Outside readings

Since schooling was so much a part of our growing-up process, most of my classmates participated in very few outside classroom activities. It was unusual for me to play basketball and to sing in the church. People like my father wondered where I got time to do so much! But I do have to give him credit not interfering with my activities whatsoever, especially after I passed the entrance exam to go to Taida. Both my parents supported me pretty much as I liked, which made my life much more enjoyable during my college years. Beginning in high school, whenever we had some free time, especially during the summer months, we read quite a lot of Chinese novels, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义), and Water Margin (水浒传) and Journey to the West (西游记). All of them I have read several times. These stories trained us in the so-called Chinese "mind".
The only foreign novel I read was Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. I read it in Chinese! And certainly I was very moved by the story, it is very interesting that I experience the same emotions whenever I watch the musical of the same title.