Beijing’s Buyi Bookstore: 24 Years of Planting Seeds
In a creative industry park in Beijing’s Tianshuiyuan district, tucked away in the 13th location it has called home, a small second-hand bookstore named Buyi Bookstore (布衣书局) is marking 24 years of quiet resilience. Its owner, Hu Tong, 52, has a motto printed on the back of his T-shirt: “Plant a seed, in case it sprouts.”
According to The Paper, the bookstore’s plaque was inscribed by the late renowned scholar Wang Shixiang. Inside its roughly 100-square-meter space, some 3,500 books fill shelves labeled “Old Editions,” “Ancient China,” “New Culture,” and “Imports,” while four resident cats roam among the stacks. It is a world shaped by decades of devotion to the written word.
From Online Forum to Physical Haven
Hu Tong’s journey began not on a street corner, but on the internet. In late 2001, he discovered the “Xianxian Shuhua” (Leisurely Book Talk) section of Tianya Club, a once-dominant Chinese online forum. “The moderators back then were all very warm, welcoming every newcomer enthusiastically,” he recalled. “I suddenly felt like I had ‘finally found my tribe.’”
On January 7, 2002, he posted a thread offering to sell old books. It received over 70 replies in 10 minutes — a remarkable response that marked the birth of Buyi Bookstore. By 2004, he had opened his first physical location at No. 73 Xinkai Hutong, a Qing-era brick Western-style house. “I once believed I had achieved what the ancients described — conversing with scholars and having no unlearned men among my guests,” Hu Tong said.
The Charm of Old Books in a Digital Age
In an era when hundreds of thousands of new titles flood the market each year, Hu Tong finds his passion undiminished. “After more than 20 years, my love for ordinary old books is still beyond words,” he told The Paper. “New books tend to be homogenized. But old books — even the same title — each copy is different, always carrying complex traces of time.”
He points to the five bookshelves in his current store, which once belonged to Bai Weiguo, a late linguist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “I never met Mr. Bai, but after reading his books, I realized he treated books like diaries, jotting down thoughts and feelings inside them. His books carry so many traces — you find them endlessly interesting.”
Live Streaming: A Double-Edged Sword
In spring 2022, Hu Tong embraced live streaming to sell books, achieving remarkable success. At his peak, he streamed for over 700 consecutive days, with single sessions lasting up to nine hours. His best performance: selling 600 sets of “Dream of the Red Chamber” at 598 RMB each in one session.
But the landscape has shifted. According to Hu Tong, live streaming revenue has dropped by one-third to one-half compared to four years ago. “Recently, even the people who used to shout bids for fun have dwindled,” he said. At 52, his physical stamina is also declining. He now ends his streams by 9 p.m. — earlier than before — but the fatigue is visible in his graying hair and stooped posture.
A Changing Industry
Buyi Bookstore’s story unfolds against a broader transformation of China’s physical bookstore industry. In February 2026, China’s first administrative regulation on national reading, the National Reading Promotion Regulations, took effect. For the first time, “supporting the development of physical bookstores” was written into the Government Work Report, as Xinhua News Agency reported.
Yet the gap between policy and reality remains wide. A China Industry Report notes that over 65% of independent bookstores operate at a loss, with rent and labor costs consuming 32.7% of revenue while average gross margins sit at just 28.6%. The number of independent bookstores in China has fallen from nearly 30,000 in 2019 to about 16,800.
Just last month, Beijing Douban Bookstore — a fellow independent — announced the closure of its physical operations. Hu Tong sent his counterpart a message: “Congratulations on getting ashore.” He added, “Perhaps only bookstore owners can understand the mixed emotions. But at least you no longer have to struggle in this quagmire.”
Why He Keeps Going
Asked about the bookstore’s current state, Hu Tong offered a characteristically philosophical response: “As long as the cart hasn’t tipped over, just keep pushing. Since it hasn’t fallen yet, keep going. When it can’t go on, we’ll deal with it then. You can’t think about the future, about profits — if you do, you’ll get depressed.”
What keeps him going are the unexpected beauties of the bookstore life — friends who lend money without being asked, customers who visit just to chat, and the sense of community he has built over two decades. “Running a bookstore brings so many beautiful things that were never in your plans,” he said. “But because of these beautiful things, I seem to have lost the freedom to close the store. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to face those friends.”
What’s Next
Hu Tong does not expect his son to carry on the business. “I don’t have that thought, and my son doesn’t either,” he admitted. Yet he remains hopeful about the future of bookstores in general. “Some bookstores will survive,” he said. “They will be some people’s safe havens.”
As China’s reading landscape continues to evolve, the story of Buyi Bookstore serves as a reminder that even in the most digital of ages, there remains a quiet, stubborn demand for the tactile, the unexpected, and the deeply human experience of discovering an old book.
After all, as Hu Tong’s T-shirt reminds us: plant a seed, and it might just sprout.