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April 27, 2016

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Some brick-and-mortar bookshops thrive

BRICKS-AND-MORTAR bookstores have been hit by online booksellers, but in Hangzhou, a number of local bookstores have managed not only to survive, but to thrive.

Hangzhou’s city government has taken an active approach in supporting the shops by subsidizing the most prominent ones with 3 million yuan (US$461,400) annually and offers tax breaks.

Shanghai Daily took a look at the city’s popular bookstores on World Reading Day last Saturday.

Zhongshuge Bookstore

After its success in Shanghai, Zhongshuge has opened a branch in Hangzhou’s Binjiang District last Saturday and already welcomed thousands of readers.

With its glass ceiling, customers feel as though they are in “a sea of books.” Shelves are curved and the light is soft.

The 1,000-square-meter bookstore is divided into four parts. The first zone houses a large number of pillar-like shelves, the second zone is a large reading room with brown gradient shelves, while the third part is an egg-shaped room with circular shelves. In order to create a tranquil environment, the bookstore carved out a special zone for children.

Like other bookstores that try to keep customers by including a cafes in their premises, Zhongshuge provides a large, comfortable seating area where beverages and snacks can be ordered.

 

Address: 228 Jiangnan Ave

Environment Library

This library that focuses on environmental protection will open to the public on World Environment Day on June 5. It will cover an area of 1,000 square meters with more than 100,000 books on ecology, environment and agriculture. The library has been established through a crowd-funding campaign that encourages residents to donate their books.

Besides being a place to read books, the library will also be a platform to promote conservation efforts.

When Hangzhou Library announced to build the branch earlier this month, the location at Tianziling Jingmai Town sparked a debate across the city. Tianziling is now home to the city’s largest dump, while Tianziling Jingmai Town will be developed into an area for local green enterprises and industries.

In the future, the library will hold tours around Tianziling to raise awareness about environmental issues among teenagers, since the landfill will be turned into a green tourist site with ecological, environmental and industrial properties.

 

Address: 90 Linban Rd

Tongyaxuan Ancient Bookstore

The term “ancient” refers to books written about ancient Chinese culture and literature. They are not necessarily old, although some are block-printed books bound in cloth.

The owner Guo Jun established the bookstore 10 years ago and named it Tongyaxuan after a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) encyclopedia written by scientist Fang Yizhi.

At first, few people knew about his store. Guo opened an online bookstore to attract customers and promote his book business and soon attracted professors, teachers and institutions and organizations related to education and culture.

In addition, Guo developed a network of collectors after a couple of years. Publishing houses and sometimes amateur collectors sell their books to him.

At present, there are only around 10 such “ancient” bookstores in China, because modern-day Chinese people speak Mandarin instead of classical Chinese, so that books written in the old language have lost much of their popularity. Therefore, Guo expects that the bookstore could help preserve ancient books and culture.

Since books in classical Chinese about ancient culture and literature are not popular, only a few are being printed, making them rare and expensive.

The most valuable “book” Guo sold was the 10,000-volume “Gu Jin Tu Shu Ji Cheng,” literally “Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times.” The buyer was an entrepreneur with a home library. It is valued at around 1 million yuan (US$153,966) today, says Guo.

 

Address: 216-2 Xueyuan Rd

Tel: (0571) 8826-9272




 

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