I was asked by friends at Publishing Today (The PW of China) and Sichuan Xinhua Winshare Chainstore Co., Ltd and Xinhua Publication Circulation Co. Ltd (The Ingram and Borders of China all rolled into one) to organize a group of U.S. booksellers and librarians to attend the Beijing Book Fair in January. The Beijing Book Fair is the domestic book fair in Beijing organized to provide booksellers, distributors and librarians with information on the latest’s and greatest upcoming Chinese books. Alas, my schedule would not allow me to return to China and Join them on this journey, but Karl Pohrt of Sahman Drum Booksellers in Ann Arbor, MI, agreed to guest blog! Here are days 4,5 and 6.
January 10, 2008
Things develop ceaselessly. -Mao Zedong
We roll out at 8 a.m. this morning. The weather has turned significantly colder and this was not a Blue Sky Day. We were scheduled today to visit four bookshops in the greater Beijing area, and on our way to the first store we stopped for photo ops near the Beijing Olympic Stadium. This breathtaking structure looks like a landing site for alien interplanetary spaceships. I prefer the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests in Tiantan Park. Our first stop was the Beijing Shuimu branch of the O2 Sun Bookstore. It’s located on a corner, so the store’s visibility to its customers is excellent. There is a beautiful little coffee shop on the second floor, and it has an interesting stationary section. Our info packets contain the following charming description: An urban living bookstore calls for ‘pleasant reading’, a café fills with cappuccino, a small resting dak appeases your soul. Whatever intent you come to here with , you can breathe the fresh 02 form the photosynthesis. The bookstore doing books about ‘language, walk, and communication’, and it is also has the yellow sun flower and warm lamplight. Next stop was the All Sages Bookstore and Thinker’s Café Bar, located on Chengfu Street outside the east gate of Beijing University. This is an awesome academic bookstore, one of the best I’ve seen anywhere in the world. The exterior signage is incredibly minimal, and one would not guess what a jewel is here from the street entrance. After we look around the store a bit, we’re introduced to Suli Liu, the store’s owner and founder. Mr. Suli invites us to tea in the Thinker’s Café, and we quickly get into a conversation comparing the book business in China and the United Stastes. We are joined by Xue Ye, President of the China Private Book Industry Committee, an organization that sounds somewhat like the American Booksellers Association (if I understand Mr. Xue correctly). Xue Ye is an intense man with a good sense of humor. He vibrates with energy. Suli Liu has decorated the walls of the Thinker’s Café with photographs of bookstores, and we are all enormously pleased to see a picture of City Lights there. Paul poses with Suli Liu for a photo. Our packet included the following information: The name of All Sages originated from the western ghost festival-Halloween, the antetype of the bookstore’s logo, blue devil is Indian devil mask. However, with public’s mouth-to-ear transmitting, the meaning of ‘ten thousand sages’ is more appropriate to the bookstore, ‘I prefer to understand it as ‘ten thousand sages’, all these ten thousand sages are authors in All Sages Bookstore’ bookshelves, and I am one of readers who get benefits from these sages’ Xichuan, Chinese poet said. So, the English name of the bookstore changes from ‘Halloween’ previous to ‘All Sages Bookstore’ now. After lunch, we visit the Beijing Books Building, a huge eight floor state-owned bookstore located in a bustling downtown neighborhood that reminds me of midtown Manhattan. We decide this must be the biggest bookstore in the world, until someone tells us there is a larger store in a southern Chinese city. The store is packed with people and seems to have everything, including most of the recent American bestselling non fiction titles, which have been translated into Chinese. From our packet: The prosperous customers flow over a long period, the outstanding sales in the book industry, all these help Beijing Books Building stabilize its No.1 status in the domestic book retail selling market. Its sales plan always becomes the vane of domestic book popularity and the information origin for domestic publishing houses which they have to think a lot of as well. We end our tour at the Beijing Sanlian Taofen Bookstore, another absolute jewel of a bookshop. Rick has friends in Seattle who told him not to miss this place. The info packet tells us: If you like books about social science and human culture, it is a perfect choice of going to the Sanlian Taofen Bookstore. Beijing Sanlian Taofen Bookstore is one of the most favorite bookstores for many youth who love literature. This bookstore is a best place for free reading, and ‘reading in stairs’ is a specialty of it. We meet with Zeng Jun, the manager of Sanlian Taofen, a calm and gracious lady who is proud of the long history of the store. Sanlian Taofen has some kind of institutional affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party, if I understood Ms. Zeng correctly. The logo of the store, a stylized image of three workers, is based on a Soviet design. Although I like nothing more than visiting independent bookshops, sleep deprivation is catching up with me and I begin to feel ill after our banquet dinner. I worry that I’ll vomit.
January 11, 2008
“Exchange information.”….This is of great importance in achieving a common language.
-Mao Zedong
I rally during the night, which is a good thing since today is Showtime for the American “Gang of Five.” We’re all scheduled to give presentations at a Booksellers Forum. Around one hundred people have paid 500RMB each ($35.95 U.S.) to hear us speak.
After an hour long ride across Beijing, we emerge from the minibus into a hotel lobby dominated by a huge Christmas tree and a large banner that says Warm Welcome to Western Booksellers. I feel just like a movie star again. I’d like to hang this banner inside the entrance of my home, so it would be the first thing I’d see when I got back from work every day.
I’m up first. There are two translators working at the back of the large room and everyone has earphones, which gives the whole event a certain gravitas it otherwise might not have. My talk is well received.
Allison Hill is up next, and she speaks on the subject of the radical changes brought about by the digital revolution. She warns our audience that the erosion of traditional bookselling seems inevitable, and that we’ve learned very little about how to prepare for what might happen in the future. We tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.
