When Books Become Décor

Translated…

From before, I’d often heard the older generations talked about how the younger generations are reading less by the day, I’d felt more than secure, as I knew, that they weren’t talking about me, but, as I got older, to the borderline of heading into my forties, the time I’d used to slide on the cell phones slowly, eroded the time I used to read, and I’d become, stumped every now and then: am I going to, add myself, into the “group” of the younger generations that slowly drift away from reading, or, should I, add myself into the group of the aging population who’d not read?

not my photograph…

I’d set up an “Allotting Time for Reading rule” for myself—with books nearby, I’d read more, normally, this occurs when I’m at home, at the office, or when I went strolling at the bookstores, reading the hardcopies of books, I’d not gotten distracted by the sudden onset of messages that arrived on screen, I’d felt more at peace, and I can carry my concentration for a long period of time too; as people are away from home, in the time when they’re waiting, or waiting to move about, they’d not need get bogged down by books, and can just, skim through the messages on their cell phones, the proclamations of their friends on FB, there’s an assortment of views to take from, the writings that will, fit your reading needs, whatever you’re interested in reading, find more friends who shared your areas of interest, this, is a naturally-formed, sort of a book club, I suppose. And, perhaps, books and the internet will be able to, reach that balance of interaction by this means.

But, people from my generation who are very used to take strolls down those bookstore streets on Chungking S. Road, as well as the bookstore regions by the N.T.U., N.T.N.U., people from my generation, we’d all become, faithful believes, of the published volumes, the books we’d loved, we’d needed them, in hardcopies, it’d be better if the volumes were hardbacks, and we’d longed for the signed versions even more. The bus stations, the clinics, the guest rooms, the cafes, the book areas of larger scale hotels, I’d been attracted to head into, because that, is the building’s concentration of the scholarly.

not my photo still…

Awhile ago, I’d had a surprise serendipitous encounter with an intoxicating space called, “Old Bookshelves” by the train station in Yilan, the space was originally the storage unit for the railroad station, and now, it’d turned into a secondhand bookstore, and, inside this HUGE warehouse, I was the only one, digging, to find the treasures, not long thereafter, a couple brought the sun in, I’d not gotten agitated because my alone time was interrupted, instead, I’d become, more than curious, and drifted my gaze upon them, they’d skimmed through the surrounding environment, the girl found a vintage black couch and sat down, looked at the bookcase close by for a while, then, picked a book from it, opened it, in the dimmed lighting, the guy lifted his camera, took a photograph, of a person, engaged, intrigued by, reading……………watching this, it’d, moved me.

But in the very end, nothing happened. Because the girl, closed the book, placed it back on the shelves, then, satisfactorily, took the guy’s arms, turned around, left the shop.

I’d reminded myself, to NOT slap the label of “false literaries” onto people who’d just came to the book shops to stroll around, after all, she was only, one in a couple thousands of tourists who’d left her footprints here! And, there’s nothing wrong with, using books as a decoration every now and then.

Slowly, I’d found, that books had, lost their purpose, and became, nothing more than mere decorations in life.

And so, this, is really awful to see, can you imagine, that this, is the END of the books? Because there are so many things that can be accessed online, who would need to sort through a five-hundred pages volume, to find the answers? It’d be, a hell of a lot less time-consuming and easier, to just, GOOGLE the answers, wouldn’t it? But, the fact that people had stopped reading books shows, the steady decline of a culture, and that’s not good at all!