me. We have migrant workers where I am from, but they are normally housed near their work areas and not in specific housing compounds as they are here in the UAE.
Watching them packed in seats, often nodding off to sleep, some with their headsets on, others chatting and still those who are looking out of the window, possibly wondering about us as I am wondering about them. I had some limited opportunities mixing with them. Once joining a group who had stopped by the roadside to perform the Maghrib prayers, 3 lines of us facing the sun setting to the west. And another, breaking fast with some dates, biryani, orange slices and Laban at a mosque car park. Language was a barrier, but I am surer now of the adage that all of us are born equal, its the opportunities that we get that differs.
Happy Dreams is a book about migrant workers. Though the book is named after one of them, Hawa Liu, who decides to change his name to “Happy” Liu, the other character, one whom I find quite interesting is Wufu, his fellow village buddy and erstwhile sidekick. Happy convinces Wufu to leave his wife and family behind, and follow him to Xian, hoping to cash in on the riches of the city. More than just economic migrants, Happy wants to get away from the ties that hold him back in the village, make a clean break and become a city dweller, sophisticated and smart. The name change is a first inspired move. He also wants to look for a wife, starting the search with shoes for her to wear, his logic that to find a person, you have to begin with the shoes to be filled in. Happy also wants to be in the same city with his harvested kidney, now filtering busily in another person’s body.
The two of them get jobs as thrash pickers in the big city of Xian, and the rest of the book is short chapters of the day to day, hand to mouth existence that they find themselves in. The neighbours in their dwellings, relatives, city folks, other migrants and the authorities make up the characters in the book. How the people treat them, often invisible and inconsequential, except when their services are required, strikes a chord. I remember someone telling me long ago that “Never judge a person’s intelligence by how well she/he speaks your language”. In Happy’s case, it might not be a different language, but certainly the accent and exposure to experiences between city and village folks.
One of the issues that I have about the book is how we only get to see Happy’s point of view and thoughts. I would have liked to hear the inner mind of Wufu. Though Happy portrays him as a simpleton, I do believe there is more to Wufu than what we hear depicted by Happy's voice. Sidekicks are often more colourful and have better stories to tell, if given the opportunity. Heroes are often too full of themselves to see other facets of their lesser publicised colleagues. The book though is named ‘Happy Dreams’ and as such I guess I have to be happy with what I get!
Happy does not find a wife, but he does fall in love, a beautiful girl with a story which I find tragically sad. Often, the chapters about her are melancholically sweet, and I just want to shake the two of them to say ‘Wake up! Don’t you see what is happening!”.
Happy and Wufu go through multiple adventures, some of them humorous, others which make you think and still those that you can’t help but relate to. In the end, we are all humans and our needs, be that physical or emotional is not to dissimilar no matter our station in life. Sometimes, we are fooled by what is in front of us, blinded by wanting to see what we hope to see.
Alas, a lot of the book brings out the sad state of affairs of the world today, how life is in reality, unfair. The author says a lot or tries to. His audience is us, those who are privileged and though it might not feel so all the time, have had a good break somewhere down the line.
Wufu dies in the end. No, I have not given the plot away as that’s one of the first things that you’ll read about in the book. It starts and ends with Happy trying to bring his friend’s body back home to the village, where he wants to be, back to his waiting family. A little cliché, but it underscores that while it’s nice to have dreams, often reality is somewhat more pungent.
Watching them packed in seats, often nodding off to sleep, some with their headsets on, others chatting and still those who are looking out of the window, possibly wondering about us as I am wondering about them. I had some limited opportunities mixing with them. Once joining a group who had stopped by the roadside to perform the Maghrib prayers, 3 lines of us facing the sun setting to the west. And another, breaking fast with some dates, biryani, orange slices and Laban at a mosque car park. Language was a barrier, but I am surer now of the adage that all of us are born equal, its the opportunities that we get that differs.
Happy Dreams is a book about migrant workers. Though the book is named after one of them, Hawa Liu, who decides to change his name to “Happy” Liu, the other character, one whom I find quite interesting is Wufu, his fellow village buddy and erstwhile sidekick. Happy convinces Wufu to leave his wife and family behind, and follow him to Xian, hoping to cash in on the riches of the city. More than just economic migrants, Happy wants to get away from the ties that hold him back in the village, make a clean break and become a city dweller, sophisticated and smart. The name change is a first inspired move. He also wants to look for a wife, starting the search with shoes for her to wear, his logic that to find a person, you have to begin with the shoes to be filled in. Happy also wants to be in the same city with his harvested kidney, now filtering busily in another person’s body.
