A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A bookstore once based in Shanghai has resurfaced more than 7,000 miles away - in Washington, D.C.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Jifeng Bookstore used to be a gathering place for academics and students, but it closed in 2018 after the Chinese government declined to renew the lease on the building.
MIAO YU: I heard some rumors that the authorities didn't want Jifeng Bookstore to exist.
MARTÍNEZ: The store's owner, Miao Yu, believes the government wasn't happy with the seminars held in the store. Officials had already canceled lectures on reform and globalization. Yu says he was never told specifically why.
MARTIN: Many other Chinese bookstores have also had to close. The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of censoring what people can read and talk about in public spaces.
MARTÍNEZ: Yu remembers, the day before his bookstore closed, the building's power went out. He speculates the government hoped customers would leave. They didn't.
YU: All the readers - they turned on their cell phone lights, and they read. They sang. They danced. They felt joy and hope into the darkness.
MARTIN: Now, more than six years later, Yu has reopened his store with a new name - JF Books. It's in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle neighborhood. That's a few blocks north of the White House in a neighborhood popular with locals and tourists alike. The new space has large windows, potted plants and a bunch of couches.
MARTÍNEZ: It doesn't just sell Chinese-language books. It also has English-language books on China and Asia, and it showcases works of fiction by Asian American authors.
YU: We want to shape the bookstore as a public sphere - one important part of civil society.
MARTIN: Yu says one day, he would like to reopen his bookstore in China. He misses his old bookstore every day.
YU: When you were staying inside this bookstore, you can feel a familiar smell. At this moment, perhaps the distance between you and your native lands is near.
MARTÍNEZ: The bookstore's motto is displayed at the front of the store - quote, "The wind's voice is freedom's choice."
MARTIN: Some words to sit with, A, as our week comes to an end.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, that was nice.
(SOUNDBITE OF BO ZHANG'S "FAREWELL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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