Address: Shop A, 3/F Fou Wah Centre, 210 Castle Peak Rd, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong
To My Neighborhood Bookstore:
Hello, how are you? If there was one place that allowed me to document our memories together, it would be you in this case. I always appreciate how you’re so friendly and accommodating to everyone; children, adolescents, young adults, adults, seniors… I’m constantly amazed at how you always have some kind of knowledge and resources that spoke to their specific interests, whether it was cultural or generational. I know that I was never able to visit you after school, but whenever I did so on the weekends, it always feels like I have stepped into a resort, a personal space of relaxation and where I am able to immerse in a variety of informational content.
I’ve always wondered how you are quite literally built like a maze. I’ve had to come visit you at least 10 times to have a firm understanding of what you’re like, and, how should I put this… you’re really an enigma? Whenever I come to see you, I would be first greeted by stacks of recently published books, wrapped like brand new gifts in plastic films that glimmer under the ceiling light. Then after that, it was stretches of long corridors one after the other, with occasional turns around the corner that would lead me to a different section.
It’s funny because walking through each distinct section feels like I’m the spectator watching a person gradually grow from childhood to adulthood all at once.
After the section that is designated for recently published books, that was when I would usually see you in your child form. Instead of shelves stacked high one on top of the other, you showed yourself as rows of brightly colored ABC guides, picture books, puzzles and carefully packaged plush toys sitting at a height that is generally no taller than most of our shoulder lengths. Sometimes I would see young children running around with books in their hands, or some other times they would sit on the floor, placing all their focus on the book’s content. You seemed to be particularly inclined to music and audio too; you would always be playing language lessons on the TV that was plastered on the walls of your section. Sometimes it was the English alphabet song, and other times it was a game that asked us to identify the words that corresponded to certain tones in Mandarin. I enjoyed learning these with other children too, it made me feel nostalgic as I stood in front of the TV with them, and answered all the questions (although I knew what the next alphabet letter after K was) with a book in my hand.
As I continued to walk along the corridors, you grew into a middle-school child, then eventually a high school teenager. You’re much taller and have a much heavier preference for text now, but you still like to share your thoughts through a combination of book types: comic books, graphic novels, young adult novels particularly on different kinships and coming of age, academic exercise books plastered in combinations of knee-level popups and wall shelves. I remember reading a graphic novel that provided tips and knowledge about earthquakes; I was really intrigued as it was formatted as a story revolving around a group of teenagers who encountered an earthquake in their hometown, and the tips were integrated in their conversations and the novel’s scenes throughout. For teenagers and adolescents, this format has also made the learning experience easier and more accessible, compared to introducing all the knowledge in a more text-based research book.
In retrospect, I realized that this ability to read and learn about natural disasters in books is also a privilege in itself as well. Rather than reading about it, many individuals in other countries are impacted by these natural disasters on a physical level. I think you play an important role in reminding us our responsibility of not only being informed of this knowledge, but to acknowledge the privilege some of us have in our circumstances and to share this information with others.
It is harder to tell exactly when you have stepped into adulthood, although the traces are emergent in the autobiographies, literature novels, books on a particular research topic, and life management guides that you show. The one particular trait that I appreciate about you, though, is that
you welcome anyone to read the books that you have. The books are underlyingly divided into sections according to their genres and specific age ranges for their readers, but virtually anyone is welcome to read any book even if it falls beyond their age. I was one of them too, as I always enjoyed examining the writing styles and vocabularies that authors used in young adult novels, compared to biographies of adult authors describing their own life experiences.
Every time I pick up a book to read it, it also feels like another time warp in and of itself, as it provides me with the opportunity to immerse in and travel to different regions around the world, as I read through the pages themselves. I always have an existential crisis after closing the book and looking at the bustling streets outside the window, but taking all of these learning trips was definitely worth it.
With that being said, I wanted to say thank you. When people ask “are you an open book?”, I don’t have a sure answer and I still don’t, because you are both at the same time, and I think that is completely okay.
Sincerely,
Joyce Leung