The two of them get jobs as thrash pickers in the big city of Xian, and the rest of the book is short chapters of the day to day, hand to mouth existence that they find themselves in. The neighbours in their dwellings, relatives, city folks, other migrants and the authorities make up the characters in the book. How the people treat them, often invisible and inconsequential, except when their services are required, strikes a chord. I remember someone telling me long ago that “Never judge a person’s intelligence by how well she/he speaks your language”. In Happy’s case, it might not be a different language, but certainly the accent and exposure to experiences between city and village folks.
One of the issues that I have about the book is how we only get to see Happy’s point of view and thoughts. I would have liked to hear the inner mind of Wufu. Though Happy portrays him as a simpleton, I do believe there is more to Wufu than what we hear depicted by Happy's voice. Sidekicks are often more colourful and have better stories to tell, if given the opportunity. Heroes are often too full of themselves to see other facets of their lesser publicised colleagues. The book though is named ‘Happy Dreams’ and as such I guess I have to be happy with what I get!
Happy does not find a wife, but he does fall in love, a beautiful girl with a story which I find tragically sad. Often, the chapters about her are melancholically sweet, and I just want to shake the two of them to say ‘Wake up! Don’t you see what is happening!”.
Happy and Wufu go through multiple adventures, some of them humorous, others which make you think and still those that you can’t help but relate to. In the end, we are all humans and our needs, be that physical or emotional is not to dissimilar no matter our station in life. Sometimes, we are fooled by what is in front of us, blinded by wanting to see what we hope to see.
Alas, a lot of the book brings out the sad state of affairs of the world today, how life is in reality, unfair. The author says a lot or tries to. His audience is us, those who are privileged and though it might not feel so all the time, have had a good break somewhere down the line.
Wufu dies in the end. No, I have not given the plot away as that’s one of the first things that you’ll read about in the book. It starts and ends with Happy trying to bring his friend’s body back home to the village, where he wants to be, back to his waiting family. A little cliché, but it underscores that while it’s nice to have dreams, often reality is somewhat more pungent.
August 4, 2019
Jia Pingwa is one of the foremost contemporary Chinese writers. This is the second book I read after accidentally discovering Jia Pingwa while talking to one of my Chinese student about literature.
Being in China for four years, I traveled across China from north to south and east to west came across many villages and characters mentioned in this book. This is indeed a true picture of the harsh life and poverty of migrant workers working in big Chinese cities. And also portrayed a realistic picture of a wider gap between poor & rich and between cities & countryside in contemporary China.
Being in China for four years, I traveled across China from north to south and east to west came across many villages and characters mentioned in this book. This is indeed a true picture of the harsh life and poverty of migrant workers working in big Chinese cities. And also portrayed a realistic picture of a wider gap between poor & rich and between cities & countryside in contemporary China.
December 29, 2017
I wanted to like this book more than I did. The chapters were short but there were many of them and it took a lot longer to finish than I would have liked. The plot dragged at times which could have been a function of the translation or intentional to build attachment to the characters. The idea for the story was a good one - to tell the story of migrant country workers who moved to the city "for a better life" as trash pickers. The food, the setting and the cultural differences were fascinating.
April 3, 2018
Okay, this book is okay. Took SO LONG to read it. If you've ever been to China or lived there, you will find it very "China". Mannerism and way of thinking are very prevalent throughout the book which might remind you of living in China. To a certain extent nothing really happens int eh book it just tells the story of peasants moving to the city for a better life for themselves/their families back tending the fields while they are away. It is also a tale of friendship and the promises we make to our friends.
May 15, 2024
I could not finish. Maybe it was something going on, or maybe I just disliked all the characters, especially the main character.
March 19, 2025
This story is colorfully written, allowing the reader to understand both literally and emotionally the life Happy and Wufu are living. The characters are well rounded and believable. I think the writing is exceptional and the translation is perfect. I really enjoyed this book.
September 10, 2018
Notes of Interest:
I downloaded this book via Amazon Prime because I’m always curious to read Asian literature. I used to live in Japan, and my ex-husband used to live in Taiwan. And while in Japan, South Korean and Taiwanese culture seeped into my music, literature, TV viewing, language skills, etc. So, I just have a keen interest in these cultures in general now. Having lived there, much of it “feels like home” to me. And yet, not being a native of the region, there is always something new to learn or experience. The impact on my life being there was very rich and heavy. So, I assumed I knew what I was getting into with this book. I guess I was expecting a light Taiwanese-style comedy, but this turned out to be very different from my expectations.
