Reading spaces popping up in Beijing
They are not bookstores or libraries but cozy public reading spaces, where people from different housing communities gather to read and exchange books with neighbors. Before such spaces appeared in recent times, Chinese would crowd bookstores to get the chance to read for free, especially when public libraries were shut.
In Beijing’s Xicheng district, for example, there are 23 such public reading spaces, featuring various themes such as tea, theater and youth.
Public reading spaces began to emerge after the Beijing Reading Festival was launched in 2011, especially with its widespread “Reading Plus Me” campaign. So far, the festival has held 20,000 events and hosted 10 million visitors.
“We find out how much a neighborhood is into reading and what resources they have to share,” Gu Yangli, an official with the district’s cultural council, said. “This way we are producing a public cultural service and a model that can be reproduced.”
Wei Yushan, director of the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, said the country’s general reading survey in 2016 showed that 70 percent of adult readers among the 16,967 surveyed hoped to join some kind of reading event and 40 percent said they hadn’t read enough last year.
The Beijing festival is supervised by the municipal government, and combines inputs from enterprises and institutions to promote reading and enhance cultural services. It has expanded to 16 districts and more than 30 companies and organizations are involved in it, Wang Yijun, an official with the Beijing Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, said.
Besides such spaces, reading is also being promoted by a readathon event and the mobile vans touring the city carrying books and coffee.
The concept of “readathon” originated in Australia in the 1970s. It was introduced as part of the Beijing Reading Festival in 2016, when 200 some readers aged from 6 to 80, participated in it. This year, it has gotten bigger.
Earlier this week, two readathon events were held in Renmin University of China and China Youth University of Political Studies. On April 23, the World Book Day, more than 10,000 readers signed up for at least six hours of reading across 40 Beijing bookstores and got their certificates.
“The contestants really enjoyed the competition,” said Zeng Yingying, working for the festival’s event at SDX Joint Publishing Haidian Bookstore, where a book-recording station was added as a new element this year.
Readers can record their favorite passages from a book, and the radio channel FM 87.6 will select and broadcast a part of it.
In 2016, more than 300 writers and speakers were invited to attend 1,000 events in Beijing as part of the festival, said Wang, the administration official.
China’s first female astronaut Liu Yang was awarded the “Friends of Reading” title in Xicheng in April, where she said: “I would like to take some light history books to read on my next space mission, if I go on one.”
The Dongcheng District Library in Beijing has started to host lectures with important academicians. Tian Xiaochuan, an aviation expert, gave one on May 14, and Li Xiangyi, the award-winning science educator, will present another in the future.
“Beijing Reading Festival has accumulated experience that can be copied in other cities,” said Wu Shangzhi, viceminister of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.