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In the center of Kunming, there is a Kunming Old Street Historical and Cultural District, which is dotted with several old streets and alleys that have been renovated - restaurants, bubble tea shops, jewelry shops and other shops are open to welcome customers, and the doors are like a city, lively and noisy. In the meantime, No. 52 Wenming Street is a very inconspicuous shop - above the quaint door, the name of the store is written "Oriental Bookstore", and the couplet on both sides reads: "The longest people in ancient times are nothing more than accumulating virtue, and the first good thing in the world is reading." ”
This Oriental bookstore seems to have a magical power, and as soon as you step inside, the noise outside decibels, and is replaced by the sound of soft music and the sound of people flipping through books and pacing carefully. In the midst of such a bustling city, there is such a bookstore? This is a novelty in the eyes of many people. For people who love to read, in such a busy city, there should be such a bookstore, which is a soothing existence.
Oriental Bookstore (photo taken on April 13). Photo by Xinhuanet Li Hao
Across time and space, towards the bright side
In the Oriental Bookstore, there is a phrase that can be seen everywhere is "towards the bright side", which carries the story and temperament of this bookstore.
Oriental Bookstore was first founded in 1926 by Wang Sishun, a student of Mr. Hu Shih, who graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages of Peking University. In 1925, Wang Sishun, who had received new ideas, returned to his hometown of Kunming and taught at Kunhua Girls' High School, where he took over the torch of propagating new ideas, and the following year, he opened the Oriental Bookstore.
After the "77 Incident", Beiping and Tianjin fell one after another, and Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University moved to Hunan and formed Changsha Provisional University in Changsha. As the war approached Changsha, the university decided to move west to Kunming, and Southwest Associated University was established. The Oriental Bookstore was also used as an intellectual field and distribution center by scholars and intellectuals at that time.
In 2018, Li Guohao, the current manager of Oriental Bookstore, took over the reconstruction and operation of Oriental Bookstore by chance, and in this way, the bookstore, which had comforted countless readers in the storm, was reborn at its original location. The brightness of that time, through time and space, illuminated No. 52 Wenming Street today, so that everyone who came here had the courage and faith to "move towards the bright side".
"If I know the name of Oriental Bookstore, I still rely on the map navigation to search for it. As the first member of Oriental Bookstore, Wang Zhenyu's encounter with Oriental Bookstore is a bit "funny". When the Oriental Bookstore was rebuilt, he accidentally retrieved the location of the bookstore, but because the street was still being repaired at that time, he could not visit, "Later, I checked again, and the results told me that the Oriental Bookstore is a place that sells computers, and I was disappointed!"
But the radar of book lovers will not stop. After the street was repaired, he still groped his way to No. 52 Wenming Street -- not a computer seller, but a bookstore! Wang Zhenyu recalled that at that moment, he rushed into the bookstore, and then he met Li Guohao, and the two talked happily, and then he sat in the bookstore and finished reading a book in more than three hours, "That was the most efficient and addictive reading I have ever done." ”
Also met with Oriental Bookstore unexpectedly, there is also a middle school Chinese teacher Gu Run, who loves reading. "There is a set of test papers related to the Oriental Bookstore, and later I got to know Guohao and found that this is a particularly interesting bookstore!" Gu Run's eyes lit up as he talked about his encounter with the bookstore.
Old photos of Oriental Bookstore (Xinhuanet). (Photo courtesy of Oriental Bookstore)
The wind and rain are not shaking, and the books can be drifting
Speaking of one of the biggest highlights of Oriental Bookstore, that is the exchange of old books, either using old books that you don't read for money, or everyone uses this place as a platform to exchange books. Many books, "drifting" in the Oriental bookstore, glow with new value.
