As you know, there are so many independent bookstores all around Taiwan. 

 

And sure enough, we are one of them. 

 

After spending two years in Puli, we decided to change the location to the East Coast, where you can enjoy nature with the mountains and ocean and soak yourself in a more relaxing vibe. 

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Finding a perfect place to settle in was not an easy process, but we ended up here in Fenglin (鳳林), which is an hour away from Hualien (花蓮) City. We found this little town intriguing because it's a place mixed with the past, such as indigenous culture and Japanese occupation history, and the future; you can find National Dong Hwa University (國立東華大學), which is one of the most famous universities in Taiwan, not far from us, and there hope and joy are cultivated by the hand of the following generation. 

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So we are here, being urged to delve into this region.

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As each independent bookstore has its own style and uniqueness, we have our own traits. One of them is that besides Chinese-written books, we have a lot of English and Japanese books for you to pick up. The reason why is because of our background. This bookstore was started by a Taiwanese woman and has been run ever since with the help of a Japanese guy, myself, occasionally. Not only do we have an interest in each culture, but also are keen to learn other languages, especially English. So it's quite natural that books written in a foreign language get stocked and keep coming in more and more.

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The events we've held also go along with learning and interacting with other cultures through literature. We've had both English and Japanese classes where you would improve your vocabulary using picture books, novels, poems, and so on. We've had Japanese book clubs as well. It's been challenging to do these kinds of workshops mainly because my Chinese is still a long way to fluency, and I have a hard time communicating with locals sometimes. But at the same time, I found it so fun and encouraging to learn language in an out-of-the-box way. Everybody gets horrified when English class is about to start in school. We had enough of it, you know.

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As I mentioned earlier, there is a deep and rich history of indigenous people around this region. So our next step is to build a good relationship with local people and pick up precious knowledge to respect others and live a life as a human being in this day and age. And hopefully, we'd like to be a place where, whether you are young or old, local or traveler, you get inspired and, in a way, feel resurrected after stepping out of our bookstore.

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We are a five-minute walk from Fenglin Station and a green-painted building with a flashy yellow billboard at the front. So you can't miss it. We'll appreciate it if you drop by at us on the way to wherever you go and enjoy having an interesting, you could say weird, experience here. If you would spare some time to chat with me, I couldn't be happier.

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Look forward to meeting you!!