The day an older lady spoke to me at the library

I went to the library to pick up a book I had reserved, and while I was there, I thought I'd check the language section to see if they had any HSK Chinese proficiency test textbooks or past exam papers.

There were fewer books than for English, but there were about 30 Chinese-related books lined up... but,
The lineup felt more like reading material than language learning books, and they looked quite old, too...
As I was looking at the spines thinking this, an older lady came up beside me. I thought, 'Is she looking for Chinese books too?' when she suddenly spoke to me.

“Are you learning Chinese?”I was unexpectedly addressed, and I replied,
“Oh, yes, I am. Just recently, though.”

From there, our conversation really took off.
The lady had such a cheerful vibe that I found it easy to talk to her.

I told her, “I’m studying with an app,” and “This book is great,” and showed her the book by Nobuko Nagasawa that I had previouslyposted about on this noteby looking it up on my smartphone.
The lady told me many things, saying, “I’ve loved Chinese history for a long time, so I’ve been studying it, but I haven’t improved at all... It’s nice to watch videos on YouTube that show casual street scenes in China; you can hear everyday conversations, but it’s just a string of words... Dramas are good too, aren't they?”

Just as we were talking, a stranger popped his head in and said,
“Could you please be quiet?”
So (sweat), we both apologized, said sorry, and immediately went our separate ways.


Libraries are quiet places, and I’d never been spoken to by a stranger in a library—or even a bookstore—before, so it was a rather fresh experience.

It’s fun to talk when you have a shared hobby, isn't it?♪

I borrowed these books today.
They are at a higher level than the diary I’m writing, but they have cute illustrations, so I hope they will be helpful little by little.

It would be amazing if I could write sentences in Chinese fluently. That would be so cool. I admire that.
I’ll take it one step at a time and enjoy the process.

Thank you for reading until the end.
If you’d like, please check out this article too ⤵️🤗

★ Challenging myself to 100 consecutive daily posts ★ 90/100