The nation’s southernmost bookstore, Cheng Chun Bookstore (成春書店) in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春), is to close its doors on Sunday next week with a farewell concert featuring local bands.
The store’s owner, Wu Wei-te (吳威德), said that he decided to close the 16-year-old store due to the increasing cost of competing against Internet-based vendors, the changing reading habits of the public and the absence of a key employee who is on maternal leave.
“Maybe that there is no more demand for books means my mission is accomplished,” Wu said.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
When he opened the store in 1999, its revenue-to-income ratio was three to two, Wu said, adding that revenue has since then fallen to a 10th of what it was in the past.
He had paid out of his own pocket to cover the store’s rent and utility bills, Wu said, adding that becuase profits were barely enough to pay for his two employees, he had not drawn a salary as the owner for several years.
Wu said he quit a well-paying job at a computer company in Taipei to open the store in Hengchun, his hometown, because he believed “a cultured old town must have its own bookstore.”
“I wanted it to be a real bookstore; I would rather not make money than get into phony hipster stuff. When you turn a bookstore into a coffee shop or a restaurant, you are not selling books; you are selling an image,” he said.
Selling stationery items in his store was concession enough, Wu said, adding that his refusal to do “cultural and creative” things with Cheng Chun Bookstore — which, according to him, has caused the store to become a topic of ridicule among his friends — was motivated by principle.
“That would defeat the purpose,” Wu said.
When asked what he would do until the closing date, Wu said he had always insisted on “running the business as a pure and simple bookstore.”
“I kept ordering new books from publishers until this month, many recently published books are on discount. I insist on seeing his out to the end,” he said.
Although the bookstore had been a major player in Hengchun’s cultural scene and a popular location for television and movie producers, Wu said his proudest moment was the time when poet Sung Tse-lai (宋澤萊) revealed the context of his poem If I Were in Hengchun (若是到恆春) at an event held at the store.
Sung was so pleased with the reception his book received that he allowed the store to print the poem on its shopping bags, Wu said, adding that Sung told the audience that the poem was written during a summer retreat in the US, in reminiscence of the sights and scenes Sung saw many years ago as an off-duty soldier in Hengchun.
Wu said he did not want to sell his store because the transportation costs imposed by Hengchun Peninsula’s remote location made the store inherently unprofitable.
“My advice for people who want to open bookstores in remote locations is to be practical. Keep a main source of revenue elsewhere and manage the bookstore on the side. This might very well be the future of bookstores,” Wu said.
“However, I am too old-fashioned for that. I just want to sell books,” he added.
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