The storyline of the Hollywood film You’ve Got Mail is partly about a small bookstore that is being threatened by a big bookstore chain, but in Taiwan the trend appears to be going the other way.
While one of Taiwan’s leading bookstore chains, Eslite Books, has shut down several of its outlets, some small second-hand bookstores are using their advantage of a more personalized service to stay afloat in the current economic climate.
Jiu Xiang Ju is one such bookstore. Tucked away in a quiet corner near National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, the second-hand bookstore has an old world ambience created mostly by its retro furnishings. It boasts a rich library of literature, history, philosophy and the arts.
“We not only sell books, but also offer a professional service,” erudite owner Wu Ya-hui (吳雅慧) said.
She told the Central News Agency that she can help customers who are doing specific research list and find relevant books, including recent and out-of-print titles.
“That’s our main characteristic compared with mainstream book stores,” she said.
For example, she has helped a student find a book published in Singapore on Malaysian Chinese culture, which is not an everyday subject in Taiwan, she said.
Thanks to her professional services, her store has hardly been affected by the economic slump, she said.
Many of her clients are university professors and academics at Taiwan’s top academic institute Academia Sinica. Even the renowned Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai (王家衛) has drawn on her expertise, she said.
Wu also organizes free exhibitions that display items such as ancient maps, books and letters by deceased writers, an indication of the scope of the store’s collection.
Another feature of the small second-hand bookstore is the ability of its staff to build interpersonal relationships with, its customers.
“We establish relations with the people who buy second-hand books and we help customers source and sell books,” said Liu Ying-ling (劉盈伶), store manager of Mollie Used Books, where she has worked for more than five years.
Even more attractive than low prices, are the human connections that develop in Mollie Used Books, she said. The store has grown from a few square meters in a corner of a bazaar to four outlets, she said.
The relationship between the bookstore and its customers is so close that many clients who started out as literary amateurs have become consultants, providing useful opinions on matters such as book purchases and prices, Liu said.
Yang Tsai-hua (楊彩華), store manager of YaBook, related a similar experience.
YaBook was originally an online used bookstore. In June this year, the owners decided to open a shop on a small street near National Taiwan University, because “the human touch is absolutely necessary in the business of used books,” Yang said.
She said that while a physical store requires more of an investment than a virtual one, the advantages are that customers become friends with the staff, second-hand book lovers can touch the books and there is greater confidence in doing business with the store.
Second-hand bookstores are also good at sourcing rare books for their customers, she said.
For example, YaBook recently sold a copy an out-of-print book called Memorandum, which is a first collection of poems by contemporary poet Hsia Yu (夏宇). Yang said a book sold for more than NT$10,000 (about US$300).
The contrast in service between small used bookstores and the big chain stores — where customers mostly chose their books, pay and leave — is the factor that may well make the difference between survival and closure in difficult economic times.
“Through professional service and good relations with our customers, we hope to pass on to people the real value of a book, which is usually the writer’s lifelong effort,” Wu said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods