Commentary: The great book revival in Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic
SINGAPORE: In Roman mythology, Janus is the god of doors, gates and transitions. This reference is not just to concrete gateways but to spatial, emotional, psychological and metaphorical space.
He is frequently depicted on a coin or in portrait as having two faces, just each facing the opposite direction. One faces the past, the other the future. Though he represents opposites, he also represents motion from ane space to the other, thus the transitionary dimension.
Yous may accept seen his icon displayed in theatres and playhouses, with his faces expressing joy likewise as sorrow. This is the nature of duality that exists in our human being condition.
But he is not without hope, for in his right manus, he holds a primal to signify that a traveller has come to shelter in a safety harbour.
If yous looked at what had taken place throughout the menstruation of the COVID-xix pandemic, you may sense that the huge storm that had shocked the world is beginning to abate slightly.
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The global record is patchy just several countries are opening their borders and are moving from the pandemic phase to the owned.
Singapore is notwithstanding in a land of heightened warning. But change is definitely coming with vaccinations, testing and contact tracing beingness ramped up. Janus is heralding the transitory stage.
A PRISONER IN OUR MINDS
The alter in daily rituals and circumstances, like working and schooling from home, have made personal space more precious. Especially, in a country where the majority live in HDB flats with confined space, it has been challenging to stay habitation.
It made people showroom Janus' ii countenances, one of acrimony and fear, even of xenophobia, the other of heart-warming kindness to others.
There is an old maxim that rock walls do not a prison brand. We may have had to stay home more frequently than nosotros liked in recent months just a prison does not come about because of restricted spaces but from the shutting of the soul to new, stimulating experiences that provoke thought and nurse contemplation.
For we can go prisoners in our minds too. Watching Television set, HBO, Netflix etc is an escape. It tin can take the states out of the containment of our homes for a while and give us some respite.
Many people therefore rampage-watched. But there's a limit to how many hours ane can spend in front end of a screen, earlier going hazy-eyed.
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Every bit more meetings and events are being held online, on Zoom and other platforms, many are suffering from screen fatigue.
THE RUSH TOWARDS BOOKS
That is why books are making such an impressive comeback. The UK found last year that people accept doubled the time they spent reading books during the lockdown, with sale of fiction books going upwards by 16 per cent despite bookstores being airtight.
Interestingly, physical impress-books are more in need than eastward-books, possibly considering east-books are still screen-based.
Personally, for me, an e-book doesn't provide the condolement of touch that a print-volume has. Perhaps the interaction with paper from a tree that had breathed life has an energy that cannot be replicated by an inert electronic device.
Proprietor of Closetful of Books, Ms Denise Tan says: "If nosotros can't travel, books allow us to practise so." Indeed. Though we cannot physically travel, the world in books do non close their borders. They stay open for u.s.a. to roam and explore.
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Though our concrete torso is confined, our mental and psychological aspects of our being is untethered and costless to wander in the wondrous worlds created by the story we are reading.
It is this sense of freedom given past books which many people are newly discovering or re-discovering. It is but through reading these books that one can feel free.
And it is in exploring new worlds that this inward journeying helps people find what they have always looked for in everything they sentinel, do and promise for: Themselves.
BOOKSTORES SEIZING THE MOMENT
Bookstores which can assuage this urgent hunger are seizing the moment. New Chinese language bookstore Zall opened in Orchard in February.
In Singapore, boutique bookshops, like Books Actually, Wood in the Books, Chio Books, Closetful of Books, some of whom, take swapped their concrete bookstores for online platforms are making healthy sales.
Their owners accept a verve and passion for books. They treat them not every bit a mere product for generating income, but present them as portals to a myriad world of adventures, magic and creative expansion. Readers are invited, not just to buy, but to experience a book.
Denise tells me: "An indie bookstore is nimble enough to discover new ways of putting books in the readers' hands."
Like the other indie booksellers, Closetful of Books play an active function in reaching out to their readers. Denise and her squad used to run bookfairs in schools.
They were proactive in getting the books to pupils who may non have the propensity to go down to Orchard Road to browse in major bookstores. They interacted face up-to-face up with the kids and can ascertain their reading interests, then pair them with the correct books to keep them coming back for more than.
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They appoint authors to go to schools to talk virtually their books with fervour so that children tin can see that within the covers of books, stories come live and are not only expressionless text.
During this period of the pandemic, due to restrictions of movement and size of crowds, Denise runs a similar service online, virtual book fairs to continue this dynamic interaction.
She acts every bit a volume consultant to parents and libraries to recommend a range of books that will whet their children's ambition for reading and stir their chapters for imagination.
The successful bookstores hither are those that attain out to its potential readers, embracing them not just equally buyers but every bit a customs who enjoys reading and sharing stories, like in the halcyon, kampong days.
THE TRANSFORMATIVE Ability OF BOOKS
What is magical near reading books is its transformative quality.
Reading helps the reader to access her or his own creativity and imagination. Stuck at home, people felt the need to express their creativity.
Films encourage imagination but in a more limited manner considering the visuals in the film, pertaining to characters and places are interpreted and presented by their makers.
However, in books, though the writer presents the words to let the reader to visualise the graphic symbol and place, it is the reader who brings his ain creativity to invent the characters and places as she or he sees them. That is why reading a book is that much more satisfying.
The reader has an active role in the artistic procedure of the story as it unfolds. Story-telling has been effectually earlier tablets of stone commencement became books for reading. Psychologists will tell you the art of story-telling is an innate aspect of human living. Each of united states tell stories most ourselves, to ourselves, and to others.
That is why spiritual teachings try to teach you how to manage the kind of story you tell yourself then that it remains a positive i and inspires you to bang-up things.
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MAKING THE Virtually OF THIS Curt LIFE
This pandemic has shown that life tin can exist snuffed out hands. We know nosotros have to make the near of our life, while nosotros have the capacity.
We have to value our loved ones and others while nosotros have them. We have to live our life to the best that we tin. And if we tin't go out to scale mountains, swim with dolphins, skydive or whatever, due to the imposed limitations, at to the lowest degree we tin can practice information technology vicariously through stories and books.
Similar Janus, who holds the key to a prophylactic harbour, books agree the key to our safety harbour. We can delight in our adventures and dreams, and still be assured of a safe haven in our own reading room.
Why not pick up your primal and open up to other heady worlds?
Josephine Chia is author of many books, most famously Kampong Spirit: Gotong Royong, Bye My Kampong and the children'southward edition, Growing Up in Kampong Potong Pasir, and most recently, Big Tree in a Small Pot.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-great-book-revival-singapore-during-covid-19-pandemic-275416
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