Kai Tyler
Professor Jewell
English 1101 TTH
9/15/19
Being raised by a Japanese mother who had been so adamant about me learning Japanese writing led me to not take much of an interest in the subject at first, Japanese or otherwise. I struggled Japanese writing, how could learning English writing be any better or easier? My mother only talks to me in Japanese, despite living in this country longer than she has in Japan. My father on the other hand isn’t really the talkative type. We rarely communicate and can manage to go weeks without saying more than 20 words despite living in the same home. One of my closest friends growing up was Japanese as well, born to two natives of the country. So from birth I was surrounded by a foreign language and culture, with little interference from my Father.
Every Monday and Wednesday after school from the first to fifth grade was a 1 hr Japanese writing session, where I would practice writing and learning new characters (Kanji) to expand my vocabulary. From 6th to 8th grade I had tutoring 3 days a week to supplement my Mathematics, Science and Reading comp, never my English writing. Essay writing wasn’t a skill necessary for the SHSAT and that was my mother’s primary goal at the time. Neither of my parents were particularly strong at writing so it was deemed unnecessary at the time. I read a lot already so I feel like they thought that would somehow translate to writing. It didn’t. I didn’t ask for help because that would just subject me to potentially placing me in a Saturday school. My mother could help me solve quadratic equations or help me with two column proofs but she couldn’t confirm whether or not the paragraph I wrote had any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I was being unintentionally steered away from (English) Writing and to be completely honest I didn’t mind. I’ve never enjoyed writing, never thought I was good at it, and have basically tried to avoid it at all costs. I felt like I lucked out pretty hard going to Brooklyn Tech since it has a STEM based curriculum, a curriculum revolving around stuff I’d practiced all my life. Any papers I had to write weren’t exactly easy, but they were all expository essays. No emotions or opinions made it like all the other subjects which lessened the difficulty compared to, say, a narrative essay. I always did the bare minimum, doing however little I can to be done with it and do anything else.
Reading, however, I took to pretty young. So long as it was deemed educational, my mother would purchase it, no questions asked. I still remember the first book I chose to read on my own, rather than having it be a tutor or school requirement. ‘Eragon’ by Christoper Paolini was it. Quite a challenging book for a grade schooler. My main motivation for reading at it the start was that my mother used books or math questions as an incentive to play video games, every minute I read or question I solved was another minute on whatever console I felt like playing that day. ‘Eragon’ seemed easy as it was a big book with a dragon on the cover, and what kid doesn’t like a story about dragons? Unfortunately I didn’t realize what I was getting into and the vocabulary was far too difficult for me, stubbornly I pushed on. About halfway through the book I realized I was truly lost. An important character had died and I didn’t even notice. What else to do besides restart from the beginning? So I did, and I got lost again, this time 150 or so pages further than last time. With each reread I got further and faster and my vocabulary expanded, previous words that didn’t make sense I would learn through context. I felt a real sense of progression with reading, which pushed me to read more and devour whatever other fantasy novels I could find. I learned I loved lore and backstory, so whenever there was an accompanying novel or comic to a TV show or movie I enjoyed I would read it. Learn about everything they couldn’t include in the TV or Film medium, Harry Potter being a good example of this. I’ll always prefer to read and dislike writing due to my upbringing and don’t see that really changing ever.