Such "drifting" existed during the Anti-Japanese War. At that time, Lin Huiyin, Wen Yiduo, Wang Zengqi, Li Gongpu and others often visited this bookstore. In Wang Zengqi's "Reading Cheap Books", you can also see the interesting story of him selling old books in the Oriental Bookstore for food, "When you get to Wenming Street and get out of the dictionary, two people can eat a meal of crispy buns or two bowls of stewed chicken rice noodles, and you can also drink two taels of wine." ”
There are more and more shops on Civilization Street, and there are more and more tourists. But this sentence "one meal of steamed buns, two bowls of rice noodles, two taels of wine" has not been forgotten, many readers who come to Oriental Bookstore for old book replacement love to use this sentence to make fun of themselves, Wang Zhenyu is no exception.
"For a while, I was looking around for the original book of "The Gate of the Mansion" written by Mr. Guo Baochang, because the time was relatively old, it was very difficult to find, but coincidentally, I found it in the Oriental Bookstore. Wang Zhenyu said that he was very excited at that time, and took it to the front desk to prepare for the settlement, only to know that it was another reader who exchanged old books for circulation in the Oriental Bookstore. Since then, Wang Zhenyu often takes his old books to the Oriental Bookstore, hoping to help more people who love reading and solve the "urgent need" of not being able to find books.
In Oriental Bookstore, the mode of book "drifting" is more than that. Gu Run introduced that under her leadership and Li Guohao's support, Oriental Bookstore has not only built a book corner for outdoor workers, but also organized public welfare reading clubs many times to bring the power of books to more people in various forms.
Gu Run's introduction reminds me of the book "blind box" of the Oriental Bookstore, every time a friend comes to Kunming to play, he will take them to the Oriental Bookstore, and they will eventually take away the "blind box" in the bookstore, and within a few days, I will receive a happy report from them, "The book from the blind box is just the type I want to read recently!"
After hearing this, Li Guohao was very happy, "This is what I want to achieve! As a physical bookstore, I hope that people can meet the books they want to read here and open up the world of their own reading." ”
Readers read a book in the Oriental Bookstore (photo taken on April 13). Photo by Xinhuanet Li Hao
Carrying a book, I don't panic
Wang Zhenyu always has two or three books in the schoolbag he carries. One is a social science class, which he will use to read in fragmented time, one is a professional book to facilitate his access to information, and the other is a novel and prose class, which he can read when he is depressed.
"A lot of people around me have asked me why I have to carry it so heavily. I'm going to carry it, even if I'm busy today and don't have time to look at it, but I'll be very sure. What I carry on my back is the power of knowledge!" Wang Zhenyu said with a smile.
After reading books for many years, Gu Run can't do without books, and reading makes her a gentle and firm woman. As a Chinese teacher who has been in the industry for 28 years, Gu Run is more about reading, and in her opinion, reading can make children's thinking more perfect and see a wider world.
Gu Run took the children to read them one by one, guided the children into the world of the writer's book, and made a reading handbook with personal understanding. After completing each stage of reading, students with high reading test scores will be rewarded. "Some time ago, when I read Wang Zengqi's "The Rain of Kunming", the reward was the Gaoyou salted duck eggs that Wang Lao Zeng wrote. In the past, children learned about the taste through reading, and now through reading, they can eat the delicious taste of this book in their mouths. ”
Night is approaching, and the crowd outside the Oriental Bookstore is bustling, and the cries of hawkers occasionally penetrate the floors into the ears. For one moment, I felt that the Oriental Bookstore was really like an island, and the next moment, when I saw the people who loved reading in front of me gathered here, I felt that "loneliness" was nothing more than a stiff feeling—after all, everyone who reads here is extremely full of hearts, they read, make friends, and talk about the world here, and jointly shape the Oriental Bookstore in the middle of the city. (ENDS)
Readers read a book in the Oriental Bookstore (photo taken on April 19). Xinhua net hair (photo by Zhu Yan)
Producer: Han Haikuo
Producer: Li Xia
Co-ordinator: Luo Chunming
Choreographer: Zhang Marui
Photo: Li Hao
Editor: Li Hao
Written by: Zhang Marui
Guiding unit: Cyberspace Administration of Kunming Municipal Party Committee