Ng Zi Jing and Macao's Pinto Livros

The store's Chinese name 'Bin Dou Jau Syu' is Pinto Livros in Portuguese. Pinto is a common family name in that language. "'Bin dou' means 'where', so 'Bin Dou Jau Syu' means 'where can you find books to buy?'" Ng Zi Jing explains, hinting perhaps at the difficulty of finding good books in Macao.

When Ng was growing up, indulging oneself in books was something that the young people of Macao could only dream about. But since Pinto Livros opened its doors on October 5th, 2003 (the date marking the overthrow of the Portuguese monarchy in 1910), the store has gradually taken its place as one of the most popular in Macao. Ng's experience of Taiwanese bookstores has come as a breath of fresh air to the lives of Macao readers, and today in this city of casinos and colonial history, Pinto Livros is top of the list for local and visiting book lovers.

Pinto Livros is located in one of the better-known areas of Macao-near the fountain in Senado Square. It's not a big place-less than 40 square meters in area-so what is its special appeal that has attracted such a following from readers? The word "book" has a special significance in Macao. In Chinese, the word has the same sound as the word "lose," and as Macao has always been known as the city of gambling, books are almost a taboo subject. Consequently, publishers and good bookstores have always been rare. Macao has a few bookstores of reasonable size, but they don't stock a very extensive range, and what interesting titles they do have are difficult to locate. They tend to focus mainly on textbooks, stationery, or romantic novels. "So if someone wants art or humanities texts, they will probably have to go to Taiwan or Hong Kong, or even Zhuhai or Guangzhou, dragging home bags of books to devour slowly," says Ng.

Ng Zi Jing (right) is the biggest proponent of Pinto Livros. On the left is his cousin Lei Min Zi.

Importing Taiwanese expertise

Taiwan is the center of humanities publishing in the Chinese world. "Although in the past Macanese readers could buy books published in Taiwan, they were quite expensive," explains Ng. Because they couldn't be imported directly, books had to come in through Hong Kong, pushing up the price. HK$1 is about NT$4.2. For more than ten years, the Hong Kong dollar price of books imported from Taiwan had been calculated by dividing the original NT dollar price by three, making them relatively expensive in Macao. Because of the comparatively high prices of Taiwanese titles, sales (and profits) remained low and booksellers were not keen on importing books.

Besides the high prices, importing through Hong Kong meant that new titles were slow to appear in stores and the range was limited, all reasons why the educated young people of Macao were eagerly looking forward to other possibilities. "For all of these reasons, in the planning stage of Pinto Livros, we decided to import books directly from Taiwan and focus on art and humanities titles. At the beginning, Taiwanese books occupied over 70% of my stock," says Ng.

Located in the central business district with its classical architecture and arched verandas, Pinto Livros is surrounded by reminders of Portuguese colonization. Nearby, the main square is paved in a traditional pattern of black and white stones. Strolling through the crowds and then up the stairs where posters announce various speakers and club activities, one finds the quiet space of Pinto Livros above a cafe. Patrons read in silence, surrounded by titles from literature, philosophy, history, gender and art-and a lazy cat-taking care not to disturb others similarly engaged.

Background music at Pinto Livros ranges from jazz, like saxophone player Charlie Parker, to classical music such as Bach and Beethoven. The choice of music is Ng Zi Jing's own, designed to both relax and entertain his customers. Besides the jazz and classics, independent Taiwanese singer-songwriter Cheer Chen is often to be heard in the store and has gained quite a following from the younger set.

"Whenever Chen releases a new title, business picks up as customers come in to listen and often buy the CD," says 20-year-old Haa Jyun, a part-time assistant in the store. Besides Cheer Chen, novels from Taiwanese writers Yuan Che-sheng and Chang Ta-chun, which have been generally unavailable in Macao, have become quite popular with patrons of Pinto Livros, even more so than many popular writers from China.

Compared to Hong Kong, where rents are through the roof, in Macao things are much more reasonable. Even so, it is rare to find a popular retail store on the second floor of a building. So although Pinto Livros has such a great position in the center of the city, Ng has been able to keep costs down. In fact, Pinto Livros seems to have begun a fashion of locating bookstores upstairs. Because the store is so compact, there's only room for one of each title on the shelves, which means that staff are kept busy replacing titles as they sell. And with this system, the place seems much larger and more open than it actually is. "Customers have enough space to move around without bumping into each other, and we even have a coffee table so they can sit down and browse through their books," explains Ng.

With only one of each title on the shelves, Pinto Livros is able to display a greater range of works, including some of the more obscure titles. On the corner opposite a range of Taiwanese writers is a series of books on museum management and cultural administration from Taiwanese specialist art administration publisher Five Sense Arts Management Inc., an obscurity that won't be found anywhere else in Macao.

