The Shichahai area in Beijing offers a variety of choices to tourists and residents alike: Houhai lake is fun to walk around after sunset; Di'anmenwai Street is full of street musicians; and there's dancing in the public square between the Bell and Drum towers.
Now, add one more－the 24-hour Cathay Bookstore branch, with a rich stock of Chinese-language books.
Founded in 1952, the State-owned Cathay is one of the country's biggest chains to stock and sell ancient Chinese books.
Its latest round-the-clock branch, which opened in July, is inside the Yanchi Tower on Di'anmennei Street－two kilometers away from the Forbidden City. This tower and the nearby Di'anmen Gate were both dismantled to ease the flow of vehicular traffic in the 1950s. But in 2013, Yanchi was rebuilt as a two-story space.
The gate and tower were used by the military in imperial China to guard Beijing.
In the present day, the Xicheng district government decided to use the new 1,100-square-meter Yanchi Tower as a public reading space to promote quietness amid the noises of urban society, according to Sun Jinsong, director of the district's culture commission.
"The tower is close to hot tourist locations such as Shichahai and Nanluoguxiang. The area already has a rich and colorful nightlife, so we wanted to add another kind of lifestyle," says Yu Huagang, general manager of Cathay Bookstore.
Among eye-catching sections of the 24-hour bookstore are shelves filled with thread-bound Chinese classics, including a collection of female portraits from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) that were featured in the novel A Dream of Red Mansions.
Chinese editions of foreign classics by Jane Austen and Haruki Murakami are also present at the store, along with biographies, political reads such as Henry Kissinger's On China and President Xi Jinping's The Governance of China.
"Compared with other 24-hour bookstores like Sanlian Taofen Bookstore in Dongcheng district, we focus more on history, literature and philosophy," Yu says, adding that other bookstores may have more popular writings.
"In terms of layout and decoration of the bookstore, we want to create a more elegant environment for the readers."
On a recent visit, we noticed that even the bookstore's security guard isn't standing by the door like a statue. The man, in his 20s, is leafing through a Chinese children's classic.
Behind him, a girl in a white dress is sitting on a wooden stool reading the Chinese version of Stuart Little.
Visitors can also buy stationery and items of Chinese calligraphy from a corner of the store.
The second floor displays ancient Chinese books－the oldest dating back to the Southern and Northern Dynasties (AD 420-581).
Since last year, when Sanlian opened its first 24-hour bookstore, people have questioned the feasibility and necessity of such a round-the-clock service.
Earlier, Chen Shaofeng, deputy dean of the Institute of Cultural Industries at Peking University, told Beijing Youth Daily that it was "meaningless" for bookstores to stay open from midnight to 8 am.
"If you spend 1 million yuan ($161,000) to meet the needs of just dozens of readers, it's a waste," he said. The revenues for Sanlian's new bookstore in Haidian district had declined in the first two weeks of its opening, that newspaper also said.
Nevertheless, after Sanlian's two 24-hour bookshops, more such places were opened, including Cathay Bookstore in Yanchi Tower.
Compared with other bookstores, Cathay is more of a public reading space, another presentation of Chinese and local Beijing culture.
Since the opening, the bookstore has seen not only loyal customers of Cathay Bookstore, but new readers, especially tourists.
"We are seeing more readers than expected. The Yanchi Tower bookstore receives more foreign visitors than our branch in Liulichang, which used to be the most popular Cathay Bookstore among foreigners earlier," Yu says.
