◆By Vallentine Miao

　　I was quite at a loose end last Satur-day evening and I decided to kill time at a large bookstore around the corner of our street. Although I had made up my mind to take some books home, I finally desperately gave up. Why? Let me tell you today how a Chinese would get lost in the bookstore.

　　I still remember those green shelves, the smell of ink and paper, dark and cold, and, of course, those shop assistants with a state-owned-enterprise face. It was typical among the bookstores 20 years ago. Now the bookstores in China are quite different compared with those in the 1980s. When I stepped in, thousands of books were on the shelves in bright and warm light, flowers and peregrine plants were flourishing everywhere; romantic music was lingering in the room.

　　However, today's bookstore in China is different from yesterday not only because of its more comfortable atmosphere, but of its contents. We have far more books published and sold than before. Books in the bookstore are better classified. Many large bookstores can be compared with a small library. There are books on life style and fashion, art and literature, sports and military, biography and history , etc. Generally speaking you can find all the fields in which you're interested.

　　As to the contents of the book, you will really get lost if you don't have some information about it. But as I made my way through piles and piles of books in the bookstore, I also found some interesting features. For example, among the best sellers, most are teaching Chinese people lessons on how to make money of course it is what everybody are thinking of at our time. One of the books is rich dad, poor dad? written by an American businessman, Robert Kiasaki. The book is a big success in China. It sold one million in one year. With simple words, the book tells people about basic knowledge for business. However, it describes the way to success to be so easy that I began to be suspicious of its accountability. Besides, the stories in the book are all based on examples in American life. Will I be a millionaire as soon as I change my idea? Or will the American way be suitable for our Chinese? Well, for people as pessimist as I am, the bookseller would provide another choice: at the section named economy? there were heavy and thick books on business management. These books are prepared for those who think making money to be tuff and painful, but still worth engaging in. To assure this, some of these books are named with words like the 5th which likened the career of businessman to the practice of puritans. At the perception that the books are trying to adapt to my psychology, I decided to choose neither of them.

　　At the section of life and fashion, the atmosphere is much more comfortable. Books here have colorful and pleasing designs on the cover. They are also decorated with pictures and photos inside. It seems that practical guide on life and recreations are most popular among the Chinese readers. I strongly feel that nowadays Chinese are no longer the blue ants who know nothing but work. At the same time of working hard for a better material life, which is inevitably the major aim of people's life in countries under development, Chinese citizens also begin to focus on their life quality. With more and more Chinese going abroad as tourists, more and more books telling about world history and prestige appeared in bookstore as well. Besides, books on cuisine, body shaping and cosmetics can also be easily found in the bookstore.

　　When I was still young it was impossible for an adult to be a fun of cartoon books. On the contrary, my parents often try to stop me from reading unnecessary books, especially cartoons. I guess most of the Chinese of my age had the same experience. However, we are lucky than our parents. What is the most different today is that the adults can choose their favorite cartoons in bookstore, though most of them are from Japan and Taiwan. Cartoon book like works by Ji Mi-a painter from Taiwan-is surprisingly welcomed by young people in urban area, especially in big cities, partly because it reveals a common feeling of loneliness and confusion in the labyrinth of modern life. Similarly, other books like the first close contact Norwagain forest are quite popular among Chinese because of the same subject, although they were not written by Chinese.

　　I'm a little disappointed after all, since a large part of the best sellers are written by foreigners. What I'm looking for is something written by a Chinese in his own mother tongue, with Chinese traditional wisdom and humor, something that could make me laugh and smile, ponder and relax.