Back from the brink

Chenjiapu Bookstore is the 14th bookshop Qian has opened, and the third he has opened in an ancient village, after Bishan Bookstore in Anhui province, opened in 2014, and Yunxi Library in Tonglu county, Zhejiang province, which opened in 2015, both of which have become not only thriving businesses in their own right but have helped spawn other businesses in their locales.

Bishan Bookstore is in a remote ancient village amid mountains that stretch for kilometers, green fields, white walls and black-tiled roofs form the natural elements as though in an eye-catching pastoral painting.

In the village is a private park built during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), a private school founded in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), an ancient tower built in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and more than 100 well-preserved houses and ancestral halls of the Ming and Qing dynasties.