Editor's Note:

"Read ten thousand books, and your pen will be guided as if by the gods" is an ancient Chinese idiom that can be seen in students' textbooks. China's Ministry of Education has published an action plan to further promote reading among students across the nation. With new and diverse book recommendations, the reading scene is expected to be revived not only at schools, but also across society. To contribute to this endeavor, the Global Times launched "My Reading Life" essay contest for middle school students.

Please pick up a pen and share your stories with us at reading@globaltimes.com.cn

Participants will be rewarded once the article has been selected.

Every breath I take in this fragile and magical world is filled with the fragrance of faded paper gently caressed by anticipating fingers and delicate dreams built up, word after word, in a reader's ever changing soul.                  

Photo: VCG

Pure experience 

Through books I have flown through many realms of pure fantasy and belief. I have rocketed to the edge of the universe where the normal and old meets the new and magical. I have experienced the sweetness and electricity of an ephemeral release from reality and had the chance to, for once, live my life as another character in another story with another life and endless possibilities. 

I have lived, loved, hated, feared, and fought with the hands of hundreds of different people, yet I have never truly changed myself. Books have always been an unsolvable paradox in my mind. While being dragged through the unending realm of mystery and escape, I have never seen from my own perspective, yet I have always felt the strongest sense of identity, a sensation of belonging in a mystical story. 

The set of my fingers against the yellowed paper seemed so natural and right as I lifted and manipulated pages of letters and words that seemed so close yet were universes away from my grasp. I always found myself unable to escape from the unrealistic world that had previously meant nothing to me except tiny black letters printed onto square sheets of white and yellow.

I didn't just read the stories, no. I breathed them, believed them, and lived them. I've always been amazed about how truly beautiful it is when you're falling in love with a writer's imagination. I've always longed for the ability to affect stranger's emotions with my writing in such a striking way. I imagined it would almost feel like you were holding someone's thoughts in your hand as you dance with the rhythm of their hearts with the click clack of your fingers typing on a keyboard. Starting from when I was merely a daydreaming kid, I was always compelled to read more, to learn more, to remember every magical word that gently brushed my heart. 

I believed that one day, all those words hidden away in my heart would give me the power to release a reader's soul just like how mine was released by all those dancing letters in all those flying pages. 

Good memory 

Stories were what raised me as a child. I still recall feverish glimpses of my mother setting me to sleep by reading me old Korean stories off of worn-down books passed down from generations of wise mothers who did the same. I remember listening to those words that I didn't yet understand and feeling them gently lulling me to sleep in the rhythmic singing tone that they were being told in. 

I would like to say that I was such an exceptionally smart kid that I could feel the power of those old stories being told to me, but that wouldn't be the honest truth. The truth was that my love for books and stories were simply driven by an innocent and childish curiosity. I longed to know what my mother was seeing in the stained, timeless folds of the books that she held so gently in her lap. 

Once I was old enough to understand the stories being read to me, I would always ask my mom to repeat each story at least three times. She still tells me from time to time about how I tired her with my nagging to repeat all the stories she said word for word. She even says that I would memorize the stories word for word and correct her if she told me something different from what she originally read out. And I doubt my mother is exaggerating when she says that I was like a story hungry troll who would never be satisfied. If I could go back in time, I would tell my toddler self to go stand guard under a bridge and make anyone who wanted to pass tell me a story. It would have made for something more interesting to write about when I shared my childhood. It would also have been easier on my poor mother who was being subjected to reading folktales to her child repeatedly.

I learned to read from a younger age than most because I was tired of waiting for someone to read them to me. I wanted to know what those soft pages felt like underneath my fingertips, wanted to feel what the words felt like as they wound their way into my mind. 

I wanted the ability to read every word in my very own voice, and paint pictures of my very own imagination within the pages. And that's how my journey through thousands of books and stories started. Throughout my entire life, books have been a trustworthy escape from reality, a constant reminder that something more beautiful that I could experience was waiting for me out there somewhere. 

I have always considered myself an extrovert and sometimes, though I hate to admit, a bit of a people pleaser. I find myself constantly going out of my way to accommodate someone else's needs, to empathize and sympathize with the opinions of others even if I didn't care. But when I curled up in a cozy corner with a good book in my hand, none of that matters to me anymore. I can, for once, be left alone in an empty void with my thoughts.

Books have set me free. They have motivated me to go looking for something greater, something I truly want to achieve. 

The author is a student at Beijing Keystone Academy