Reclaiming the Joy of Reading for Young People

“When do people’s minds begin to ossify, to become less flexible?” Qiu Jing­dun answers his own question: “Usually it starts in middle school. This is something that I’ve come to understand from my own experience running a bookstore focused on young people.”

Qiu adds: “Middle-school students usually don’t feel much emotional impact from reading, and school curriculums in particular don’t have much in the way of material that touches students emotionally. Young people spend most of their time preparing for exams, and with the pressure of homework and tests they start to become more hardened emotionally.”

Having succinctly identified the reading environment for youths in Taiwan, Qiu says that in less-populated areas the reality is that a lot of kids have never even had the opportunity to come in contact with books outside the classroom. He really wants to do something to help this group of young people in particular.

In Taiwan, there is a growing fad for children’s literature, and many parents do everything they can to bring their preschool children into the world of books. However, as kids move farther up the academic ladder, they become more and more estranged from reading for pleasure or interest. Qiu thinks this really is a shame.

He says that he himself has loved reading ever since he was a small child. When he was a student, he spent a lot of time hanging around in bookstores, and most enjoyed reading books unrelated to his classes. He recalls that back then his friends and classmates didn’t really understand him. However, after he finished his compulsory military service and wanted to test into university, he discovered that all the psychology-related books he had read—that was his favorite topic—were of great help in testing into the Department of Sociology at National Taiwan University. That valuable lesson left its mark on him: “Even then there was a little voice in my head, hoping that one day I could open a bookstore all my own.”

All three members of Qiu Jingdun’s family are bookworms. They have opened an independent bookstore, starting with the family’s personal holdings of over 1000 volumes, in a mission to encourage reading among young people in their community.

The idea got new life two years ago when Qiu’s only son Dada was about to enter middle school himself. Dada had taken to reading at a young age, helped greatly by guidance from his parents. They were at his side as he grew up and advanced from picture books to chapter books to the world of full-fledged text and the classics. In fact, with three bookworms in one house, their family book collection long ago surpassed 1000 volumes.

Qiu, meanwhile, was at that time running an exam-preparation cram school, and he saw first hand how the pressures on students at each stage of advancement through the educational system squeezed out any time for reading. Looking back at the self-confidence Dada had gained from his reading ability, Qiu was fearful that the shoots of this self-confidence would be crushed by the relentless winds of middle school. Qiu thought about this often, and his hope was that he could figure out a way to ensure that his son continued to enjoy a good reading environment into the future.

At that time, the idea of opening a bookstore resurfaced in his mind. Aged 46, he decided to give it a try, hoping through the intermediary of books to continue to accompany his son as he advanced through his teenage years. Based on openness, oriented toward promoting reading among young people in the community, and aiming to pass along good books continually into the future, the Weeping Lovegrass Bookstore was born.

“Weeping lovegrass” is a kind of pasture grass used in soil conservation projects. It sets deep, firm roots, allowing it to avoid being washed away by storms (and thereby fixing the soil in place). Qiu’s dream is like the weeping lovegrass, deeply rooted and useful. By choosing this name, Qiu also expressed his desire to set deep roots for reading among young people, to create an outstanding and grounded reading environment that could be enjoyed by youths and families.

Qiu is very clear about his blueprint, as it is something he has been carrying around in his head for a long time. “It’s a community bookstore that promotes reading among young people.” Building on the innate connections between Qiu and his neighbors, the bookstore opened in Feng­yuan, Tai­chung, where Qiu grew up, in the rowhouse where he and his family live.

Helped by a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture, Qiu had the ground floor of his residence remade into a “library.” The family’s 1000-plus books naturally became the foundation of the collection. “We just started off by telling our friends and family, and rather than being a business it was more like inviting people into our home to have fun and read,” says Qiu.

Weeping Lovegrass formally opened on August 4, 2013. Qiu says, “Although in the first month we sold only two books, after we began renting books out, over time news spread by word of mouth, and we have gotten several hundred people to sign up as members and attracted quite a few local bibliophiles.”

The “Sunday Youth Reading Club” provides a structured and encouraging environment for young readers. Standing at right is teacher Lin Yuzhu, who heads up the group.

For the Qiu family, the bookstore has also paid great personal dividends in terms of connecting them with the local community and making new friends.

When you enter Weeping Lovegrass, you will see that the entire wall to your left is covered with the family’s book collection, accumulated over many years. The entire wall to the right, meanwhile, is dedicated to books that have been gradually brought in since the opening of the bookstore. In either case, each and ­every book has been read by at least one member of the family. “We are able to tell customers about the plot or content of every single book, and recommend a book to them or even pick one out for them.”