What could have made it better for me:
I will say upfront I am not a fan of gross humor — potty humor, slapstick body-function humor, sex-humor, whatever you want to call descriptive details about using the toilet, vomiting, and ejaculating. It’s just not for me. Therefore, gross humor almost killed this book for me. When it got to be too much, I ended up skimming pages, rather than enjoying the character dialog the way I wanted to. I understand this was probably handled the way that it was in order to add realism to the nitty-gritty lifestyle of these trash pickers. But when it comes to entertainment, I feel this is one of those categories where “less is more”. If all the pissing, pooping, and farting had been left out or lessened, the read could have been more enjoyable.
Also, considering this is a “slice of life” story, meaning it reveals the day-to-day lives of trash pickers who become friends, these kinds of books are going to be slow and steady overall. Therefore, in my opinion, it’s best if they aren’t too lengthy. Toward the end, I kept waiting for the book to come full-circle back to the beginning because it starts with the end, and then explains how the characters got there. I loved the beginning, so I anticipated the end … until it started feeling like it was taking forever to get there. And when it did get there, it was such a short, uneventful connection that I felt like I had missed something. I’m not sure how this could have been handled better — maybe leave out some of the middle stuff? Every scene, every chapter, in a story needs to have a purpose, or it needs to be cut. I felt there was a lot of redundant and unnecessary stuff about their daily lives that could have been cut without changing the over-all feel of the story.
And finally, there were a lot of grammar errors in the English translation. There were a lot of run-on sentences, in particular. A few point-of-view switches pulled me out of the story, too.
What I liked about it:
As I said, I loved the beginning. The book starts with this guy carrying a dead body around rolled up in a rug, when he is caught by the police. At which point the main character poses the question to the reader that we’re probably wondering what happened. So, he starts talking about how he and his friend moved from a small, rural village to the big city with hopes of becoming successful. The reader then follows the main character’s narrative throughout his ups and downs of survival in the city while working as a trash picker — a profession at the bottom rungs of social ladders. The story does eventually come full-circle to explain why things ended the way the book started. I felt the ending didn’t live up to the potential built up at the beginning. But the book did start with intrigue and optimism and a “happy-go-lucky” character in a bizarre and potentially (morbidly) funny situation that I was interested to learn more about.
Another thing I liked about this book is that it was an insight into mainland Chinese culture and history. There were references throughout to the Party, Chairman Mao, Chiang-Kai-shek, the Revolution, etc. This, coupled with the vivid descriptions of the countryside and city, and the traditions, in which the trash pickers lived opened a window to that part of the world in a very honest way. The economic hardships that push farm laborers into the cities to earn better money is not so different from the migration routes of humanity in other countries, including my own. And it’s a shame because the cities get overcrowded, which breeds different kinds of problems, and the abandoned rural farms and villages fall into economic despair.
I deeply appreciated the insight the author gives to the conditions of migrant workers and people in dire poverty. Poverty is a cancerous disease that eats away at society itself. Yet rather than trying to solve the problems that poverty creates (or prevent them in the first place), society shuns the people and professions of the lower-class, lower-economic bracket because they’re poor, allowing poverty-derived problems to fester, though society itself cannot survive if poverty overwhelms its economic system. The author points out this hypocrisy over and over again, both in the novel and in his commentary at the end. Most people don’t want to do “dirty jobs”, yet society does not value the workers we depend on for labor-intensive work. This is a self-destructive cycle. In many ways, I found his notes to be more interesting than the novel when it came to explaining what inspired him to write this book and how he visited people and researched lifestyles that typically accompany poverty-class jobs. There is a quote within the novel where Happy says, “They were so poor that their minds were poor, too.” He’s acknowledging that society has no interest in investing in education or enrichment of poverty-stricken areas because enriched minds don’t want to do dirty labor. Better education and employment opportunities decrease manual labor, and society cannot survive if no one does the dirty work. Yet so many people in our most necessary fields of labor are undervalued and stuck in survival mode, unable to rise above it. These are deep, hard questions society needs to address for both economic and humanitarian reasons. I appreciate that the author didn’t shy away from unpopular, unpleasant subject matter in order to lift up these concerns.
And finally, I appreciate that Happy was so happy, in spite of his circumstances. I think that is the lesson to take away from this book. One thing I admire about many Asian cultures is they seem more optimistic than Western cultures in general. So, the attitude Happy Liu exhibited felt very familiar. At one point, Happy raises the question, “How can purity and filth exist side-by-side?” A common, and important, symbol in many Asian cultures is the lotus flower because it blooms in mud and purifies the water. People who come from bad situations, yet can turn their misfortunes into something good, are true treasures. That kind of resilience is a hard-earned skill that solves problems and enables people to be happy in spite of financial duress, physical or psychological abuse, debilitating illness, and so on. Happy changed his name to signify the importance of this kind of resilience. “Writing a name was like writing a charm, and saying a name aloud was like chanting a spell, it had the power to shape your destiny.”
