Just finished a book titled "Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road" by Rob Schmitz (2016). A really interesting slice-of-life book about a different country and culture. On a trip back to New York City he interviewed a man in his late 50's who had finally made it to the States from Shanghai after 20 years of applying for a residency visa. For some reason, probably because I love to read and simply flog the hell out of my local library system, the following paragraphs really resonated with me. I actually had the book in my bookbag to take back to the library on my next trip, but I thought I would dig it out and post it.
"Wang Xuesong's favorite place in Flushing was the neighborhood's public library. He walked by the gleaming glass and steel structure each day on his way to catch the 7 train, and he soon came to learn that its role in the community was nothing like that of a library in China. In China, the public library's role in the community is restricted to lending government approved books to residents. In America, Wang discovered, public libraries did much more. They were civic centers, learning centers, and in an immigrant community like Flushing, the library became far and away the single most important place in the residents' lives, offering free English classes, free computer classes, free high school-level classes, and a variety of workshops that helped new transplants adjust to their new home.
Wang spent all of his free time at the library. The fifty-seven-year old took English classes twice a week. On Tuesday nights and for seven hours each Saturday he took high school courses. By the time he turned sixty, he told me, he would earn his GED, the equivalent of a high school diploma. After that, he'd move on to college coursework. Wang's classmates at the library were some of his best friends. Many of them were from China, but he also had friends from India, Russia, and the Dominican Republic. Before he'd stepped foot inside the library, Wang told me, he didn't have a clear sense of how America was different from China. But here among the stacks of books and halls of classrooms was a place built for the betterment of the community; a place where people could, free of charge, learn new skills that would help them find better work and improve their lives. China didn't have places like this, Wang said. Each time he entered the bright and warm environs of the Flushing public library, he felt hopeful. He felt free."
Some good stuff. I love our public library system. Although (hopefully) my moving days are over, whenever I did move to a new location, one of the first orders of business was to find out where the local library was and get a library card.
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
