PHOTOS: Check Out the National Book Expo in Shenzhen

By Belinda Hu and Holly Qu, July 20, 2018

The 28th National Book Expo kicked off yesterday at Shenzhen’s Convention and Exhibition Center, packing three massive halls with bookshelves, podiums, interactive activities, and more bookshelves.

It’s conveniently located next door to the 10th Cartoon and Animation Festival – meaning that if you’re following a stream of people in cosplay, you’re going the wrong way.

Once you’re in Halls 1, 2, or 5 of the Convention Center, you’ll find that the Book Expo boasts over 1,000 publishing houses, representing each province, municipality, and special administrative region of China. United under an overarching theme of ‘New Times, New Reading,’ the exhibitions present their Shenzhen audience with a glimpse of the near (literary) future.

Wandering around the main exhibition requires expert dodging of kids and navigational skills to avoid getting lost. A wide selection of books, ranging from Chinese classics to self-help, are on display, with occasional English titles such as I Think, Therefore I Laugh or Cabin Porn.

The more interactive features include shadow puppet shows, 3-D printing activities, book talks and signings. If your Chinese is not quite up to par, the kid-friendly sections are always an option: Who isn’t up for a pinyin picture book to bring home?

Designer of the exposition, guest speaker, and editor Han Zhanning (pictured above) sat down with us to talk about the Expo’s theme.

“Yes, the times are changing, but we still live in a material world. You need clothes and chairs. You need tangible food. Things like recipes and manuals can be replaced digitally. But literature needs to be in a physical form. Books add beauty to our lives. They cultivate our appreciation of art.”

Han designed the Book Expo’s logo: an ‘S’ for Shenzhen created by two stylized books. One tome represents creation of literature while the other represents readers, intersecting in an act of exchange.