Today I Learn About "Tsundoku", And What It's Really Means to Me.

Today I learn about the Japanese word "Tsundoku". I find that word describes me well. Do you know what Tsundoku means?

Picture by Eli Francis

This is what it means:

Every day I always stop by the bookstore. This is quite something for me. Indonesia's National Library released data that shown only 10% of Indonesian interest in reading.

I have an argument for this phenomenon. Indonesian culture was shaped mainly by oral tradition. The children are familiar with folklore and fairytale. Before writing introduced, historical stories were delivered orally. Then after writing introduced, the historical scripts and inscriptions were finally found. Reading culture was growing but could not overcome the oral tradition.

About reciting stories orally, do you ever heard of Indonesian biggest author, Pramoedya Ananta Toer?

As written on Wikipedia:

During the Suharto regime, Pramoedya was caught up in the shifting tides of political change and power struggles in Indonesia. Suharto had him imprisoned from 1969 to 1979 on the Maluku island of Buru and branded him a Communist. It was during that period that he composed his most famous work, the Buru Quartet, a series of four historical fiction novels chronicling the development of Indonesian nationalism. Not permitted access to writing materials, he recited the story orally to other prisoners before it was written down and smuggled out.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, in 1950s - picture from Wikipedia

About the low reading habits, I have no worries. There are plenty of reading communities have taken up the challenge. Take Mr. Ridwan Sururi, for example. He is from Serang, on the slopes of the highest mountain in Central Java, Mt. Slamet. With a horse named Luna, Sururi visits local schools, letting children read books and play with Luna before the school starts. When news about Sururi’s horse library went viral last year, others joined the movement. (source)

"I'm happy if there are many people borrowing my books," said Mr. Sururi.

Now you can imagine a scenery, a rural area at the highest peak of Central Java, there's a man wandering around the villages with a horse loaded with books. And people love him. And the Children love Luna, the horse too. God bless Mr. Sururi and Luna!

Read more about Mr. Ridwan Sururi and Luna: here and here

Mr. Sururi and Luna, the picture was taken from Mr. Sururi's blog.

Okay, back to my story. According to the study, dubbed World's Most Literate Nation, places Indonesia below Thailand in 59th and above Botswana in 61st position. UNESCO states that Southeast Asia is the region with the lowest reading habit. Among other countries in the region, Indonesia ranks at the bottom. Out of 1000 citizen, only 1 has an excellent reading habit. Knowing that Indonesia is ranked bottom last in reading habit, you can tell that as an average Indonesian, a bookstore is not a place to go for me, right?

So am I a bookworm? A snob? An otaku? Am I proud of myself? Well, not really.

The case is simple: my office is in the same building with a big bookstore. To go to the cafeteria, I have to pass by the bookstore.

This happens every day. I've been exposed to many best selling books or authors on daily basis. I was helpless and defenseless. It's too easy to buy a book on the display, just because the cover looks good.

The old cliché "don't judge the book by its cover," never works on me. I always buy the book because of the cover.

Am I an avid reader? No. I just like to buy. More precisely, love to collect. There was a feeling of joy when purchasing a book, but when I arrive at home, that feeling starts to fade away.

I believe buying books and not reading them is a natural act. Buying books and reading books are completely two different things. This is my tsundoku moment.

picture by futureprimitive

Humans basically like to collect. Some like to collect cars, paintings, sculptures, toys, clothes, shoes, bags, posters, and so on. This is linear to the financial capabilities.

This collecting hobby sometimes has nothing to do with consumptive behavior. For example, I used to have a friend whose hobby was collecting name tags. He was an activist. He joined many events. His room was full with a stack of name tags from various events, from music, sports to social events.

Another friend, he likes to collect used cigarette packs. He piles it up in the window of his room. I don't know what was the motivation. It's not really artsy if you'd ask me.

I never get the ideas of philately, why do people love to collect stamps? Picture by Moritz on Pixabay

There was also a girl on my campus who loves to download movies on the Internet. She never watches it. She just loves to downloads, put the files on her pink storage disks.

To find out the reasons why people collect something, could lead us to a lot of answers.

The book covers creative, taken from Gramedia Bookstore

Regarding the hobby of collecting books, sometimes publishers are taking advantage of this gap. For example, they publish several series of books, which when assembled properly, it displays a certain figure.

A wise man whom I have forgotten his name once said that a good book should look brilliant from every angle. Books are not only about the text. This go for the physical factors like the great cover design, or the creative playing of the case wrap, or the book spines. All these things are reinforcing my belief that buying books and not reading them is a natural thing to do.

That is what Tsundoku means.

We need to put tsundoku into our dictionary.

Tsundoku (Japanese: 積ん読) : acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.