Emergent Chinese

As the double decker bus hurtled through Philadelphia's Chinatown, I noticed the sign "Great World Supermarket." And there it was: one of the few Chinese characters I know. It was 'da,' the Chinese word for 'big,' here translated as 'great.' Now, I know more about print and what it does than a small child learning to read; nevertheless, I was doing something similar to what children do when first acquiring written language. I was acquiring another culture's system of print.