South Korean book city
Paju, a satellite city 22 miles northwest of Seoul, South Korea, is small, with a population of about half a million. The streets are quieter than those of the bustling capital, the air cleaner and the pace of life half a turn slower.
Although many people know the city for its military base, Paju is also home to the country’s extensive book publishing industry – officially known as Paju Publishing Culture, Information and National Industrial Park, but commonly referred to as Paju Book City. About 900 book-related businesses, including printing presses, distribution companies and design studios, line the streets, and signs reading ‘Paju Book City’ are everywhere.
The government opened the publishing center in 1998, after nearly a decade of planning and as part of a larger effort to modernize the country. South Korea’s book industry used to be dispersed, but according to Lee Sang-yeon, manager of one of Paju’s most important cultural facilities, the Asia Publication Culture and Information Center, “the publishing city’s founders thought this dispersed, decentralized way of making books would making books was inefficient.”
By bundling all its bookmakers in one place, South Korea hoped to better produce and disseminate much of its culture. Books are a big business in South Korea. According to the Korean Publisher’s Association, more than 115 million books were sold nationwide last year.
The city of books mission – to “actively support culture and art based on books” – can be seen in buildings throughout the city. Photopia, a serene purple structure, curved like an ocean wave, serves as a studio for photography production and processing. One publishing house, Dulnyouk, is headquartered in a towering, geometric structure that resembles the kind of lumbering transportation vehicle from “Star Wars.” Quaint cafes line the street corners of Paju, where visitors can enjoy their drinks while reading. Everything is designed to preserve and spread the love of books.
The core of Paju Book City is where Lee works: the Asia Publication Culture and Information Center, a five-story complex that includes an education facility, event hall and exhibition space, and which serves as a social and professional core for local publishers. The center attracts almost 10,000 visitors per year.
The building’s first floor houses the Forest of Wisdom, a central library with tens of thousands of books and tens of thousands more in storage, Lee said. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line the walls, some more than 25 feet high. Although visitors are not allowed to view books – fiction and non-fiction, reference works, picture books and other works – they are welcome to browse the shelves and read in the common areas. The seemingly limitless collection means that guests include families with children, young couples on dates and groups of elderly people on social outings. There is a hotel in the center for anyone who wants to spend the night.
The publishing center also takes pride in the preservation of ancient texts and the practice of typography. The Book City Letterpress Museum, adjacent to the center’s main building, has traditional printing equipment in its collection, including 35 million metal character blocks.
It is not surprising that schools like to visit Paju. On a Friday afternoon last month, first-grade students in matching school uniforms read along a staircase, some sitting in pairs, others alone. Elsewhere, a class of high school students and seniors discovered the printing and publishing process through a hands-on lesson.
Every fall, the center hosts a book festival, bringing together local authors, artists and book lovers. This year’s event, the 12th annual gathering, included art exhibits, live music, a typing contest – where participants, seated row after row at the typewriters, were judged on speed and accuracy – and, of course, plenty of opportunity to enjoy the culture of books.
“Even as the world becomes more and more digital, the charm of books is never lost on readers,” says Lee. “Those who like to read books always come back.”