After almost five years, I was able to travel back to China in May and June. This time, my first in the country in my current role as East Asian Studies Librarian, I was eager to bring back more unique library materials, meet and connect with library colleagues and vendors in China, and get up to date with the Chinese book scene after so long.
I started my trip in Beijing, the country’s capital city and cultural center. There, I visited a popular weekend book market at Baoguo si 報國寺, an old temple complex first built in the Ming dynasty. In the 1940s, the complex was occupied by both local and central authorities in charge of granary administration. In the late 1990s, the temple complex became a famous antiquarian market. Not until this spring did it welcome second-hand book vendors and rebrand itself into a used book bazaar.
From the Baoguo si market, I selected several sets of xiao ren shu 小人书, a palm-sized comic book that took shape in post-1949 China. The sets I bought are primarily adaptations of popular foreign films and fiction from the 1980s, an era when Western culture was (re)introduced into China. Through this inexpensive and readily available format, Xiao ren shu became a genre through which Chinese readers gained a peep into popular foreign literature and film.
Similar collectibles can also be found in Beijing’s Panjiayuan second-hand market (Panjiayuan jiuhuo shichang 潘家園舊貨市場). Having taken shape in the early 1990s, the giant market has gradually replaced the centuries-old Liulichang 琉璃廠 to become the biggest antiquarian market in Beijing. Panjiayuan has both “permanent” shops and make-shift booths that have vendors selling jewelry, ceramics, paintings, calligraphy, religious and ritual supplies, furniture, and, of course, books, and occasionally archival and manuscript materials.
Beijing is also home to many of the vendors we work with here at UT Libraries. CIBTC (China International Book Trading Company) and Zhenben are the two book trading companies that UTL has partnered with for decades. In my discussions with representatives from both, I learned so much about the current state of the Chinese publishing market as these vendors are a critical part of the ecosystem of East Asian collections in North America. They help us to work around language barriers and complex legal requirements for exporting and importing library materials and they also help us hunt down rare and unique items our patrons need. I also was able to visit our electronic resource vendors. For example, I met with representatives from CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), a crucial vendor through which we can get access to the vast amount of academic information from China. There, I toured their automated data processing unit and met with the head of the overseas department. I learned about the company’s recent advances in AI, their large language model (LLM) and new products in both the development and deployment pipelines.
Last but not least in Beijing, I was able to visit the First Historical Archives (Di yi lishi dang’an guan 第一歷史檔案館) which moved to a new location in 2021. In my life as a Qing historian, the “Yi shi guan” (as people in the field like to call it) has been a treasure trove. In its new location, they have also established new visitation and usage procedures. For example, foreign and domestic researchers are now treated similarly. Likewise, scheduling is now simplified and online. Under these revised access procedures, I was able to spend some very happy hours reading and transcribing some 18th- and 19th century documents in the brand new building.
After Beijing, I traveled to Nanjing and Shanghai. In Nanjing, I revisited the bookshops near Nanjing University that I frequented as a college student over a decade ago–I was glad to see that all the establishments are still in business. Nestled in the narrow streets behind the university, these bookshops continue to be highly aligned with their main clientele’s (professors and students) intellectual interests– one may very well be able to find very rare out-of-print editions that freshly came out from a scholar’s private library. Indeed, I was able to bring several of those back to UTL.
Last but not least, serendipitously, I met with public engagement colleagues at the Shanghai Library, the largest library system in China and according to its claims, the third largest in the world by collection volume. While there, I was intrigued by the innovative strides the library is making to attract the public. One such example is their gamification of the famous Dream of the Red Chamber/Story of the Stone. The masterpiece of Chinese literature is transformed into a role-playing game with well-designed props and plots through which participants gain an immersive experience in the intriguing and poetic world of the fiction and as well as compete with each other in a monopoly-like game.
I have gained so much knowledge of the current state of China’s scholarly publishing landscape and strengthened our collaborations with vendors to get critical research resources available to researchers and students at UT. Trips like this are crucial for us at UT Libraries to keep up with the new developments in the fields and meet the ever-evolving needs of our users. We deeply appreciate the generosity of donors to our Hornraiser fundraising, which has made overseas trips possible and allows the global collections at UTL to grow and evolve. I also thank the Center for East Asian Studies’ generous support to the trip and their continuous support to the UT Libraries.