And throughout the book, probably my favourite parts of the book, were when he started rambling about his philosophies on life with these things in mind. Here are some quotes that I felt were gems.
“We must have sinned against each other in a previous existence, so that each of us owed something to the other in this life.”
“If a new house keeps me in Freshwind, it’s no better than a coffin!”
(conversation between Happy and his friend Wufu) “If the head of the ox is facing east,” I said, “which way does the tail point?” “West.” “Wrong! It points down.”
“The way I looked at it was this: my stomach was acting up and I had terrible insomnia, but I hadn’t gotten sick. The thing was, every so often, I made sure to thank my innards. I thanked my remaining kidney for doing the work of two, and it responded to the encouragement and worked even harder, and I didn’t get so much backache now. I thanked Prosper Street for keeping us in food and drink. If ever I made it big in Xi’an, then I’d build a skyscraper on Prosper Street to mark where it started, the way people built shrines to the revolution! Every time I got to my five lanes, I straightened my clothes, scraped the corners of my eyes clean, and made a little bow to the buildings and trees on either side. The morning sunlight turned the buildings at the northern end crimson and put a little sun in every one of those windows. There were flocks of sparrows in the trees, and they greeted me in chorus: “Happy, Happy, Happy!” Those sparrows were the first to call me Happy Liu. And it was very strange … Every day when I started work, I always picked up something I wanted, even though my path was so small.”
“We trash pickers were not just a derivative of the trash, we really mattered. We were vital to the city. Imagine, if there were no sanitation workers and trash pickers, what would X’ian be like?”
“The more cramped your surroundings, the more you should imagine stuff. Imagination gives you wings like a bird, so you can fly.”
“Don’t put yourself down. Look at that grass. It’s stubby compared to the tree, but it doesn’t feel inferior.”
“Human relationships are not about the big things, they’re about the details.”
“Money’s a snobby bastard. It only goes to people who already have it.”
“But a white daikon turns green when it grows out of the soil, water turns to ice when it gets cold, and the environment changes people. That has nothing to do with morality.”
“Yichun wasn’t bad, she was just in a bad place, that was all. Didn’t lotus flowers grow from mud?”
“If I was the country’s leader, I wouldn’t bring a million migrant workers to town. I’d let the townsfolk do their own work — or starve!”
Recommendation:
I recommend this book if you’re looking for insight into modern Chinese culture or if you wish to explore a social commentary on poverty and low-class labor. I appreciate the over-all subject matter, which left me thoughtful and appreciative of the world’s work forces. And the book was inspiring in the sense that I was presented with this character who manages to keep going by mastering his mind. He believes and lives in a manner in which his outlook is everything. But that in itself is hard work … hard to learn and hard to put into practice when it counts most. Parts of the book were humorous, but for me, gross humor is a turn-off, and there was enough of it that trudging through it became a burden. In spite of that, it has some very thoughtful content. I can tell I need to follow it with something of a fresh, light variety to balance it out.
I downloaded this book via Amazon Prime because I’m always curious to read Asian literature. I used to live in Japan, and my ex-husband used to live in Taiwan. And while in Japan, South Korean and Taiwanese culture seeped into my music, literature, TV viewing, language skills, etc. So, I just have a keen interest in these cultures in general now. Having lived there, much of it “feels like home” to me. And yet, not being a native of the region, there is always something new to learn or experience. The impact on my life being there was very rich and heavy. So, I assumed I knew what I was getting into with this book. I guess I was expecting a light Taiwanese-style comedy, but this turned out to be very different from my expectations.
What could have made it better for me:
I will say upfront I am not a fan of gross humor — potty humor, slapstick body-function humor, sex-humor, whatever you want to call descriptive details about using the toilet, vomiting, and ejaculating. It’s just not for me. Therefore, gross humor almost killed this book for me. When it got to be too much, I ended up skimming pages, rather than enjoying the character dialog the way I wanted to. I understand this was probably handled the way that it was in order to add realism to the nitty-gritty lifestyle of these trash pickers. But when it comes to entertainment, I feel this is one of those categories where “less is more”. If all the pissing, pooping, and farting had been left out or lessened, the read could have been more enjoyable.