Allison sees the survival of independent bookstores as dependent on our ability to adapt, and she credits the survival of Vromans, the 114 year-old store she manages, to its ability to embrace change while at the same time maintaining a steadfast commitment to reading.
Sarah McNally sets up what she’s going to do by asking the audience how independent booksellers can compete with chain stores and Amazon, which she calls “the best bookstore ever, with the most books and discounts on top of that.”
Sarah’s solution is to work at making her store look better than the chain stores. “I try to make books irresistible,” she tells us. She shows a number of slides of photos taken inside her store and talks about balanced and beautiful displays. Sarah ends with a call to arms: “There is no other business that can do what we do for our societies. Globally it is our responsibility to keep bookstores alive in our communities.”
Xue Ye, our Master of Ceremonies today, has scheduled a Mr. Shi, who owns six bookstores in different Chinese cities, to respond to Allison & Sarah’s remarks.
Mr. Shi begins reasonably enough by stating that none of us—Americans and Chinese--have the answers regarding how to compete. His voice rises as he continues to speak, and it appears to me that he is becoming increasingly angry. Later in the day I realize that this may be a regional rhetorical style, but at that moment it is very disconcerting. Both Allison and Sarah remain incredibly poised. He ends by stating that “Chinese people are modest. We think we need to learn from the West, but we shouldn’t look to our foreign counterparts for solutions.” This gets a wild response from the audience. It is the only moment when people applaud spontaneously.
I don’t understand what has just happened. Is this an appeal to Chinese nationalism? What is the real subtext here? Afterwards, someone tells me that Mr. Shi’s remarks were a veiled criticism of the government for not helping independent booksellers, but it could be that the person telling me this is just being polite.
After lunch, Paul Yamazaki tells our audience the story of City Lights Bookstore. He describes the store as a community of resistance. “It’s not enough to just do a bookshop,” Paul says. From the very beginning City Lights was involved in political activity, and the store continues this tradition of community building today. He pointedly adds, “Beijing bookstores feel like City Lights did back in the early days.”
Paul describes booksellers as curators of contemporary literature, and he expands on this idea by citing the example of City Lights Books, which publishes 10 to 14 new titles a year. Rick Simonson tells the story of Elliott Bay Bookstore by concentrating on its ups and downs over the years. He tells people Elliott Bay is in Seattle, the home of Amazon.com. The store rebounded from its customer base migrating to Amazon by concentrating on customer service, backlist, and author events. Everyone at Elliott Bay works on the sales floor.
Barbara Genco, Director of Collection Development at the Brooklyn Public Library, ends the American portion of the program by addressing the topic of the role booksellers play in the community. She does an excellent job of summing up what we’ve all said. “Adaptability, independence and the issue of how to be unique are the key factors for your survival,” she tells the Chinese booksellers. “China is like City Lights. The more independent you are, the more likely it is you will survive.”
Our British counterparts take it from here. Sheryl Shurville, owner of the Chorleywood Bookshop, and Patrick Neale, owner of Jaffe and Neale Bookshop in Chipping Norton, feel their success is due to being rooted in their respective communities. Ron Johns, who owns three bookshops and a small publishing firm (and is a provocateur at heart), suggests that Chinese booksellers ask their government to ban Amazon.
At the end of the day, XueYe, our Master of Ceremonies, asks everyone in the room to make brief remarks about what they are taking away from today’s sessions. I’m not sure if this is the way most meetings end here and if everyone just automatically expects to do this, but it is very sweet. People’s comments seem deeply earnest and sincere.
Xue Ye asks people at the back of the room to begin, and by the time we get to the front of the room, which is where the speakers sit, I fear I’m becoming unhinged. I’m afraid I might weep uncontrollably when it comes my turn to speak. It’s a combination of exhaustion from jet lag and my reaction to the genuinely moving comments I’m hearing-- I’ve always been a complete sucker for the rhetoric of international fraternity and solidarity. However, at the last moment I get a grip. I retain my dignity. At the same time, I try to communicate what an extraordinary experience this is for us.
Rick bravely attempts to speak a sentence in Chinese. This is not entirely successful, but everyone in the room gets into the spirit of it anyway.
Following the Forum, we go to a restaurant famous in Beijing for its roast duck. Madame Ou Hong, editor-in-chief of China Publishing Today, and her entourage join us, Xue Ye offers a number of “bottoms up” toasts at dinner (getting pretty toasted in the process) and everyone has a terrific time.
January 12, 2008, Part 1: The Great Wall
There are no straight roads in the world; we must be prepared to follow a road which twists and turns….
-Mao Zedong
It’s a clear, beautiful day. We throw in with the Brits and rent a minibus (200 RMB/$14.38 U.S.) for a trip to the Great Wall. We drive north and west from Beijing across flat farmland toward the mountains. This landscape conforms to the images I carry in my head of rural China—neat walls around long single-story buildings with traditional tile roofs, trees planted in symmetrical lines, sheep and cattle. The road signs are in Chinese and English: Imperial Apricot Park, Moman Forest, Golf Hills....Golf Hills?
We hike the Wall for a few hours. This is a fierce, beautiful place and I feel my meager powers are not up to describing what it’s like here.
Mountains over and over again
fade into a blue haze in the distance.
The world goes on and on—
wind, the sun, silence.
I purchase a large calligraphy scroll in the gift shop at the Great Wall with the Chinese character representing Dragon. Dragons are fierce beings (see Ursula LeGuin’s Tehanu) and this will be a fine souvenir from the Great Wall. The dragon is also an important role model for independent booksellers. We’re sure not going to survive in the current retail environment if we’re not fierce.
