By Debbie Yong

Some days, not a single customer steps into Grassroots Book Room.

But the owner of the 13-year-old Chinese bookstore in North Bridge Centre, Mr Yeng Pway Ngon, 62, keeps it open 'because I can't bear to shut it'.

Mr Yeng, the Cultural Medallion winner for Literature in 2003, said: 'I am losing money by the day. No one with any business sense would do this, only someone who loves books as much as I do.'

He has published more than 20 Chinese books of short stories, poems and plays.

News of the closure of Shanghai Book Company and the announcement that Commercial Press will shutter its 8,600 sq ft Cathay outlet tomorrow is leaving small-time Chinese bookstore owners like Mr Yeng wondering if their days, too, are numbered.

In better years, his 400 sq ft second-floor store saw a steady stream of customers, from academics and journalists to students.

He even took over the neighbouring 400 sq ft unit in 1999.

These days, his customers are mainly Chinese Malaysians or the odd Chinese studies student seeking an obscure book title, said Mr Yeng, who specialises in importing books from Taiwan.

'I am holding on only because I still have a two-year lease to go,' he said. 'The only way to survive is to stop selling Chinese books.'

Across the road in Bras Basah Complex, commonly referred to as City of Books in Mandarin by book lovers, Mr Sung Jee Tong, 44, is feeling the same jitters.

He and other bookstore owners there feel that the Internet and Singapore's switch to English education in the 1960s contributed to the decline in Chinese book sales.

Succession is also a problem, said Mr Sung. Few diploma holders, much less degree holders, enter this line these days.

'And only because mine is a family business have we put in the extra effort to keep it running,' said Mr Sung, who runs the Maha Yu Yi bookstore with his wife and sister.

The electronic engineering degree holder took over the business from his father in 1992.

In the case of Shanghai Book Company, a succession vacuum led the 83-year-old company's owners, Mr Chen Mong Tse, 72, and his sister, to seek a joint venture partnership with China National Publication Import and Export Corporation, a Chinese book importer.

The joint venture, along with the bookstore, was eventually wound up last month due to contractual disagreements.

'The market is far too small,' said Mr Danni Liang, who runs Aosai Chinese bookshop on the third floor of Bras Basah Complex. 'Even the sale of Hainanese chicken rice is a bigger industry than retailing Chinese books in Singapore.'

The idea that the influx of new citizens from China, Taiwan or Hong Kong will buoy the industry is a misconception, said Mr Liang, who has run his Singapore bookstore for three years.

Most of the mainland Chinese in Singapore are here for work.

Locals, mostly in their 50s and above, make up 95 per cent of Mr Liang's customers.

Shanghai Book Company's Mr Chen feels that for Chinese bookstores to continue to exist, they must either go bilingual or concentrate on very specialised fields, such as Chinese medicine, for example.

He feels that Commercial Press' move to add English books to the shelves at its remaining 800 sq ft outlet in North Bridge Road is 'a step down the right path'.

Popular, for example, started as a small Chinese bookstore named Cheng Hing in Tanjong Pagar in 1924. It now has over 90 outlets in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, selling a wide range of products besides Chinese and English books.

Said chairman Chou Cheng Ngok: 'To survive, we turned to bilingualism in the 1980s. The key is to feel the pulse of the business and to evolve with time.'

But with far larger players like Kinokuniya in Ngee Ann City, Chinese bookstores going bilingual will not have it easy distinguishing themselves, Mr Chen said.

But Mr Seng Thai Chong, managing director of Commercial Press, is still upbeat. He sees the closure of his Cathay outlet as merely a reaction to the recession.

He plans to expand again 'when the economy picks up'. Besides English books, the future outlet, which he hopes to place in a central shopping mall, will sell a wide range of stationery and gifts.

And, among the withering roots, green shoots can be found.

Shanghai native Hellen Jiang, in her late 20s, who opened Cat Socrates in Bras Basah Complex last September, feels that perhaps Chinese bookstores would evolve to a different form.

Ms Jiang, who also serves coffee in her 800 sq ft shop which sells contemporary Chinese novels, graphics books, paper products and tin toys imported from China, said: 'We didn't want to set up a bookshop but a place to relax, meet friends and slow down to enjoy life.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.