During my 5 day blogging hiatus, I was stuck with my father in Beijing, China. To tell the truth, I was rather underwhelmed by the whole experience, except for the prices of course (because 1 Singapore Dollar = 5 Chinese Yuan). The food was rather awful compared to Singapore’s (EXCEPT for the ROAST DUCK, OH LORD THE DUCK!!!), and the air quality in general was REALLY crappy compared to Singapore’s. Bargaining for stuff in the markets was really fun though. My father managed to bag 30 socks for a mere SGD16 (about 80 Chinese yuan) and a lot of other stuff at insanely low prices that I don’t really want to mention.

So half-way through the trip I told myself, why not get some Chinese translated manga and/or light novels as fun souveniers? I was aware Chinese adapted manga was published in “mini-omnibus” form (3 volumes bundled together), which sacrificed cover art. I couldn’t really accept this, as cover art was one aspect of manga that I enjoyed and appreciated. Thus, I wasn’t too keen on the manga. But I did remember seeing the Kanon light novels licensed in simplified Chinese somewhere in Singapore, and hoped that I could find some.

I decided that this bookstore looked rather promising, so I hopped in to have a look. To my dismay, the “manga world” section of the bookstore had really shitty stuff. Some guidebooks on how to draw manga, some really ugly looking artbooks and some Shoujo-ish looking manga with Bishounens and what not. Almost totally turned me off.

I didn’t want to give up on the light novels though, although something was telling me that I should. Light novels were literally translated into Qing (1) Xiao (3) Shuo (1) or 轻小说 in Chinese and there is actually a section devoted to them in the local Kinokuniya Orchard branch.

The bookstore staff told me they didn’t know what the heck was 轻小说. Actually upon further enquiry, I realised they didn’t really know much about the damned bookstore. So I had no choice but to comb the bookstore myself.

And GUESS WHAT I FOUND:

A cache of ADV Manga!

These manga must have been sitting on these shelves for 5 years or so. For those uninitiated with manga news, the ARIA manga on the shelf is already out of print. Presently, Tokyopop has taken over the ARIA manga license from ADV Manga. This was a really huge find for me as I am a rather staunch ARIA fan, and I scooped up a copy immediately to add to my ARIA collection. Probably can’t find this anywhere else in the world OR the internet.

I also found it rather amusing that the managers of the bookstore classified ARIA as a children’s book. Quite honestly, if my mother gave me ARIA to read when I was 8, I would be bored stiff. ARIA is a slow-paced slice-of-life science-fiction Seinen manga, and I doubt anyone below the age of 18 would find it interesting.

And I actually burst out laughing when I saw what was shelved next to the ARIA manga:

The manga adaption of To Heart, a popular eroge. I swear I WILL SUE the pants off the bookstore if I find my daughter flipping through an eroge adaption.

The manga on the right shelf look mostly safe, except for yet another freaking eroge adaption (can you figure out which one?). And the worst part is that this one is rated 17+ and not really censored that well.

Well, it isn’t really an eroge adaption. But it WAS serialised in Dengeki G’s, not exactly a magazine you would want children to read.

Honestly, even if you choose to be ignorant about manga, isn’t it at least a minimum requirement to flip through the stuff you are going to shelve in your bookstore instead of just buying a bunch of manga at a bargain price from a random publisher?

Well, that’s a Chinese bookstore for you: Shitty book classification and shitty customer service. I agree with my father when he mused multiple times during the trip that “Beijing isn’t ready for the Olympics”. Had a really nasty experience at the hotel as well T_T

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