Also, considering this is a “slice of life” story, meaning it reveals the day-to-day lives of trash pickers who become friends, these kinds of books are going to be slow and steady overall. Therefore, in my opinion, it’s best if they aren’t too lengthy. Toward the end, I kept waiting for the book to come full-circle back to the beginning because it starts with the end, and then explains how the characters got there. I loved the beginning, so I anticipated the end … until it started feeling like it was taking forever to get there. And when it did get there, it was such a short, uneventful connection that I felt like I had missed something. I’m not sure how this could have been handled better — maybe leave out some of the middle stuff? Every scene, every chapter, in a story needs to have a purpose, or it needs to be cut. I felt there was a lot of redundant and unnecessary stuff about their daily lives that could have been cut without changing the over-all feel of the story.
And finally, there were a lot of grammar errors in the English translation. There were a lot of run-on sentences, in particular. A few point-of-view switches pulled me out of the story, too.
What I liked about it:
As I said, I loved the beginning. The book starts with this guy carrying a dead body around rolled up in a rug, when he is caught by the police. At which point the main character poses the question to the reader that we’re probably wondering what happened. So, he starts talking about how he and his friend moved from a small, rural village to the big city with hopes of becoming successful. The reader then follows the main character’s narrative throughout his ups and downs of survival in the city while working as a trash picker — a profession at the bottom rungs of social ladders. The story does eventually come full-circle to explain why things ended the way the book started. I felt the ending didn’t live up to the potential built up at the beginning. But the book did start with intrigue and optimism and a “happy-go-lucky” character in a bizarre and potentially (morbidly) funny situation that I was interested to learn more about.
Another thing I liked about this book is that it was an insight into mainland Chinese culture and history. There were references throughout to the Party, Chairman Mao, Chiang-Kai-shek, the Revolution, etc. This, coupled with the vivid descriptions of the countryside and city, and the traditions, in which the trash pickers lived opened a window to that part of the world in a very honest way. The economic hardships that push farm laborers into the cities to earn better money is not so different from the migration routes of humanity in other countries, including my own. And it’s a shame because the cities get overcrowded, which breeds different kinds of problems, and the abandoned rural farms and villages fall into economic despair.
I deeply appreciated the insight the author gives to the conditions of migrant workers and people in dire poverty. Poverty is a cancerous disease that eats away at society itself. Yet rather than trying to solve the problems that poverty creates (or prevent them in the first place), society shuns the people and professions of the lower-class, lower-economic bracket because they’re poor, allowing poverty-derived problems to fester, though society itself cannot survive if poverty overwhelms its economic system. The author points out this hypocrisy over and over again, both in the novel and in his commentary at the end. Most people don’t want to do “dirty jobs”, yet society does not value the workers we depend on for labor-intensive work. This is a self-destructive cycle. In many ways, I found his notes to be more interesting than the novel when it came to explaining what inspired him to write this book and how he visited people and researched lifestyles that typically accompany poverty-class jobs. There is a quote within the novel where Happy says, “They were so poor that their minds were poor, too.” He’s acknowledging that society has no interest in investing in education or enrichment of poverty-stricken areas because enriched minds don’t want to do dirty labor. Better education and employment opportunities decrease manual labor, and society cannot survive if no one does the dirty work. Yet so many people in our most necessary fields of labor are undervalued and stuck in survival mode, unable to rise above it. These are deep, hard questions society needs to address for both economic and humanitarian reasons. I appreciate that the author didn’t shy away from unpopular, unpleasant subject matter in order to lift up these concerns.
And finally, I appreciate that Happy was so happy, in spite of his circumstances. I think that is the lesson to take away from this book. One thing I admire about many Asian cultures is they seem more optimistic than Western cultures in general. So, the attitude Happy Liu exhibited felt very familiar. At one point, Happy raises the question, “How can purity and filth exist side-by-side?” A common, and important, symbol in many Asian cultures is the lotus flower because it blooms in mud and purifies the water. People who come from bad situations, yet can turn their misfortunes into something good, are true treasures. That kind of resilience is a hard-earned skill that solves problems and enables people to be happy in spite of financial duress, physical or psychological abuse, debilitating illness, and so on. Happy changed his name to signify the importance of this kind of resilience. “Writing a name was like writing a charm, and saying a name aloud was like chanting a spell, it had the power to shape your destiny.”
And throughout the book, probably my favourite parts of the book, were when he started rambling about his philosophies on life with these things in mind. Here are some quotes that I felt were gems.
“We must have sinned against each other in a previous existence, so that each of us owed something to the other in this life.”
“If a new house keeps me in Freshwind, it’s no better than a coffin!”
(conversation between Happy and his friend Wufu) “If the head of the ox is facing east,” I said, “which way does the tail point?” “West.” “Wrong! It points down.”
