Twenty-year old Canadian, Emma Gowing began travelling when she was 16. Two years ago she touched down in Guangzhou. An avid learner, the intrepid Gowing taught and read her way across the countries she visited.
I first met the autodidact not long after I arrived in Guangzhou; she was sat across from me in a cafe poring through Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Needless to say, it didn’t come as a great surprise when, several months ago, she announced a community book exchange was in the works.
Gowing told me that the exchanges are a great place for people to hand over books before they leave China for somewhere else and “although there are bars with open bookshelves around, a lot of us were buying the same books at the same bookstores.” The meets are a cheaper and enriching alternative.
So far there have been two, both held in June to compensate for the fact that Em took July off to journey through Australia. The first was held at a coffee shop in Zhujiang New Town, the second in an Irish bar in Tianhe. Each one has begun at 6.30p.m (ish) with books being claimed in the first two hours. Any drinking, she assures me, is secondary to the topic at hand.
At present 70 books, novels and collections are in circulation, and it works on the basis that attendees don’t come just to collect; the idea is to get people to give as much as they take. As for the type of people that go, “ex-pats, usually teachers, Chinese TAs from English schools, writers, musicians, a couple from Foshan even visited the first one.”
People have brought novels on vampires and Christian conspiracies, yet there is an undeniable focus on contemporary literature, the classics and philosophy. She mentions authors like Dave Eggers, Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway, Plato, Thomas Paine, a mixed bag but a quality mix at that. It’s books of this ilk Gowing wants to have, to encourage the swapping of ideas, or as she puts it “the facilitation of ideas.”
We share a laugh as she summarizes her aim: “To get something valuable from somebody before moving elsewhere.” That’s ideas, of course.
For more information regarding the future book exchanges you can contact Emma on 13428817084 or em.gowing@hotmail.com
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