No standing in the way of 'progress'

Not only is selling newspapers and magazines via street stands disparaged, but many other forms of grassroots ways of life are treated as vestiges of antiquity that should be abolished and cleaned up.

Take the history of local opera. The form sprouted from unglamorous rural entertainment and folksy rituals such as weddings and funerals. They were all "elevated" to the formal theater where many lost touch with their target audience and died away.

Once they no longer had the viability to sustain themselves, the government would usually step in and provide generous funding in an effort to put them on a life-support system. All in the name of protecting culture.

Other than antiques and relics, culture does not need protection so much as respect.

Culture as it happens is often messy. It may not have the validation of professors or UNESCO. It is essentially a way of life for a certain segment of the populace. If you artificially lift a cultural phenomenon to an inappropriate level, you'll risk breaking off its roots.

Take online fiction. It is booming and much of it is trash, but out of this plethora of online output there will be some gems.

The Writers' Association has been attempting to give it authenticity with memberships and professional guidance. It all sounds great, but if the measures are heavy-handed they will only hasten the demise of this literary sub-genre.

The market could be a much better arbiter than so-called experts for all their good intention.

Have you seen the automated libraries at Beijing's street corners? They look very fancy and I'm sure they are very expensive to build. But I have never seen a single person using them. I once spent half an hour visiting one and trying to figure out everything.

For a start, there is no rhyme or reason for the very limited selection of titles. Are they supposed to cater to the local neighborhood or migrant workers who can't afford to buy books? I can't make any sense of the titles.

But I must say the glass machines look very impressive and I can imagine city officials exclaiming, "This adds culture to our city!"

Once all the real newsstands are abolished, some experts will say they denote the level of a city's culture and city managers will take notice. Then expensive, automatic machines selling newspapers and magazines will be installed. But nobody will show up to buy the goods they offer.

By that time, everyone will have turned to digital reading. So the fancy booths will be like simulated ancient architecture that's currently on a building spree across China, while truly old houses are demolished.