“The way I looked at it was this: my stomach was acting up and I had terrible insomnia, but I hadn’t gotten sick. The thing was, every so often, I made sure to thank my innards. I thanked my remaining kidney for doing the work of two, and it responded to the encouragement and worked even harder, and I didn’t get so much backache now. I thanked Prosper Street for keeping us in food and drink. If ever I made it big in Xi’an, then I’d build a skyscraper on Prosper Street to mark where it started, the way people built shrines to the revolution! Every time I got to my five lanes, I straightened my clothes, scraped the corners of my eyes clean, and made a little bow to the buildings and trees on either side. The morning sunlight turned the buildings at the northern end crimson and put a little sun in every one of those windows. There were flocks of sparrows in the trees, and they greeted me in chorus: “Happy, Happy, Happy!” Those sparrows were the first to call me Happy Liu. And it was very strange … Every day when I started work, I always picked up something I wanted, even though my path was so small.”
“We trash pickers were not just a derivative of the trash, we really mattered. We were vital to the city. Imagine, if there were no sanitation workers and trash pickers, what would X’ian be like?”
“The more cramped your surroundings, the more you should imagine stuff. Imagination gives you wings like a bird, so you can fly.”
“Don’t put yourself down. Look at that grass. It’s stubby compared to the tree, but it doesn’t feel inferior.”
“Human relationships are not about the big things, they’re about the details.”
“Money’s a snobby bastard. It only goes to people who already have it.”
“But a white daikon turns green when it grows out of the soil, water turns to ice when it gets cold, and the environment changes people. That has nothing to do with morality.”
“Yichun wasn’t bad, she was just in a bad place, that was all. Didn’t lotus flowers grow from mud?”
“If I was the country’s leader, I wouldn’t bring a million migrant workers to town. I’d let the townsfolk do their own work — or starve!”
Recommendation:
I recommend this book if you’re looking for insight into modern Chinese culture or if you wish to explore a social commentary on poverty and low-class labor. I appreciate the over-all subject matter, which left me thoughtful and appreciative of the world’s work forces. And the book was inspiring in the sense that I was presented with this character who manages to keep going by mastering his mind. He believes and lives in a manner in which his outlook is everything. But that in itself is hard work … hard to learn and hard to put into practice when it counts most. Parts of the book were humorous, but for me, gross humor is a turn-off, and there was enough of it that trudging through it became a burden. In spite of that, it has some very thoughtful content. I can tell I need to follow it with something of a fresh, light variety to balance it out.
October 28, 2020
While theme of the story was interesting I thought the book sagged under its own weight. It should have been a much better book if it was 200 pages shorter. And after having to plow through 420 pages the Author found it necessary to tag along another 30 pages to discuss how he came up with the theme. To me purely academic.
January 4, 2018
It was over; the woman called it off. So, Hawa Liu did the thing he thought best. He bullied his best friend, Wufu, into leaving their village to seek their fortunes in Xi’an. And because Hawa wasn’t a good name for a new beginning, he changed his name to Happy. Because that happy is what he wanted to be.
Happy Dreams is Jia Pingwa’s “novel” of migrant workers lives in Xi’an, China. I use novel loosely because it’s modeled on an actual Happy Liu, a schoolmate of Jia’s. You don’t find out any of this backstory until the author notes after the novel, which is disappointing. I didn’t appreciate the story until reading them. I actually nearly DNFed it at 24%. Compared to Western novels, and my current headspace, nothing ever happens. Happy and Wufu work the streets as trash pickers. Buying trash from their allotted area and selling it, hopefully for a profit. They make friends and eat noodles and dumplings with their neighbors, Eight, Almond and Goolies. Some days they make a lot of money, others they get ripped off. His friends and other trash pickers think Happy has airs, which he does. He’s trying to break out of poverty but doesn’t quite know how. Except he doesn’t know that.
None of the characters appealed to me. I didn’t feel anything when Happy fell in love with Yichun—his dream woman who is actually a prostitute. Happy is a jerk to his friends, pushing them around and putting them down. But they’re also jerks to him. Eight and Wufu are content to be trash pickers, and their jerk behavior is provincial.
While being rather ho-hum, Happy Dreams is also crass. There is swearing, but also farts, and more get laughed at. Wufu and Eight visit the dance hall for handjobs because they miss their wives back in the village. Life as a trash picker is hard, and Jia doesn’t hide or glamorize any of that.
