Essay #2

The Power of Literacy
I still can remember that, when I was a child with no senses about reading and writing, my grandfather always kept telling me some words: “书中自有黄金屋，书中自有颜如玉。” (in the books, you can find the house which is made of gold, and also you can find the woman who is beauty.) These are the words from Chinese ancients. Because of my young age, I did not understand what my grandfather was talking about at the time. But I did begin to learn how to read as I wanted to find the golden house and beautiful woman in the books.
As I did not know the characters in the book, the first step I went to find the golden house and beautiful woman was “looking” at the book. In the early time I learned to read, I didn’t know the characters, so what I can do was “reading” the pictures in the picture book. I was busy at finding something. What was I looking for? Of course the golden house and the beautiful woman! Every time I found the house looked like made of gold and the woman like snow white and sleeping beauty, I always showed them to my grandfather and asked him if that’s the gold house and the beauty woman he has talked about. But every time I only got the same answer: they were golden houses and beautiful women, but they were not the house and woman he has told me. That was a confusing answer for me—it seemed I was right, and I also was wrong. I really couldn’t get the answer, but I began to get the shape of the world from the picture books I have read.
In the first two years of elementary school, I began to learn the pinyin and some Chinese characters; so at that time I kept going forward on the journey of finding the golden house and beauty woman by real “reading” the books—but it was reading the pinyin, not the characters. As I was reading the books by pinyin, I should guess the meanings of some words and sentences. At that time, I got lots of different kids of stories, like the Snow White, the Thumb Girl, and the Supper Telephone; I also got lots of rules of this world, like I should say “Good morning” to other people when I see them in the morning, I should say “Sorry” when I do soothing wrong, and also I should say “Thank you” when some one helps me. I have learned lots of truths, like the trees needs to water, the starts never fell down, and fishes can live without water. I also learned lots of things that told me how to become a human, like we will have happiness, but also sadness; I could be a winner, but also a loser; we have loved, but also hatred. In my world, the things became to have their own sign—good or bad, black or white. Although I got more and more things in my little head, one thing has never changed, I still wanted to know where the golden house and the beauty woman are. As liked the time I was reading the picture books, when I found some words sound like the golden house and beauty woman in pinyin, I kept asking my grandfather that: “Did I find the golden house and the beauty woman you have told me?” I still remember that my grandfather always kept smiling, and then he told me that the more books I have read, the closer I can get the answer I want to get. Here was not the end of the journey, I should keep going.
I just kept going on the journey to finding the things I wanted to get. Time went by, I got more and more characters of Chinese—I learned the meanings of them, I got the senses of them, and I had the ability to use them. Books became more fun and serious for me as I really could understand them, not by looking at and not by guessing.