Just two days ago, the last Borders outlet at Parkway Parade closed – marking the end of the farewell that began slightly more than a month ago when the iconic Borders at Wheelock Place suddenly closed its doors on customers, announced its closure in a few days, and made its nostalgic farewell “speech” in the form of a thank you note outside the store. I must say that the reaction of many Singaporeans to the closing of Borders Wheelock surprised me. I am not talking about the mad rush of the thousands of Singaporeans at the Borders clearance sale in Expo – that comes as no surprise at all. What I am surprised by is the sense of nostalgia evoked in so many Singaporeans in light of this sudden the loss.
I did not think that Singaporeans were that sentimental or had that capacity to remember the past. After all, we are a nation that is in a constant state of change. What we see today, even if it is not torn down tomorrow, would have its view blocked by a new mega mall. I must confess that I have at first felt little about the closure of Borders Wheelock. But reading the reactions of so many in the newspaper reports and on blogs – both personal and on websites of mainstream media – I cannot help but feel a sense of nostalgia as well.
In a short span of 13 years since 1997, Borders Wheelock has acquired so much significance in the life of Singaporeans, and has seen so many memories attached to it. The bookshop is so iconic on that busy shopping district of Singapore. Blogger DK aptly describes how people would often say “meet at Borders” rather than “meet at Wheelock”. Indeed, it is the meeting place for many people – for gathering with friends and for couples, even if only to go somewhere else after that. It is also the place for several book launches including Harry Potter where scores of fans would dress up and wait eagerly for the latest volume. The place itself has quite a history, but it also has an important place in the personal memories of many Singaporeans. The memory of Borders may not have anything to do with some big political event, but it is definitely knitted closely to the hearts of many Singaporeans. If that’s not stuff for history, what is?
I think I didn’t feel so much for the Borders Wheelock’s sad fate at first because it is something I took for granted. But reading the reminisces of others reminded me of my own memories of the place – the place where I met before a gathering with my JC friends whom I felt awkward with, the place where I would meet my crush from my teenage days. But it was the personal memories of others that jolted mine back to those days and my own experiences connected to this bookshop. Some of these memories are similar to others, some are distinct. For example, I never really sat there for long hours poring over a book cover to cover, and then return it to the shelf without buying anything. Nevertheless, they were all memories focused on one place – Borders Wheelock. It seems to me that all these personal memories, while remaining intensely personal, are also beginning to be tied into a collective memory of the place. And the place, is slowly weaved into our social memory as a people.
It is ironic that we often only remember when we are about to lose something – it’s like a reflex response to consolidate everything into something we can hold on to. And the events that have transpired since 16 August 2011, when Borders Wheelock closed its door, helped build up collective act of remembering. From the online forum discussions about whether Borders is really closing and why they think this is happening, to the mad rush of the clearance sale, the attention given to the closure serves to help us to remember not only as individuals, but as a community. One patron of Borders over the last 13 years described his visit to the clearance sale as “saying goodbye”. The economics aside, all the activities surrounding the closure of Borders have helped stir up memories in other people in a domino effect. As a result, Borders Wheelock becomes a social memory – the memory of a people that I have assumed to have become forgetful in a rapidly changing landscape.
But rapid change is a reality. In fact, change could be the reason behind the closure of Borders Wheelock. People don’t really visit bookshops anymore, when you can buy them so easily online on Amazon and Book Depository. Or just download them onto your Kindle e-book reader. The book selling industry is changing and Borders Singapore simply could not keep up with the changes. As a result, it was left behind – or worse, washed away by the tide of economic changes. Could this then be symptomatic of the world in which we inhabit now? Where things change so quickly that it is quite impossible to accumulate memories let alone remember them? It seems like Singapore is having a sudden heritage crisis with all the talk of preservation, conservation and remembering – from biodiversity to old railways. But at the same time, in this sudden desire to overcome our amnesia, some things seem to be sidelined – things like the Bukit Brown cemetery. All of these are rather old places, part of our history in the last century. There is a lot of concern with preserving what is old. But what is recent and important to our lives now are often forgotten because they appear and disappear so quickly. Few things remain long enough to become remembered as history. Just because memory sites that are important to us like Borders Wheelock lived fast and died young in the face of rapid changes, and flew by like a comet in the sky, no one is going to be bothered with it.
It bothers me.