Happy Dreams was translated into English by Nicky Harman, and she did an excellent job. The speech patterns are very Chinese. Short, sharp and to the point. She didn’t Anglicize it, which I appreciate but from the GoodReads reviews, some people need to get out more. It was reading the reviews why I continued. I was reminded that Chinese stories don’t follow the hero’s journey model we’re more used to. They also gave a spoiler that convinced me to continue. Despite all the times, it’s hinted at the spoiler event happens in the final pages. A warning too: Happy Dreams is long. Five hundred pages long. But it doesn’t drag for the length. I have the Amazon Kindle edition so only had a percentage tracker. I was shocked to see the page count after finishing.
I would probably be gushing about this book if I wasn’t craving something with more action.
First published at https://massconsternation.com/the-sto...
Happy Dreams is Jia Pingwa’s “novel” of migrant workers lives in Xi’an, China. I use novel loosely because it’s modeled on an actual Happy Liu, a schoolmate of Jia’s. You don’t find out any of this backstory until the author notes after the novel, which is disappointing. I didn’t appreciate the story until reading them. I actually nearly DNFed it at 24%. Compared to Western novels, and my current headspace, nothing ever happens. Happy and Wufu work the streets as trash pickers. Buying trash from their allotted area and selling it, hopefully for a profit. They make friends and eat noodles and dumplings with their neighbors, Eight, Almond and Goolies. Some days they make a lot of money, others they get ripped off. His friends and other trash pickers think Happy has airs, which he does. He’s trying to break out of poverty but doesn’t quite know how. Except he doesn’t know that.
None of the characters appealed to me. I didn’t feel anything when Happy fell in love with Yichun—his dream woman who is actually a prostitute. Happy is a jerk to his friends, pushing them around and putting them down. But they’re also jerks to him. Eight and Wufu are content to be trash pickers, and their jerk behavior is provincial.
While being rather ho-hum, Happy Dreams is also crass. There is swearing, but also farts, and more get laughed at. Wufu and Eight visit the dance hall for handjobs because they miss their wives back in the village. Life as a trash picker is hard, and Jia doesn’t hide or glamorize any of that.
Happy Dreams was translated into English by Nicky Harman, and she did an excellent job. The speech patterns are very Chinese. Short, sharp and to the point. She didn’t Anglicize it, which I appreciate but from the GoodReads reviews, some people need to get out more. It was reading the reviews why I continued. I was reminded that Chinese stories don’t follow the hero’s journey model we’re more used to. They also gave a spoiler that convinced me to continue. Despite all the times, it’s hinted at the spoiler event happens in the final pages. A warning too: Happy Dreams is long. Five hundred pages long. But it doesn’t drag for the length. I have the Amazon Kindle edition so only had a percentage tracker. I was shocked to see the page count after finishing.
I would probably be gushing about this book if I wasn’t craving something with more action.
First published at https://massconsternation.com/the-sto...
October 1, 2017
Unexpected pleasure
I downloaded this book as my Kindle free selection. I am glad I did. I like learning about different cultures through reading. This book examines what happens when poor villagers go to the city to survive. The author really develops the protagonists so that you really care for them and want them to succeed. Enjoyed this book all the way through. Highly recommend.
I downloaded this book as my Kindle free selection. I am glad I did. I like learning about different cultures through reading. This book examines what happens when poor villagers go to the city to survive. The author really develops the protagonists so that you really care for them and want them to succeed. Enjoyed this book all the way through. Highly recommend.
November 2, 2017
I am so 'happy' I chose this Kindle First book for my September selection. I may have a weird sense of humor, but I really loved this book. I was engrossed from the beginning, and did not want it to end. I will be reading more from this author.
December 23, 2021
This book authored by Jia pingwa and translated by Nicky harman is a great read. This book is about uneducated Migrant workers who move to the city to eke out a better living as snap sellers.
The novel revolves around Happy Liu and his friend. The novel has a very slow pace. But the reader is never bored as it captures a multitude of emotions that Happy Liu goes through in his daily struggles. In the face of it all, he always tries to have a positive outlook towards life and focuses on the big picture rather than getting stuck on the nitty gritties of life. He carries a flute with himself, playing it gives him solace in the concrete city of Xi’an. His abilities are also appreciated by his customers
Liu’s finances, on top of everyday struggle to earn more money, are further stressed when he falls in love with a prostitute with her own history.
Liu has a strong belief that the person with his harvested kidney is his alter ego and as this person is living in the city it also makes Liu a city man. There are pieces where you literally laugh at the conversation between Happy Liu & his friend Wufu. However, there are also sections where the reader is emotionally shaken up at the plight of these migrant workers. Rapid urbanisation has made China a leading economy, however the cost has been paid by these marginalised people, especially those who are uneducated country folk with no specialised skill to survive in concrete cities.
