Bookstores and signage – Shenzhen

I was in Shenzhen yesterday afternoon making a trip to the biggest bookstore there. It was indeed pretty massive! 6 floors full of books and with people reading in every corner. Pretty nice place. I was most impressed by the computer science and programming section of the bookstore. I never saw so many books about C++, Photoshop or Dreamweaver… Just insane!

The role of knowledge and books in Chinese society is really important. And we can really feel that in the bookstore. While in France we may read more comic books or novels, Chinese bookstores are mostly dedicated to “learning stuff”. From literature to design and… anything really, it seems that if there is no learning from a book, then it is not interesting. So, simple novels have very little shelf space.

During my other trips to Shenzhen, I really had a bad impression of the city. It was dirty and had a gloomy feel to it. But that district around the bookstore, with brand new shopping malls like Citic and MixC, is quite impressive…

Anyway. I was trying to find the bookstore at some point and I thought it would be a good idea to follow signs… ha ha ha