At The Atlantic Helen Gao wonders Why Aren't Chinese People Reading Books Anymore ?
A lot of these statistics seem a bit iffy to me -- for example, on the one hand: "the Chinese market is awash in books: The country now boasts the world's largest publishing industry by volume, with 8.1 billion books published in 2012", yet on the other: "Chinese people read 4.39 books per capita in the past year" ? So what happened to all those extra books ? (4.39 times the population of China is considerably less than 8.1 billion -- and of the 4.39 average one would assume a fair share consisted of library-book (or other borrowed) reading, reading of older books, etc. I know that the total volume of books published doesn't have to come close to equating to the number of books read, but the great increase in available volumes surely has to be attributable to something (like greater reader interest ...) -- these aren't like the good old days of Mao's 'little red book' which you could foist on every last person in the land.)
[I'd have a bit more faith in the numbers if I could believe there had been some serious editorial oversight here, but given that this is an article about reading where they misspell the title of Joyce's Finnegans Wake I don't think there was any.]
And of course it's the same old story here as in every one of these reports (substituting "China" for country X), with complaints that, for example:
Ultimately, this reads like a dime-a-dozen filler-article that cobbles together various stray numbers and quotes to come to its foregone conclusion, that age old lament that we constantly hear repeated (and have, for decades and centuries) of the decline of serious reading in locale x and y and everywhere ..... God forbid anyone would ever try to make a serious assessment.
A lot of these statistics seem a bit iffy to me -- for example, on the one hand: "the Chinese market is awash in books: The country now boasts the world's largest publishing industry by volume, with 8.1 billion books published in 2012", yet on the other: "Chinese people read 4.39 books per capita in the past year" ? So what happened to all those extra books ? (4.39 times the population of China is considerably less than 8.1 billion -- and of the 4.39 average one would assume a fair share consisted of library-book (or other borrowed) reading, reading of older books, etc. I know that the total volume of books published doesn't have to come close to equating to the number of books read, but the great increase in available volumes surely has to be attributable to something (like greater reader interest ...) -- these aren't like the good old days of Mao's 'little red book' which you could foist on every last person in the land.)
[I'd have a bit more faith in the numbers if I could believe there had been some serious editorial oversight here, but given that this is an article about reading where they misspell the title of Joyce's Finnegans Wake I don't think there was any.]
And of course it's the same old story here as in every one of these reports (substituting "China" for country X), with complaints that, for example:
Chinese people have also abandoned more serious and intellectually enriching stories in favor of easy readsAnd online reading is treated as somehow different from reading 'real' books -- since, you know: "due to a lack of editorial oversight, the online books vary in quality" (as apparently all print books in China -- including all those pirated translations and editions ... -- enjoy professional-quality editorial oversight, just like articles at The Atlantic, where they know how to spell the name of Joyce's most (in)famous work ... oh, whoops ...).
Ultimately, this reads like a dime-a-dozen filler-article that cobbles together various stray numbers and quotes to come to its foregone conclusion, that age old lament that we constantly hear repeated (and have, for decades and centuries) of the decline of serious reading in locale x and y and everywhere ..... God forbid anyone would ever try to make a serious assessment.