Like Tanshui's Yuho Books, Yungho City's Small Small Bookstore has also been influenced by Pinto Livros, holding seminars and screening documentaries, and earning the love of the young intelligentsia of Taiwan.

Taiwanese-style education

Ng Zi Jing selects and imports all titles for the store. He knows the Taiwan publishing business, and also understands what the young readers of Macao want. The process of his transformation from a young man in love with literature and art into an expert on selling Taiwanese books began when Ng was at university in Taiwan, especially in his free time. His high-school education was in English at a Catholic Church school in Macao. Most of his classmates went to the USA or Europe to study after they completed high school, but Ng was one of the small group who chose Taiwan. "Compared with the USA or Europe, Taiwan, Macao and China are cheaper for overseas students, so to reduce the financial burden on my parents, I considered these places. Finally, I chose Taiwan, the key reason being my cousin Lei Min Zi's recommendation," Ng recalls.

Lei Min Zi is from Hong Kong, and has written a comic series called Miss Sex. He thought that Taiwan provided one of the best standards of education in the Chinese world, and also the freedom necessary to make the most of that education." In 1993, Ng Zi Jing took the university entry examination in Taiwan, gaining entrance to study in the Accounting Department of National Chengchi University.

But while Ng had always been quite an outstanding student during his earlier education in Macao, in Taiwan his results took a dramatic dive. "Often in a situation like mine, people argue that the standard of their work wasn't high enough, or that they had problems adapting to the new environment. But I can't do that. My problem was that I adapted too well to the new environment and indulged it to the full," Ng says. "I like music, performance and visual arts. I was surrounded by Taipei's museums, and the underground live music scene around Shihta Road and the Kungkuan area-things totally unknown in Macao. In addition, I was alone in Taiwan so I had complete freedom to enjoy a life abounding in literature and art." Escaping from lectures in order to see performances and exhibitions, staying awake in his dorm all night to read, Ng didn't worry too much about his studies, and anyway the daily lecture schedule was during his sleeping time.

As a result, Ng took six years to finish his accounting degree. "After I graduated in 1999, I decided to stay in Taiwan because I was already very much at home in that environment. I got work at the newly established Eslite Music," Ng recalls. In his four years at Eslite, he worked two years each in the retail sales and purchasing sections. Every time his friends from Macao visited, they always praised the excellent bookstores in Taiwan. "Since I was already working in the business at Eslite, my friends suggested opening my own bookstore in Macao, an idea that fit well with my own thoughts."

Besides Ng Zi Jing, the others involved in getting Pinto Livros off the ground come from very different backgrounds: Lei Lap Sing is a senior announcer in a radio station, Lei Zeon Jeoi is the promoter of a local performance group, Comuna de Pedra, while Kent is a sought-after graphic designer. "Kent is in charge of space and visual design for Pinto Livros; Lei Lap Sing and I run marketing and market research. And of course, Ng Zi Jing looks after management and administration of the store, chooses all the titles and talks to the publishers," says Lei Zeon Jeoi.

"Running a bookstore needs big muscles rather than a big brain. Carrying and shelving books, typing up files, recording sales-all this work is very boring." Ng recalls that at his first employee training course at Eslite Music, their supervisor told them "You don't come here to enjoy the atmosphere, you come here to create it!"

Says Ng, "Enjoyment and creation are very different, and that advice really inspired me a lot. I've learned a lot from getting Pinto Livros up and running." In Pinto Livros, there are no polished wooden floors or open spaces. This is a major difference from Eslite in Taiwan, which has very high standards of interior design, but the management style adopted for Pinto Livros has kept to the original ideals of Eslite-make customers comfortable to stay as long as they want. Says Haa Jyun, "When we saw some young people bringing in their books and notes to read in our store, the boss told us to let them do what they wanted without interruption."

"On the other hand," says Ng, "I also hope to go beyond the Eslite model." Music is one example. The range of music played in Eslite stores is limited: electronic music, for example, which can be a bit heavy, is a definite no-no there, but not a problem in Pinto Livros.

Search for new possibilities

Interestingly, Pinto Livros learned from the success of Eslite, yet now it has become the model for some of Taiwan's small bookstore managers. This makes Ng very surprised. In 2005, after reading a report about Pinto Livros by poet Yang Chia-hsien, a Taiwanese couple-the husband named "686" and the wife "Yinni" (both anonymous Internet names)-who were looking for a change of career decided to open a bookstore of their own. The couple flew to Macao to visit Pinto Livros, and went on to visit Mackie Study, a Hong Kong branch of Pinto Livros. After they returned to Taiwan, the couple opened their own bookstore, Yuho Books, on the banks of the Tanshui River in Taipei. Now that store has become one of the local cultural spots.

This is above all the story of Ng Zi Jing-a student from Macao who, by studying in Taiwan has created a connection between book lovers in Taiwan and Macao. Let's hope that there will be more stories about sharing the love of books between these two places.