One of Taiwan’s oldest and largest bookstores is to reopen under new ownership next month in Taichung, after being closed for 21 years.
Located on the corner of Taiwan Boulevard and Shifu Road in Taichung’s Central District (中區), Central Bookstore opened on Jan. 3, 1927, during the Japanese colonial period. The store was opened by the Taiwanese Cultural Association, which used the venue to host meetings of pro-democracy activists and to help develop a localized culture.
It was closed in 1998, with its owners citing financial difficulties. The space has since been used as a wedding gown shop, a convenience store and a motorcycle helmet shop.
Photo: Su Meng-chuan, Taipei Times
In 2016, the Shang Shan Human Culture Foundation obtained the rights to the building following an architect’s Facebook campaign to save it from demolition. Over the next three years, the foundation had the three-story building renovated in preparation for the bookstore’s reopening.
“The new Central Bookstore won’t be just a bookstore. It will have spaces for reading, exhibitions and talks, dining and other cultural activities. It will carry out the Central Bookstore’s mission of promoting localization and cultural awareness,” the foundation said.
The original Central Bookstore had been a publisher as well as a retail store, ran its own magazine and hosted talks, it said.
For many years, the store was a place where academics and other locals would buy books and meet friends, so it has a special place in the hearts of Taichung people, the foundation said.
The now-renovated building with its gold sign above the entrance has been attracting the attention of passersby, and many expressed anticipation of the bookstore’s reopening, the foundation said.
The first floor of the new store will focus primarily on books about Taiwanese culture and Taichung, will have a space for exhibitions and will also showcase selected local arts items, it said.
The second floor will have a play space for parents and young children, and will house lifestyle books and dining options, the foundation said, adding that the third floor would house literature and history works, as well as a space for public talks.
“Unlike at conventional bookstores, when people walk through the doors they won’t be hemmed in by a sea of books. Maintaining the building’s unique circular architecture, we avoided walling things in,” it said. “We kept the area next to the large French windows as a space for book lovers to sit and read.”
Fan Yun-lung (繁運隆), who is head of business operations at the bookstore, said he wants to preserve the store’s strong reputation and carry on the its mission of promoting local culture.
Store vice chairman Shen Chen-hui (沈貞慧) said that the store would emphasize cultural exchange and would not carry books such as educational texts or other “utilitarian” works.
The store will start trial operations in November and formally open in January, he said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS