Chinese Discover Book Fair Binds Them Together

As a dozen afternoon shoppers strolled through aisles of Chinese books in a hotel ballroom, organizers of the first Chinese Book and Cultural Expo talked among themselves near the cash registers.

“All Chinese people, no matter where they live--Monterey Park, Taiwan, Hong Kong or the mainland--have a very deep interest in Chinese culture. The cultural background is the same,” Yang Jie, a book exporter from Beijing, said through a translator.

The interest persists, said Alice Sun, who works for Lin Min Books in Chinatown, because of their common roots.

The two women, who helped plan the book fair, marveled at the extent of the roots reflected in the 15,000 titles represented, most of them shipped from China especially for the fair.

To illustrate the broad range of merchandise at the 10-day book fair at the Lincoln Plaza Hotel, which ended Friday, Sun guided a visitor to a table containing hundreds of cassettes of Chinese opera, artfully arranged in concentric rings.

“All on this round table, we have cassettes from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. All united,” said Sun, who was an editor in Shanghai before she moved to Los Angeles in 1982.

The books, recordings, magazines, newspapers, artwork and videos may have in a small way helped to bridge the different political viewpoints of today’s China.

Those at the fair attributed the atmosphere of openness to improved relations between the governments of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.

“Once, there was very little exchange between the two sides,” Yang said. “Now the political situation has made it possible to communicate with each other.”

For the past 20 years, Yang has directed the U.S. and European export operations of the China International Book Trading Corp., a book distribution company run by the government of the People’s Republic of China.

She said she had traveled all over the world in her job, and this was the first time she had seen works from Taiwan and the mainland exhibited side by side.

“One reason is that the policy on both sides has been very restrictive,” Yang said. “Before, if you had this kind of exhibit people, would have been discouraged from attending. No matter where it was held--in America or China.”

Chinese Opera

As visitors browsed through aisles of tables filled with books and artwork, they heard a modernized version of a traditional Chinese opera. The sounds clearly had been influenced by the rhythm and melody of Western music.

Donald Hsu, sales manager of Li Min Books, one of the exhibitors at the fair, said the music also reflected the new openness between the two governments.

The fair also featured a series of seminars conducted by a number of writers, actors and painters who discussed current issues in literature, film and art.

Hundreds of spectators attended a screening of the widely acclaimed film, “Red Sorghum,” which was introduced by Chi Chao-Li of television’s “Falcon Crest.”

Artists Present

Among the painters were Yang Long-Sheng and Du Zhi-Wei, both of Monterey Park, and actor Zhang Yu and Lisa Lu, a Taiwanese actor who appeared in the “Last Emperor.”

Several hundred people heard a taped talk by Liu Bing-yan, a People’s Republic political activist, who was represented at the fair by his wife, Zhu Hong.

Mao Baolin, an editor of the Beijing Review news weekly, which exhibited its magazines at the fair, said it was significant that the backgrounds of the artists represented different viewpoints.

‘Many Precious Pictures’

For some patrons, the fair provided a chance to see some things they had never seen. Fan Tang, 56, of El Monte, a photographer who immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong seven years ago, browsed through a section of fine art and photography books and picked up a slick, large-format photography book.

“Culturally speaking it doesn’t really matter whether the books are from Taiwan, Hong Kong or the mainland,” he said in Mandarin. The book featured Sun Yat-Sen, considered a founding father of the Taiwanese government. But it was published in the People’s Republic of China, where he is also considered a hero.

“There are many precious pictures in here,” Fan said.

The booksellers said people liked the expensive picture books. By Tuesday, four of the five copies of a $100 limited-edition picture book on Communist Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping had been sold.

Peter Chow, who manages Monterey Books and Stationers and helped organize the fair, held up a $150 art book arranged in a back-to-front order. Color pictures of art objects housed in provincial museums told the stories of ancient China.

“Look at their faces,” Chow said. “You can see how they come from different regions of the country,” he said of the ancient statuary.

Other Languages

In addition to fine art books, there were cloth-bound volumes of classical Chinese literature as well as paperbacks on the martial arts and contemporary cooking.

There were also books in Spanish and English, including English-Chinese books aimed at “the ABC (American-born Chinese), who do not know Chinese,” said Ma of the Beijing Review.

Dictionaries occupied large sections of the fair and their topics were far-ranging, including the “American English Dictionary of the Fermentation Industry” and a Japanese-Chinese-English dictionary covering the terminology of world religions.

Expensive Offerings

Among the most expensive items were calligraphy ink stones priced at $400 and original artwork on scrolls, including one for $3,300 and another at $5,000.

Organizers said they picked Monterey Park for the book fair because half of its 62,800 population is of Asian ancestry.

The fair attracted hundreds of visitors, including Sinologists from all over Southern California.

Lawrence Ng, 35, an accountant from Tarzana, said he came to the fair because he had heard of the wide variety of works that would be featured.

‘Chop Suey’

Ng held an armful of paperbacks, what he called a “chop suey” of titles that revealed his eclectic tastes. They included one on the Chinese economy, another on Russian Orthodox religion, another on logic and Buddhism and overviews of Brazil, Sri Lanka and Japan.

As he surveyed a table covered with volumes from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, he said: “I can see some kind of attempt of the two sides being represented. Maybe they can start something. It is a necessary step in order to close the distance between the two.”