Paju Book City
New Year’s Resolution (but not for 2024…that, I know): Go to Paju, South Korea.
This email subject from the NYT caught my eye this morning: “South Korea’s city of books.” Say no more…<open email.> I already want to go to Seoul, but how about a little side trip to Paju, which is just over 20 miles from the capital and “home to the nation’s elaborate book publishing hub”?
Books are a big deal in South Korea, and this attempt to centralize all of the “bookish” tentacles in one place (an effort started in 1998) has resulted in the following institutions existing a stone’s throw (well, relatively speaking) away from each other:
* Photopia, a photography production and processing studio;
* Publishing company Dulnyouk;
* Forest of Wisdom, a library lined with 25-foot bookshelves;
* The Asia Publication Culture and Information Center, “serv[ing] as a social and professional nucleus for local publishers” that draws over 10,000 visitors a year to its venue space, education facility, etc (Forest of Wisdom is also housed here);
* The Book City Letterpress Musuem, home to “a copy of the world’s oldest extant book printed with moveable type, from 1377, during the Goryeo Dynasty.”
That’s just a sampling.
OF COURSE there is a literary festival in Paju…and, tell Tom Hanks, they hold a typewriting competition.
Briefly, Paju’s mission is “to actively support culture and arts based on books.” But if you hop over to the book city’s website (bookcity.or.kr/en), you can get an idea of how government officials, city planners, architects, the publishing industry, and others worked together to create something unique that not only provides a cultural service to residents and visitors, but helps promote efficiency and harmony within an industry. Wow, how nice to see a government understand how arts, culture, and “business” can be interwoven in a way that serves multiple purposes.
Stay tuned for my live dispatch (one day)…I will simply stay at the HOTEL housed in the Asia Publication and Culture Center. (What!) (Too bad I probably can’t use Hilton Honors points…)
originally published on instagram