By: Sammy Wang

I was always taught at a young age that books would help me be successful in life. From kindergarten to 5th grade, my dad, speaking in Cantonese, would always ask me this question before he sent me off to school, “俾心機做咩啊?”, which meant “What will you focus on today?” And I would always respond with a tired “讀書”, or “reading” even though a more accurate translation would be studying. I always saw the word 讀書 as reading more than studying because of how my parents raised me.

My first memories mostly contained my mom either reading books to me, taking me to the library to borrow books, or her making me read books to expand my vocabulary. My dad would always be on her side, asking me if I had ‘讀書’ that day or not. Those days always had the recurring word ‘讀書’.

With time, I grew to enjoy books, for the stories that they told, although not immediately as I first saw reading as a chore and a requirement before I could play with toys or watch TV. 

When I was in second grade, my mom would force me to read old dusty books she got off at a yard-sales. Although I don’t recall the names of those books, I have certain memories of the scenes just sticking to me. I remember reading about an eccentric orphan girl that cooked pancakes with egg shells in them and being absolutely horrified.

I also recall reading a short story about a girl accidentally killing her older brother and how she handled the loss of his presence. Her brother’s death never properly processed in my mind during the time because it was definitely not age-appropriate for me. Especially with the topics of trauma and death being the main point of the story, but it left me an important lesson to cherish my family members more.

Even now, I enjoy reading. Either in class or on my phone during my free time, I learned that there is always something to take away from a story even if it’s stemming from a place of negativity.

It doesn’t just extend to books, but to movies as well. Take movies such as Inside Out 2 or Across the Spider-Verse, I find myself immersed with their plot, either with side comments or criticism of certain scenes. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if something were to be removed or added and how it would affect the plot. And at the end of a movie, I always ask myself, ‘what did I learn from those 2 hours?’

Taking up reading as a hobby has also made my time in class easier, especially for classes like AP World History. With the amount of documents the class has to read throughout the year, it’s incredible to find out how people differ in their opinions regarding certain periods of time.

I believe everyone should enjoy stories: from reading, gaming, listening, to drama. Stories have a big impact on everybody’s life and they shape how we learn and interact with our environment.