Writing Something - Childhood

Writing for my own childhood memories, I’m writing this to summarize and reflect on my 18 years of memories. I hope this article can help you recall your own wonderful years. From birth to 6 years old, when I started school, it was a short period of 6 years. However, I don’t have memories of the first three years, so my “colorful childhood” only lasted for three years. Nevertheless, these three years were the happiest in my memory. But in my mind, these three years are very chaotic, and I only remember a few small things. As for the dates and order of events, I have a hard time recalling them clearly.

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The Beginning of Memories I really don’t know when I started to have memories, or at what moment I began to understand the world around me. I once asked my grandmother, and she said I probably started speaking and having memories around the age of 3. It’s said that when I was born, I lay quietly in bed, staring at the ceiling with my eyes wide open, as if thinking about something, which is why I got the nickname “沉思” (meaning “thoughtful” or “contemplative”). For me, the beginning of memories is the fragmented scenes that I can vaguely recall in my mind now - although I’m not sure which one is my earliest memory.

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My Grandmother’s House I loved living in my grandmother’s house, because I spent my entire childhood there. I started living there when I was just a few months old. I remember that every time I went back to my own home, I would cry. What I remember most clearly is that at my grandmother’s house, my grandfather would make me a delicious fruit juice with a strong flavor, while at my own home, my dad would make it too sour. I think this might be one of the reasons I didn’t like going back to my own home. My cousin also lived in my grandmother’s house, so I could play with her. Of course, when we were young, we would fight more often :) . My cousin (I’ll just call her睿姐, as I’m used to it) would go to kindergarten every day, while I hated going there, so I would spend most of my mornings and afternoons alone at home. This gave me more time to do what I wanted.

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English Learning English was once my favorite thing to do. I remember one day when I was living at my grandmother’s house, my dad came to visit me and brought a newspaper. He told me about an English learning program called “玛泽的故事” (I searched for it online, and it’s still available). I would watch it every day at the same time. At the time, everything seemed new and interesting, but now I think I was more interested in watching the animation than learning a foreign language. I don’t think I ever finished watching the entire series. However, it sparked my enthusiasm for learning English. After that, I started learning “少年儿童英语” (Children’s English), which my dad had bought for me. It came with cassette tapes, and I would listen to one lesson every day, carefully following along. I would only listen to one lesson at a time, and I would feel curious about the next lesson, but I would force myself not to listen to it. Looking back, this was a very wise approach. If I had listened to several lessons in one day, my interest would have disappeared once the novelty wore off. My enthusiasm for learning lasted for a long time. I remember that I was excited about every new word I learned, such as “get up”, “bee”, “ant”, and “apple”. Now, listing them here seems meaningless, but at the time, I was crazy about these words. I don’t know why. Later, I bought “中学生口语” (Junior High School Oral English), which represented the evil and hated exam-oriented education. I lost interest after reading just one page. I bought a few more books, and one of them had a lesson that I could recite fluently. From then on, whenever I visited someone, the first thing I would do was recite that lesson.

The decline of interest - if my dad had led me to learn English step by step, then it was also my dad who made me dislike English. He started explaining grammar to me and my sister, but I, relying on my prior knowledge, wouldn’t listen (in fact, I didn’t like being forced to learn). One time, he tested me on the singular and plural forms of nouns, and I got one wrong. From then on, my interest in learning English decreased significantly. However, I still claimed to be good at English, even though it was just an empty boast.

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