Qiu says that Dada knows by heart where every single book is. Sometimes, when the adults can’t remember where a book is, they have to depend on Dada to fetch it out. Also, he is able to recommend or choose books for his peers. “I opened the bookstore mainly to benefit Dada and keep him reading, so I am really gratified to see how much he is getting out of it, and the fact is that he has read a lot of new books.”

Mrs. Qiu, who has supported her husband in both word and deed, says that a lot of people have been very supportive and encouraging. She will never forget one parent who, just a few days after the shop opened, heard about their determination to encourage young people to read and the next day donated a big set of books. “I dare say that we personally get to know every single person who comes into Weeping Lovegrass, and they have all become our friends.”

Mrs. Qiu has made a lot of friends through reading, and has gotten a lot of happiness from them. The Qius often think about what else they can contribute to the community, and they have discovered that they want to do more and more things with the bookstore. Even now Mrs. Qiu is beginning to plan how to stay involved in reading promotion after she retires from her fulltime job.

Qiu aims for more than being in the business of books: he wants to buttress the relationship between people and books. Therefore he has studied all possible methods to keep the bookstore in operation as long as possible, and has been continually trying them out. His first experiment was a reading club for children. He brought in Lin Yu­zhu, a teacher at the nearby Hu­lu­dun Cultural Center, to choose two books per semester, to set a schedule for reading, and to guide the students as they read by discussing the books as a group.

Because young people are picky about reading, and can’t always get into more profound or difficult books, Qiu first lets the kids blend into the group, and then they are led by the teacher. In this way they can get all the way through good books. In the year-plus that the reading club has been in existence, the 12 spots have always been filled, and some people have even reserved spots in advance.

The two-hour club meetings also include written assignments to improve composition skills, which Qiu admits are designed to help students advance in school. But the subject matter is always drawn from their reading, and after all the point of the club is just that the students will set aside more time for books than they otherwise would.

Since opening the bookstore, the most common question that Qiu hears from parents is, “What can I do to get my child interested in reading?” Based on his own experience, he states: “A lot of parents neglect to invest time in reading alongside their children.”

If parents want their children to spend more time in the world of books, the best approach is for the parents to be there reading right along with the children. As a second best, if the parent has not had the chance to read whatever the child is reading, at least they should find some time to talk about the book with the child. If there are questions about what books to choose, he suggests that parents first find out what the children’s preferences are. He says: “If you just go with the flow, children will naturally find something interesting in the world of books.” When parents find out the general interests of their children, the bookstore can make specific recommendations, which is something that Weeping Lovegrass offers that big bookstore chains just cannot match.

Books are by no means the only items on the Weeping Lovegrass menu.

For example, last year the bookstore organized ten family-oriented lectures, and they plan to hold another ten this year. Qiu says that the lectures are a real challenge. Unpopular topics like plasticizers (which have been in the news as a food safety concern in Taiwan) draw few people, whereas for a talk on 12-year compulsory education, the place will be bursting at the seams. He says that he himself has never gotten discouraged. “I hope the bookstore will develop in diverse directions. Since I have this platform, in the future I will continue to move it in the directions that interest me.”

Another tactic that Qiu has tried is to use tabletop games, for which there has been a recent fad in Taiwan, to get children into the bookstore and become accustomed to spending time there. At first they can simply enjoy the pleasure of interacting with others and having some fun. If from there they can turn to the bookshelves and take out a book to read, then that’s all to the good.

Last year, Qiu also held his first competition for youth literature prizes—something he characterizes as his “ultimate dream.” The competition, for which he has received a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture, has three categories: essays, fiction, and modern vernacular poetry. Qiu’s expectation is that this will encourage more children to have the courage to express themselves through the written word. “It all comes back to the power of reading,” he says. “With books as their teachers, children can develop new creativity in writing.”

Independent bookstores have been appearing throughout Taiwan, in cities but also in less populated areas. Those in less populated locations face different challenges, but the Qius say that they have been very lucky.

Thanks to the money that he earned over his working life, Qiu owns the building where the bookstore is located, so he is under no pressure to meet rent payments. He also has no personnel, management, or marketing costs. Most of the books come from his own personal collection. As the bookstore doesn’t place a burden on their daily expenditures, there isn’t much downside to keeping it open.

Qiu hopes that his bookstore will be more than just a platform where people encounter books—he hopes it will be a platform between people, with books simply serving as the intermediary. His numbers show that in 2014 more than 850 people took part in various activities held by the bookstore. This has made him even more determined to keep going into the future.

Finally, he hopes that by promoting reading, more and more children will develop flexibility of heart and mind. He says, “When people’s hearts and minds are open, that’s when a city begins to know happiness. Although our strength is minuscule, we still have to keep plowing ahead. Our bookstore may be small, but it’s something worth working at for the rest of our lives!”