The ending was rather abrupt, but that was expected as for these migrant workers there is no light at the end of the tunnel, only an illusion of it which they create for themselves.
The foreword by the author is rather interesting. Jia Pingwa has a friend who goes by the name Liu Shuzhen, but changes his name to Liu Goaxing, Happy Liu! They both are from the same village, study together when they were young and meet after 30 years. However, one becomes a writer and the other due to circumstances becomes a trash picker in the city of Xi’an. Irrespective of his circumstances Goaxing has a cheerful attitude towards life. The writer has taken him as inspiration for this novel. He has written this novel on how Happy Liu enjoys his life against the backdrop of the hardships of a trash picker’s life.
What sums up the humour in this novel is when Liu Goaxing calls Pingwa whether he is still writing about him ? When he says he nearly finished the novel barring a few revisions, “Happy cackles with laughter over the phone saying he has already finished the biography of Pingwa”.
The novel revolves around Happy Liu and his friend. The novel has a very slow pace. But the reader is never bored as it captures a multitude of emotions that Happy Liu goes through in his daily struggles. In the face of it all, he always tries to have a positive outlook towards life and focuses on the big picture rather than getting stuck on the nitty gritties of life. He carries a flute with himself, playing it gives him solace in the concrete city of Xi’an. His abilities are also appreciated by his customers
Liu’s finances, on top of everyday struggle to earn more money, are further stressed when he falls in love with a prostitute with her own history.
Liu has a strong belief that the person with his harvested kidney is his alter ego and as this person is living in the city it also makes Liu a city man. There are pieces where you literally laugh at the conversation between Happy Liu & his friend Wufu. However, there are also sections where the reader is emotionally shaken up at the plight of these migrant workers. Rapid urbanisation has made China a leading economy, however the cost has been paid by these marginalised people, especially those who are uneducated country folk with no specialised skill to survive in concrete cities.
The ending was rather abrupt, but that was expected as for these migrant workers there is no light at the end of the tunnel, only an illusion of it which they create for themselves.
The foreword by the author is rather interesting. Jia Pingwa has a friend who goes by the name Liu Shuzhen, but changes his name to Liu Goaxing, Happy Liu! They both are from the same village, study together when they were young and meet after 30 years. However, one becomes a writer and the other due to circumstances becomes a trash picker in the city of Xi’an. Irrespective of his circumstances Goaxing has a cheerful attitude towards life. The writer has taken him as inspiration for this novel. He has written this novel on how Happy Liu enjoys his life against the backdrop of the hardships of a trash picker’s life.
What sums up the humour in this novel is when Liu Goaxing calls Pingwa whether he is still writing about him ? When he says he nearly finished the novel barring a few revisions, “Happy cackles with laughter over the phone saying he has already finished the biography of Pingwa”.
December 22, 2017
Three stars because this is a great idea for a book and an important story to tell, but I didn't actually enjoy reading it.
According to the author's note at the end, the idea for this book is to tell a story from the perspective of someone whose story never gets told--one of the many thousands of migrant workers in China's cities. It's the story of a man who renames himself Happy Liu in his optimistic move from the rural village of Freshwind to the big city of Xi'an with his best friend Wufu, hoping to find a better life and a wife to fill the high-heeled shoes he's brought with him.
A promising idea, but what this book turns into is a long, slow, bland story told in a narrative voice that is unashamedly crude and hopelessly naive. We plod along Happy's life with him as he goes through a dreary daily routine of picking trash, eating whatever food he can find, and trying everything he can do to get more money and to catch the attention of a girl he sees in a salon shop.
An eye-opening sketch of the hopelessness of life as a migrant Chinese worker, but I didn't personally enjoy reading it and thought it continued on for far too long past the point of the story.
According to the author's note at the end, the idea for this book is to tell a story from the perspective of someone whose story never gets told--one of the many thousands of migrant workers in China's cities. It's the story of a man who renames himself Happy Liu in his optimistic move from the rural village of Freshwind to the big city of Xi'an with his best friend Wufu, hoping to find a better life and a wife to fill the high-heeled shoes he's brought with him.
A promising idea, but what this book turns into is a long, slow, bland story told in a narrative voice that is unashamedly crude and hopelessly naive. We plod along Happy's life with him as he goes through a dreary daily routine of picking trash, eating whatever food he can find, and trying everything he can do to get more money and to catch the attention of a girl he sees in a salon shop.
An eye-opening sketch of the hopelessness of life as a migrant Chinese worker, but I didn't personally enjoy reading it and thought it continued on for far too long past the point of the story.
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