Jinan Used Book Market

I have just gotten settled in here in Jinan, in Shandong province, China. Except for a few weeks in Shanghai and Nanjing, I’ll be here until the end of next April doing my dissertation research affiliated with Shandong University.

A young history masters student who has been helping me out since I got here and showing me around the libraries of the university invited me to join him for a trip to the used book market here. He told me he makes the trip down there every two or three weeks to look for good deals on academic history books on his period.

The used book market is open on weekends from around 8am until noon in Sun Yatsen park (中山公园). There are perhaps close to a hundred bookstore stalls and open-air table-based vendors. The selection varies widely of course, with some stores specializing in books on Chinese medicine, others on test prep books, others on Chinese literature, but most have a wide selection of what appear to be left over stock from bookstores. I’m guessing this since many books are cut partly on the spine to distinguish them from new books. I was surprised to see such a large selection of academic and especially history books, including collections of historical materials, obscure reference books, and historical journals. Amazingly, and thanks to the good eyes of my friend, one of the 18 books I bought today for just over $10 was a very useful pamphlet put out by the office of the Shandong provincial historical society that I had noted down for future copying only a few days earlier in the library of Shandong University’s history department. It has an index of periodicals published in Shandong from before 1949, with list of extant issues and which library or archive in the province still has those issues (建国前山东旧期刊目录1903-1949).

The price of the academic books on history I was looking at currently seem to average around 5 RMB (less than $1) but many books go for 1, 1.5, or 3 RMB. Sometimes, and I have no idea what market forces are at work here since it really seemed quite arbitrary, prices could go as high as 10 or 30 RMB. Perhaps a bookseller catches a glint in the eye of the purchaser indicating that he desperately wants a copy? Regardless, considering that many of the books in question go for 30-50 RMB new, these books are quite heavily discounted, in contrast with the Japanese used book market for academic works.

The used book market clearly draws a lot of students and there was an excellent showing from the department I’m affiliated with. I was told there are currently 13 graduate students in the history department of Shandong University, mostly masters students. A good half dozen of these were in the book market today prowling for good deals. These students would often keep an eye out for books each of them might have particular interest in and sometimes made cellphone calls to friends absent who might appreciate them snapping up some bargains. They would also compare prices with each other and use it in their efforts to bargain. One student found a Chinese translation of a volume of the Cambridge History of China for just over $1, while another who heard about this was frustrated in his efforts to bargain down a separate copy found elsewhere to under its $5 price. I was also interested to hear that students had been directed to snap up available copies of one of their professor’s books to give them. While the professors can buy somewhat discounted copies of their own books from the publisher, it is even cheaper to get them, or have their students get them from the used book market, perhaps for use as gifts to friends.

I’m really impressed at how much some of these graduate students seem to know about Chinese history works coming out the US and with their excellent critical skills and strong curiosity for new approaches to history. One student invited me to some kind of history reading club in the afternoon and said he wanted me to share with them what good stuff was being published in the US academic field on Chinese history. I explained that I had been out of the country for a while and had been reading mostly Korean and Japanese history of late so that I wasn’t really up to date on trends in English language scholarship on China, but that I was willing to pass on a few orals lists used by graduate students in the US. I was surprised to be assured that this wasn’t necessary since all they really needed were Chinese history books newly published in English in 2007 and 2008!

More pictures available in a variety of sizes can be found here.