A Reader in Summer, A Traveler in Winter

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."-- Dr. Seuss

I must do something. Today is the last day of August. It's sunny in the afternoon. I put on the bikinis, dived in the river, splashed the water in the air, wetted my Toastmaster Magazine on the bank, a perfect ending to summer 2007.

Autumn is coming. I must focus more on reading in Japanese to get myself ready as a traveler in the "Land of the Rising Sun". I know it won't help much linguistically in such a short period of time for my upcoming winter journey in Hokkaido, but better than no preparation at all.

I've been studying PHP magazines for the past three consecutive years. Twice a month I meet with senior citizens for two hours and half to study the articles in most-recent magazines. In fact, that's how I came up the idea of studying Toastmasters magazine with golden ladies clogging Toastmasters six months ago.

Reading in Japanese produces writing in Japanese, which I should try in due time, like what I'm doing on this blog, documenting the minutes of Toastmaster magazines reading gatherings.

I've read quite a few good Japanese novels translated in Chinese. Take Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country, the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1968, for example, I read it, and I forgot it. I live in Taiwan. I don't know what it is like in a snow country. If I could live in Hokkaido for a month, walk on the slippery streets, rush to find shelter in a coffeehouse in the afternoon, I should be able to perceive the story better, the names of towns and people will stay longer, even the favors of local delicacies linger.

Theodor Seuss Geisel prompts my travelling genes, to see the world, to stimulate the senses, to develop the emotions, to nurture feelings, and to read and write in Japanese. If every act of writing is an act of reading, an act of traveling, I'd be delighted to give an interpretation of some part of what it is, in Japanese. Sherry