National Library ⁽⁸⁾

On Saturday after dinner, I went to the National Library as I used to. The main hall of the new National Library building was under renovation and had been cordoned off, making the scene look a little unfamiliar. I had not been inside the National…

At each entrance to the reading rooms of the National Library there is a security gate, whose function is to shut out the noise from outside the reading room. So once we step into the reading room, even if just a few meters beyond the…

In the main hall of the National Library reading room hangs a pale blue poster; its title is the line from the Analects, "Reading is like farming; diligent tillage brings an abundant harvest." I like this poster—it is clean and elegant, without a speck of…

Last Saturday, as usual, I went to the library to review. The weekend library is packed, and seats have to be grabbed. I am usually among the first batch to enter, so I always manage a good seat. A mother of a 10th-grader grabbed the…

After a period of adjustment, my life has begun to fit me better. Since moderately reducing my workload and shifting my focus to study, my psychological pressure has eased considerably. It turns out that for all these years, my greatest mental stress came from the…

Throughout the summer vacation, I spent essentially every day at the National Library of China. I would arrive at the new building shortly after eight in the morning to queue up; when the library opened at nine, I would rush into the reading room at…

A few days ago I returned to my hometown to visit the elderly at home. I also took the chance to renovate the old country house; work on the house had started shortly after this year's Spring Festival. But several new projects, which my father…

I don't know since when life changed its original course; more and more trivial matters needed handling, and time was cut into countless fragments, so my visits to the library grew fewer and fewer. After the pandemic began, the library switched to a reservation system,…