Background
Flea markets as Nostalgia – Virtual existence
Edward S. Casey defines nostalgia as an emotional response to the recognition of an impossible return . It comes with the feeling of fear and sadness missing particular places and people in the past that are lost and cannot be regained anymore. We are nostalgic mainly about specific memories that have been emotionally powerful to us and which we now miss. We recognize the past as intrinsically better than the present because we tend to think about the distant past more abstractly than we think about the present . Lots of the specific things that are happening right now involve the petty irritations that you have to deal with to navigate daily life whereas those irritations do not come up when you think about the past. So, all you …show more content…
They can re-experience the continuation of an age old traditions of craft making and trades where bargaining is the norm and a common activity in flea markets in Singapore therefore become nostalgic. However, this ideology of evoking nostalgia among people in flea markets seems hard to be applied to younger generations who have greater attachments to shopping malls and thus not owning any particular memories about these traditional markets. A virtual “home” is not necessarily only composed by past time memories but also by feelings of belonging. As flocks of people come together, a crowd instinctively becomes a community that shares the common values and interests in a given geographical area of the flea market. They gather to consume certain types of products that may not interest all kinds of people and share the same experiences hence reinforcing the sense of belonging. The attachment to flea markets in this manner also creates a place of their own, a virtual “home”, to people from the younger
Flea markets as Nostalgia – Virtual existence
Edward S. Casey defines nostalgia as an emotional response to the recognition of an impossible return . It comes with the feeling of fear and sadness missing particular places and people in the past that are lost and cannot be regained anymore. We are nostalgic mainly about specific memories that have been emotionally powerful to us and which we now miss. We recognize the past as intrinsically better than the present because we tend to think about the distant past more abstractly than we think about the present . Lots of the specific things that are happening right now involve the petty irritations that you have to deal with to navigate daily life whereas those irritations do not come up when you think about the past. So, all you …show more content…
They can re-experience the continuation of an age old traditions of craft making and trades where bargaining is the norm and a common activity in flea markets in Singapore therefore become nostalgic. However, this ideology of evoking nostalgia among people in flea markets seems hard to be applied to younger generations who have greater attachments to shopping malls and thus not owning any particular memories about these traditional markets. A virtual “home” is not necessarily only composed by past time memories but also by feelings of belonging. As flocks of people come together, a crowd instinctively becomes a community that shares the common values and interests in a given geographical area of the flea market. They gather to consume certain types of products that may not interest all kinds of people and share the same experiences hence reinforcing the sense of belonging. The attachment to flea markets in this manner also creates a place of their own, a virtual “home”, to people from the younger