What exactly is reading?
I feel like reading can be defined in so many ways, and yet it can’t be defined at all. I mean, if you Google “definition of reading,” Oxford Languages literally can’t define it without using the word in the definition.
But if we’re talking about processing words on paper, my first reading memory would probably be from kindergarten.
I wasn’t actually reading English; I was in my first Chinese class, which took place every Saturday at Kennedy Junior High School. My teacher was Teacher Zhang, who had stick-straight black hair that was cut into a bob with straight bangs. I sat in the hard metal chairs that were connected to the desk; my pink rolling backpack was on my right, while everyone else’s bags were stored underneath their chairs or sprawled around the aisles. I remember being handed three books: a blue one with lessons, a green one with homework A, and an orange one with homework B.
We flipped open to the first lesson. There, we learned the very basics of Chinese words. I don’t quite remember exactly what we learned, but I assume it was something along the lines of “here’s how you write the number one!” and “this word means ‘sky’ and you write it this way!” Although my parents had already taught me some basic words, I was still shocked by the fact that these were words that I could read.
I assume there was English involved while I was learning these basic Chinese words, but I don’t remember any of that. Instead, I remember feeling excited to learn something new. I heard the language at home, but wanted to read it. I remember treating it as a fun activity rather than a chore. Understanding Chinese brought me closer to my family and allowed me to understand my heritage better at a young age, and although I didn’t necessarily process all of that information at the time, I definitely remember thinking that I was meant to understand those new words.
What I find particularly interesting about this specific memory is that I don’t think I ever connected Chinese to English. I don’t even think I realized that they were both languages; instead, it was like learning math and history at the same time. I think it was because of this that I didn’t process reading Chinese as “reading,” and rather it was just a new fun activity that I spent every Saturday afternoon doing.
When I think about it now, I’m comforted by the idea that I once enjoyed reading Chinese this much. I enjoy thinking about how it was once an escape, disconnected from the rest of my world. After this initial class, I continued with Chinese classes until freshman year, where I would dedicate two hours a week to reading, completely separated from my daily life in America. Even after I realized that reading Chinese was kind of tedious and mentally draining—and that it was, in fact, a language—I continued with the lessons because it was what connected me to my relatives and my culture, and because it has helped me build hundreds of additional reading memories.