Gone with the winds of change
Restrictions on public gatherings because of the virus could mean curtains for brick-and-mortar bookstores, Wang Yiqing reports.
A question of survival
"To be or not to be" is a tough question for brick-and-mortar bookstores and the sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus has only made it worse.
However, Tong Xingjia is an idealist. No wonder he named his bookstore Utopia. He admits to the difficulties of operating a brick-andmortar bookstore in a small county like Haiyan, where there aren't sufficient readers or people willing to participate in cultural activities, unlike in first-or second-tier cities. "But then, if I didn't open such a bookstore for serious reading and cultural activities in Haiyan, nobody else would have done it," Tong said. "There definitely was the need for one."
He didn't expect the bookstore to make profits and was even prepared to incur losses every year, deciding to keep the bookstore running for as long as he could.
