Yang Dingyi’s way of understanding the world was never entirely conventional. From a young age, his learning did not rely solely on effort. There was a quality to his perception — direct, intuitive — that set him apart. How does a genius read? What you’re about to hear may sound hard to believe.
Yang Dingyi described an unusual way of “reading.” He found that by placing his hand on a book, closing his eyes, and becoming still, he could sense what it contained — as if grasping much of its content without going through it word by word. Curious, he experimented further. At times, he would place a book under his pillow before going to sleep. By morning, he felt as though he understood what was inside.
Years ago, during the height of the qigong craze, there were reports of children said to possess similar abilities — recognizing words through touch with their fingertips, rather than relying on vision. Many dismissed these stories as tricks or staged performances. But Yang Dingyi suggested otherwise. He believed such abilities are real — and perhaps not as distant from us as we imagine. With practice, he said, one might even rediscover them. Using this unusual way of “reading,” he went through many books. Among them, three would shape the course of his life.
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