My Reading History

     Reading is to my mind what water is to the fish. Obviously, the answer to the first question is "Yes, I am a self-reader." But mostly, I read the books in Mandarin and are related to cultures and history; even autobiography.

     The recent book I read and impressed me the most is named 他翻譯了整個中國, which recorded the whole life of the greatest translator ever in China, 楊憲益 and the story of his foreign wife Gladys and him. Throughout the story, I can always find myself in tears and couldn't help but to admire his commitment to the spread and the conservation of the Chinese culture. He even seized every spare time to translate one of the Chinese classic, the Red Chamber of the Dream; aka 紅樓夢 in Mandarin. You might wonder a lot translators are translating the Chinese classics, then why I should admire him. If we take the background and all the political situations at the time he had been translating into account, we will know how great achievement it is. Either the CP or the KMT, they both don't allow any doing against the Chinese spirit; not to mention the translation of the Chinese classic, conforming to the western people. Despite all the difficulties that he encountered, he still made it and successfully spread our own culture to worldwide.

     My first time reading novel or autobiography is when I was in my senior high school. My homeroom teacher was notoriously strict at that time, giving us a tremendous workload and forcing us to keep our reading log everyday. What's more, she would carefully examine our homework every week all by herself. So I had no choice but to keep reading, and gradually, receiving knowledge through books had become one of my habits since then. Now, I really don't know how to show my deepest gratitude towards my high school homeroom teacher, Laura Liu, who influenced my academic performance and even the career of my whole life.