No idea if they still have them, I don’t live in NYC anymore. NYC, even Brooklyn is expensive as hell, rent was going up. My parents barely managed to borrow money from close friends + some savings to be able to afford a house in Philly, where I’m now. The last time I’ve been to the library was… idk 4-6 years ago… I literally only go to libraries to use their computer or like I wanna skip school and chill a bit there so I don’t get home too early.

When I was younger, I remember borrowing comics and stuff… I never actually wanted to read “books”.

I was facing a lot of issues…

On one hand, I barely know enough Chinese to read a Chinese book (except like a childrens book, which is just cringe for me, yes I know very hypocritical since I was a kid myself)

On the other hand, my English wasn’t remotely good enough to read an English book.

So like comics were the only thing I could read.

As for the DVDs, I didn’t pick them, my parents did. And it was interesting enough for me, so I just watched it anyways since there wasn’t much to do. Early days I wasn’t allowed much computer time / internet time, when I did have more access, I wasn’t knowledged enough to find free stuff to watch. So its just TV shows in Mandarin from those DVDs. It probably helped with expanding my Mandarin skills for a bit longer, because like it soon atrophys when you don’t use it. I haven’t really spoken Mandarin for like… 15 years. Except rare circumstances when there was a Mandarin-speaking classmate. I kinda remember the pronunciations, but I’m gonna have to think in Cantonese, then convert it to Mandarin… so there’s a bit of a lag, sort of.