Chinese Reading PracticeOf all the essays Chinese students read in school, this might be the one they remember longest. 《背影》, or My Father’s Back, is barely 1,500 characters, and almost nothing happens in it. A young man is leaving his hometown after his grandmother’s funeral. His father insists on seeing him off at the train station. That’s the essay. But the author describes the scene in a simple, beautiful way that encapsulates a father’s love for his son.
In this short story, a melancholy robot stays awake all night, considering how strange it is that humans sleep.
Why leave your couch when the entire mall can come to you? In this passage, we learn some easy vocabulary related to mobile shopping.
Ever catch yourself daydreaming about where you’d live if you could choose anywhere? City lights, countryside quiet, or somewhere in between? This text walks you through the classic dilemma of picking your perfect home – and spoiler alert, there’s no perfect answer.
Ever told someone their cooking was ‘delicious’ when it really wasn’t? Congratulations, you’re a liar – but maybe that’s not such a bad thing! This intermediate text explores the tricky moral territory of lying.
In this story, Wang Ming (王明) keeps forgetting that his friend Li Hong (李红) is a vegetarian.
Ever caught yourself daydreaming about what you’d do with a million bucks? You’re definitely not alone. This text follows a Chinese speaker’s fantasy spending spree – from ramen in Japan to guitar lessons – while dropping some wise thoughts about whether winning big is actually all it’s cracked up to be
Follow along as our narrator navigates the universal struggle of getting online in a coffee shop.
In this short passage, we learn some middle school science terminology.
For a cat, sleeping is a full-time job. In this short essay, a kid describes his cat’s very busy schedule of doing absolutely nothing.
This kid is excited to finally learn to ride a bicycle, with a little help from his 爸爸.
In this tear-jerker essay, famous Taiwanese authoress Sanmao ponders on the value of her own life. It was written as she grieved the drowning of her beloved Spanish husband in 1979, and is all the more tragic in light of her suicide 12 years later.
A tragic, dreamlike little essay from writer Zhang Ailing (张爱玲, English name Eileen Chang) about love and destiny. This is one of her more well-known works of micro-prose, written in 1944. HSK 5-6.
An essay from Chinese lit diva Zhang Ailing about a scene of police brutality she witnessed in Shanghai in the 1940s. HSK 6 and up.
You can skip your Instagram yoga gratitude break today, here’s another one from Taiwanese Buddhist essayist Lin Qingxuan (林清玄). HSK 4-5.
Taiwanese Buddhist essayist Lin Qingxuan marvels at the wonders of nature, time, space, and reincarnation. This piece is all about awe of the natural world, and you’ll learn some Discovery Channel vocab, like “pupa”, “mate”, “breed”, “spawn”, and lots of animal names.
In Part II of this two-part series, we’ll read acclaimed author Ba Jin’s reply to the 10 elementary school students who wrote him a letter asking him for moral guidance in 1987. I’m not a super weepy person, but I legit cried reading this. This is a noble, elevating piece of writing, and reading it, I’m reminded that in all societies, there are those who struggle with the materialism that engulfs us.
In this one-paragraph read (HSK 2-3), Little Brother wants to help dad get ready to leave the house, but his contribution falls flat.
Jia Pingwa (贾平凹) is one of China’s modern literary greats, and in this short story, it shows. I don’t know how this guy crammed so many insights on the human condition into a few paragraphs about a rock, but he undeniably did.
In the first of a two-part post, we’ll look at a letter sent in 1987 from a group of elementary school students to the anarchist writer Ba Jin (most famous for his 1931 novel The Family) as they struggle to cope with China’s changing social values. In Part II, I’ll translate Ba Jin’s reply.