Bookstore takes readers on a journey to an island’s past
Print Edition
SU Xiaodong refers to his bookstore on Gulangyu Island as a “wormhole.”
“A wormhole connects different time and space,” said Su, who is from Xiamen, a city in southeast China’s Fujian Province. “That’s exactly what I want to do, connect the island with its beautiful past.”
Su, 47, traveled to many countries before he decided to set up the bookstore last summer. “The history and culture here is very distinct,” he said.
Gulangyu, off the coast of Xiamen, is famous for its varied architecture and multicultural history and was recently included on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The island is dotted with east-meets-west style residences built by overseas Chinese who returned to the island in the early 20th century. Su rents the historic Haitian Pavilion as his bookstore and renovated the interior to look as it did in the early 20th century.
“It was the best time on Gulangyu, quiet and with people from different cultures living in an international community peacefully,” Su said.
Today, Gulangyu gets more than 10 million visitors a year, and boutiques, restaurants and hotels have sprung up.
Su said he wants the bookstore to be a space where people can escape commercialism and explore the island’s culture in a historic setting.
His store has more than 3,000 books about Gulangyu, and he is continually searching for more worldwide.
“Preserving cultural heritage is not only about protecting the buildings,” Su said. “It’s also about the memories of these buildings and recreating the experience for modern people, so they might better understand a certain place or time.”
Su believes art is one way for people to go beyond the here and now and access the “wormhole” that brings them to the past or future.
In November, his bookstore exhibited the work of young artists from 16 countries who stayed in Gulangyu for two months creating art.
Inspired by this, Su tapped into the island’s history as an international settlement by inviting artists from the 13 countries that had set up consulates on Gulangyu in the middle 19th century, to stay on the island and create art.
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