ABSTRACT
Chapter 14, by Shi, recounts her experience growing up in the eastern China countryside, in an “ordinary working-class family” but with “open-minded” parents who bought books for her beginning in her early childhood. Her initial contact with Chinese literacy and multiple languages (Chinese, Hokkien, and Cantonese), however, came through music, including traditional opera introduced by her grandfather. Although test-oriented writing prompts at school dampened her interest in writing, she began to develop a passion for words through reading the works by Guo Jinming, a contemporary Chinese novelist. Shi began to write for contests and her school newspaper. That same passion for language learning persisted even while she studied a “boring” major chosen by her parents, eventually leading her to choose translation as her field of graduate study. This chapter highlights an ongoing passion for language learning as intertwined with cultural art forms and transnational learning experiences.
