Tonsan Bookstore is located in a nondescript basement on Lane 333, Roosevelt Road Section 3. The walls along the stairwell are covered with posters for art films, lectures, concerts, and theater performances. Once you make it all the way down the long stairway you find yourself in a dark, musty space. By today's standards, it doesn't seem like the ideal space for storing or perusing books.

Yet when you take a look what's on the shelves you'll see the majority are titles like Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies, Main Currents of Marxism, The Intercourse of Views on Studying World Chinese Literature, and others you'd never come across in a mainstream bookstore. There are obscure volumes on literature, history, philosophy, and social studies as well as students' self-published poetry collections, scripts, and many works by unknown writers sold on consignment. Treasures abound for readers. On a hot summer afternoon browsing the ocean of knowledge in Tonsan, you start to get sucked in and you forget the musty odor and the darkness. You come to a complete stop.

Though Tonsan is a little old and run down, it is a treasure trove of knowledge. It was once the window to the outside world for Taiwanese intellectuals.

Against the mainstream

Tonsan owner Chen Lung-hao is a graduate of NTU's anthropology program and also holds a master's degree in ethnology from National Chengchi University. Growing up in Hsinchu County's Kuanhsi, where an Aboriginal population creates a mix of cultures, he was always interested in non-mainstream topics. "I don't know why, I'm just more interested what most would consider obscure books," he laughs.

As a student he worked part-time in a publishing company. Then in 1979--the year of the Kaohsiung Incident--Chen, not even 30 at the time, opened Tonsan Publications with just NT$300,000 in capital. Five years later, he opened the first branch of the bookstore on Hsinsheng South Road. In the more than 20 years since, Tonsan has moved twice but has always stayed in the vicinity of the NTU campus. "The present basement location is around 170 square meters and is the biggest. We've been here for more than ten years," he says.

Witness to history

Tonsan started out making photographic reprints of foreign-language books, and later began printing translations of contemporary Western scholarship in the humanities. In that era of martial law and limited access to information from the outside world, Tonsan introduced knowledge-hungry students to leftist thought from Marx, neo-Marxists, Foucault, Habermas, and the New Left. Though it occasionally drew attention from the secret police of the Taiwan Garrison Command and from the Government Information Office, and often had banned books confiscated, it was a source of critical thinking and international perspective for the then closed-off island of Taiwan.

"In those days, books sold really well," Chen says. "There was a real desire for reform in Taiwanese society, and right after martial law was lifted it was even stronger. University students talked about nothing but critical theory, and we sold hundreds of copies of a thick book on the thought of Habermas in the original language."

In the 1980s, when Tonsan was flourishing, it even had a coffee shop. Chen laughs and says that he was the godfather of the "mixed-use" bookstores so common today. "In those days, the student movement was in full swing and student groups like NTU's Great New Society and Continental Society would hold book-club meetings in our store and discuss the directions of their clubs," he says. "They'd hate to leave at closing time. Then during the March 1990 protests it all cooled down because the students were all holding hunger strikes at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall."

Tonsan isn't in business just to turn a profit--they are happy to help unknown students get their poetry or articles published. They are even willing to let unknown authors and groups sell on consignment. That's what makes Tonsan stand out from the crowd.

Chen admits that he loses money on the majority of the unknowns he publishes. However, nine years ago he published The Life Stories of Twelve Working Girls by Tunghai University sociology graduate Chi Hui-wen, a first-hand account of working in a hostess bar. It became an unexpected hit when it was reported in the media that National Tsinghua University graduate student Hung Hsiao-hui, who had murdered her classmate, had worked as a hostess in such a bar. "We originally only printed 1,000 copies," Chen says, "and they were all gone in a flash. Even 7-Eleven and Carrefour placed orders. We ended up having to print an extra 10,000." He recalls the book with pleasure.

To change or not to change

The coming of the Internet age and the changes in Taiwanese society have had an effect on Tonsan's bottom line, and from time to time there are reports that it's on its last legs. However, as many of the old independent bookstores in the Wing-Raw-Den area are closing their doors for good, Tonsan manages to maintain its non-mainstream, rebellious character. It's in this alleyway, in the basement, to stay.

Chen says that he's experimented with changing the store's character before, ordering copies of the latest Harry Potter book and displaying them where Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies usually goes, but customers protested immediately. It's a testament to the value readers place on this unique store that they are so unwilling to compromise.

Though the shop has its loyal supporters, Chen has noticed that the average age of customers browsing the shelves has been creeping up. There are few customers in their twenties these days. Chen says, "One time a customer came in and as soon as she walked in the door she furrowed her brow and asked, 'Is this a bookstore or a storeroom?' It was embarrassing."

Chen says that from time to time he has the urge to remodel the store to let some air in and get rid of the mildewy smell. "But, for one, I don't have the money should the landlord decide to up the rent due to renovations," he adds, "and also I worry that the old customers will think it doesn't suit the place."

Faced with the question of to change or not to change, Tonsan chooses to go against the mainstream and remain in the dusky basement. It is just as Chen wrote when the shop joined the Wing-Raw-Den Association: "We don't have fancy fixtures, but here in the dark basement we have for you an ocean of academia. This ocean will only continue to exist if you keep coming down the stairs."