Reflections | History of Chinese libraries, from huge palace collections to public spaces of learning
Libraries were the preserve of rulers and officials for much of China’s history, but that started to change at the turn of the 20th century
Several weeks ago, I came across a book in the schoolbag of a kindergarten-age boy – let’s call him “Small B” – who goes to a private school in Kuala Lumpur. He had borrowed the book from the school library.
As I turned the pages of the picture book with him, I noticed that the protagonist, how she performed certain tasks, and even the physical setting of the story were not quite reflective of the boy’s lived reality.
But it was these “exotic” details that fuelled my imagination and piqued my curiosity about the wider world beyond my immediate ken, a curiosity that I like to think defines who I am today.
I am eternally grateful to my parents for encouraging me to read. They do not read anything other than the daily newspapers, but they made sure we had books at home. Public libraries became my favourite haunts on the weekends.
The Chinese have always been keen – some would say obsessive – keepers of the written word. By the Zhou dynasty (around 1046BC-256BC), there were already official archives, proto-libraries that stored treaties, maps and documents.