Students offer great stories at ‘Human Library’
Print Edition
“Everyone is a book” is the slogan of a most peculiar library in the southern city of Nanning.
Welcome to the Human Library of Nanning in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where people with particular stories to tell have replaced books. You can “read” them by having them tell their stories and answer your questions.
“Here you can ‘read’ people who have special stories or whose work you might never encounter in your own life,” said Huang Huajun, a senior college student and founder of the library.
Human libraries started in Denmark in 2000, the brainchild of a group of young people who wanted to promote tolerance and understanding via the spoken word.
In China, these novel forms of library flourish in cities like Shanghai and Chengdu. They are gaining popularity among the young.
Huang stumbled upon the concept in Hong Kong last year, and together with like-minded schoolmate Huang Jingyan, they established the library in April.
“There is a Chinese saying that it’s better to travel thousands of miles than to read a thousand books, but we believe reading thousands of people is an even better idea,” Huang Huajun said.
Her collection so far consists of 22 “living books,” who have either distinctive life stories or represent groups who remain largely unknown to the public.
“I ‘read’ every living book myself first,” said Huang Huajun. Only after making sure that they are truly worthy does she recommend them to her “readers.”
The library has no fixed location, nor does it open every day. Instead, it arranges for readers to meet their “books” on the last Saturday of each month.
On October 26, dozens of readers met seven living books at a cafe. Most learned about it through the library’s microblog and registered in advance.
The living books included a funeral business practitioner, a part-time DIY musician, a travel buff with profound knowledge on how to use guidebooks and the parents of an autistic child.
Zhang Na shared the story of her family’s decade with her autistic son.
Diagnosed in 1998, when her son was only three, Zhang had to study the condition and work out training methods on her own. At that time, China lacked advanced autism therapy.
Zhang’s painstaking efforts greatly improved her son’s condition. Hoping to help other families with similar problems, she founded a school in 2003 to offer training to autistic children and their parents.
Ma Jun, a funeral director, was also very popular among readers, who questioned him about his feelings toward death and public suspicions about hefty profits in the trade.
“I found many people harboring deep prejudices toward the service, and I welcome the opportunity to share my story with more people,” Ma said.
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