Today’s plans changed pretty drastically once I found out the AFSP OOD walk was postponed, so I ended up having a lot more free time than I’d planned for. I did a bit of cooking during the day, and later in the afternoon, I messaged our neighbor friend and toddler who we spent time out with last Sunday to see if they wanted to hang out. We went from the play room to their apartment and then back downstairs to the lounge room over the course of two hours. For the most part, the kids were able to play together independently without involving us, and us two adults were able to chat about everything from travel to language learning/acquisition to one of my favorite topics: books! One thing (of many) I miss about being in a school environment is talking about what people around me are reading. I don’t have a lot of friends who read a lot — maybe just two or three who actively read and can always say they are reading something. But I love when I learn that people read, and I love it when people ask me what I am reading (which then means I can ask them what they are reading and potentially get book recommendations that I otherwise would not have known about or even considered). What we choose to read says a lot about us, and at its most surface level, it shows that we are curious and want to learn more about things that are not just ourselves.

I told her I was currently reading the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu’s The Book of Joy. But this past year, I read a lot of historical fiction about the Vietnam (American) War, the Cultural Revolution in China, and the Partition of British India into Pakistan and India. In the book about the partitioning of British India into Pakistan and India, one of the book’s main characters makes commentary about how ridiculous, stupid, and inward looking American news media is. During that period in the mid to late 1940s, she was studying and then working in the U.S. as an immigrant from India, and it was virtually impossible for her to learn anything that was happening in her home country despite the massive changes, cultural/religious violence, and India becoming independent. What she learned that was actually happening in the country was only through letters that came (much delayed) from her family. Sadly, this is not quite far from the truth today: U.S. media is always so focused on… what’s happening in the U.S., ally countries of the U.S. It’s always about what happens here, and if you want to learn about anything happening in other countries, it’s 100 percent on you. We talked about the media, and that transitioned into how she’s been working on her French, and one way she gets better in her French language acquisition is by reading… graphic novels! I was so intrigued when I heard this; I know no one who reads graphic novels. The last graphic novel I read was when I was in high school, and it was Persepolis, a book often compared to Art Spiegelman’s Maus. While Maus tells the story of World War II through the lens of the author’s father, who was a Polish Jew and a Holocaust survivor, Persepolis tells the story of the Iranian Revolution through the lens of the author herself and her own experiences. When I told her this, she told me that Persepolis (in French, its original published language) was next on her list! She reminded me what I learned during my four years of French language and culture in high school: graphic novels aren’t a big thing (they are barely known at all!) in the U.S,, but in France, they are huge. There are entire bookstores devoted to graphic novels in France, and they are truly considered (and some are even priced as) works of art! She said it was easier for her to follow a graphic novel and improve her French than an actual novel (very difficult for obvious reasons), and not only was she able to enjoy the art and the story, it helped her improve her language skills. This almost made me want to read Persepolis again. I even have a hard copy of this book at my parents’ place.

After our time ended together and I had to get Kaia back home for dinner, she thanked me for our time together and said that while she’s happy that Kaia and Hugo love each other so much and get along well, she’s even happier that she met me and that we’ve gotten to know each other well over the last few months. I would agree; she has definitely surprised and intrigued me in ways that get my mind thinking more. That is the true beauty of friendship and getting to know others who grew up completely differently than you.