Food is central theme at Book Fair
Anna Leung stood with her trolley in the Hong Kong Kong Book Fair. “There are many books to look at and many other items to enjoy here. But it is not the fair it was in 2019. We are in a new world now and have to accept it.”
The seven-day Book Fair, the 35th, opened on Wednesday with 770 exhibitors. It expects about one million visitors. It is running next to a Sports and Leisure Expo and the World of Snacks, with 1,300 varieties. The theme is “Food Culture, Future Living.”
Many famous writers are hosting events, including Lung Ying-tai, Taiwan’s first Minister of Culture from 2012 to 2014. She has written more than 30 books, which are read across the Chinese-language world, including the mainland.
The eight seminars include Andrew Chui Shek-on, heir to the Tai Ping Koon restaurant, and Rei Qudan, a Japanese author who won the 2024 Akutagawa Prize.
One exhibitor said that the Fair was critical to the financial health of the city’s publishers. “The Fair accounts for 20-25 per cent of my company’s annual sales,” she said. “People are buying fewer books. But this event gathers so many people in one space, with large discounts. Look at how many people bring trolleys because they plan to buy many books.”
The Trade Development Council (TDC) who organises the Fair refused the application of several independent publishers to take part.
It said that they must comply with the Exhibitors’ Manual and Rules and Regulations, the HK National Security Law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinances and laws related to intellectual property.
The exhibitor said that the government investigated the pre-2019 history of the applicants. If it found involvement in the protests, it would exclude them from the Fair.
To hammer the message home, the Chief Executive on Wednesday launched the traditional Chinese version of three books by President Xi Jinping, on education, culture and engagement with Chinese and global communities.
At the launch, Zhou Ji, director of the China Liaison Office in Hong Kong, said that people here should “cherish and make good use of this spiritual wealth to promote Hong Kong’s better development.” Copies of Xi’s works were prominently displayed at the Fair.
Sophia Chong Suk-fan, deputy executive director of TDC, said that both food and reading contained culture, as records of recipes and stories, and as living narratives.
“We hope the theme (Food Culture, Future Living) encourages people to explore food culture through reading, to savour the stories and lifestyles behind the texts and discover new food cultures shaped by future technologies,” she said.
The programme includes more than 620 events, including “the World of Art and Culture Exhibition”. A Cultural and Creative Products Zone presents Hong Kong Kong’s intangible cultural treasures.
In response to the ban, those excluded organised the Hong Kong Independent Book Fair and Bookstore Festival, running from Thursday to Sunday at Hunter Bookstore in Sham Shui Po. It is the third such fair since 2023.
Among those at the alternative festival was Mr Ye from Shenzhen. “My main purpose is to find books on the Communist Party,” he said. “Materials in the mainland to research this subject are almost non-existent. Nor do I find them in the large bookshops.”
Another resident of Shenzhen at the alternative festival, Miss Bao, said that she had bought two books on women’s rights. “We cannot find such books in Shenzhen. I went to the HK Book Fair last year but found little I wanted to see. All I remember is that the air conditioning was very cold. But here I have found a greater variety of books.”
One author signing his book at the alternative festival was Johnny Lau ( 劉銳紹), one of the city’s best known political commentators. But the book he was signing was not about current affairs but a romance novel.
“No-one wants to break the law,” he said. “Now the boundaries are not something you decide. No-one can say what they are clearly. People ask if Hong Kong is shrinking and less and less pluralist?”
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