The Books and The Buses
While riding on the bus this morning I noticed someone writing with a pen(!) in his book(!). What?! How dare you?!
The thing is in Ukraine (and other post-Soviet-Union countries) children are taught from the very beginning that books are sacred and to write or draw something in a book is a biggest sin! Some kids would get severely "beaten with a belt" for damaging a book. Book is a primarily source of knowledge. If you want to make a mark or something you can do it lightly with a pencil so it can be erased anytime! That's why I still get shocked every time I see such an outrageous behaviour (= So, please, don't do that to books - it's like ripping the leaves off the bushes! )=
But anyway, I feel so blessed seeing how many people here in Seattle read books while riding a bus. I'm not saying "reading books" equals "being smart", but it does surely indicate that there're more intelligent and wise people out there!
...And just as I was leaving my bus I saw another man reading manga! And it was in Japanese (the man wasn’t Japanese, I checked). The manga was about some dolphin’s adventures (whatever) and was most likely intended for kids, so the language was quite simple (hiragana, katakana and a bunch of kanji). But nevertheless: it was so super awesome! ^_^ (wanna get one of those mangas for toddlers but don't really know which one is good for beginners)
