There are few things in the world that fascinates me more than a bookstore does. Unfortunately, there are few things in the world disappearing off the face of the world than bookstores. Or so I thought since ten years ago, yet bookstores are still standing strong, a lasting presence in shopping malls all over the world. It makes sense why bookstores would eventually go out of business, but I think they've survived due to being linked with coffee shops, DVD sales, and other surrounding businesses. I, for one, am always fine with stopping at a bookstore if we've finished our grocery shopping, window shopping, whatever.
If the pictures and paintings in art galleries are a window to a different world, books are an even more concentrated mass of portals, each book cover promising their own dose of fantasy (yes, I judge a book by its cover). Each book has its own set of ideas, own narrator or author telling their version of their worlds through their eyes, all through shiny newly printed pages that cry out for attention. Actually getting all the way through a book cover to cover is a chore nowadays, but the fantasy of being able to sift through different books at a bookstore still is really rampant. In a matter of a few minutes I can jump from interesting topic to interesting topic depending on what catches my eye, leaf through quickly and get the flavor of a book, and move on. Never mind that bookstores probably hate this, but this is the new book-consuming experience: the idea of books, the knowledge that I can enter these different worlds at my own will, is a joy in itself.
Not that I'm not into reading good books from cover to cover. Currently engrossed in a medical non-fiction (I'm more into the real world nowadays) called "Being Mortal" discussing the sadness of aging and one's golden years, but how hospitals and nursing homes don't have the right approach to the elderly who have lost so much of their physical and mental capacity; doctors can treat the diseases that are harming the patients, but not the depression and psychological effects like loneliness and lack of meaning. Sometimes it's better to put elderly in a more friendly environment, or put a friendly dog in a nursing home or so birds (to hear the birds chirping) just to give the elderly some inspiration to live, the author argues. Most of the world doesn't think about what happens when they get old (I certainly haven't planned for it) so they just take the "put them in a nursing care" approach without knowing what really happens in a nursing care. Especially with the average age going higher and higher due to medical advances (my grandpa is 92!) it's important to keep good mental health and explore quality of life for the elderly. I was just watching an elderly gentleman getting on the train in LA the other day. When the train arrived on the platform, I walked right in through the doorway of the train, but the elderly gentleman was inching forward towards the door with a walker but was in danger of not making it in before the doors closed. It's such a sad sight, just as the childhood exuberance of a newborn is exciting with so much potential for the rest of their lives, the sad sight of an elderly who has lived out their lives and once was powerful and strong deteriorating into their current state, and the knowledge for everyone else that that's a fate we all will endure one day (if we live long enough) is really harsh but requires us to face it. Many elderly's quality of health is fine, fine, fine, and then one day it just drops off a cliff, the body shuts down, so it could happen to anybody, anytime, and we need to be ready for it when it does happen.
Korean bookstores are awesome! MJ and I went to a used bookstore today in Koreatown and they had tons of stuff, mostly Korean which I tried to translate into English with various levels of success. And they anticipate my needs more than the average American bookstores, tons of books for Korean speakers learning Japanese, or Korean speakers learning Chinese, or vice versa. A cornucopia of Asian language learning! Asian bookstores ( in Korea and Japan) from what I can tell have a different standard for their quality of books, with extra bindings and wrapping their books in nice wrapping, making them an even more valued product. Each book is a window to someone's soul, it's a gift to be able to read it!
Maybe one day they'll have a book that teaches me how to remember to tend to the food still on the stove. I keep forgetting and having the water boil over and out of the pot! Urgg!!!
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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