There we were, holed up in Beijing over the week-long Spring Festival, when life in the big city suddenly ground to an absolute halt. It’s somewhat of a tradition for Chinese people to head home to visit their families during this time, so the capital was as deserted as we’d ever seen it, and the cold February winds swept through the empty streets and narrow hutongs. With not much else to do, we carnies decided to pile into the circus van and head east, seeking a change of scenery via a quick day trip to Tianjin. The highway seemed barren all morning long, a scene which could have been lifted straight out of some post-apocalyptic B-movie, with many long stretches during the two-hour drive where there was simply no other cars in sight.
Upon pulling into the port city of Tianjin, however, we quickly discovered where everyone else had gotten to. The city’s re-built “Ancient Cultural Street” was absolutely mobbed, and it took several long minutes of shoving before I managed to make it to the front of the queue for donkey meat skewers. Window shopping was slow going as well, but we wound our way in and out of the small gift shops, dodging renegade street vendors all the while. The trip made for a fun way to usher in 2019, the Year of the Pig, but for a book nerd like me, there was just a single destination on my Tianjin bucket list:
If you’ve never heard of this place before, the library is most often mentioned in breathless Instagram posts, with my fellow bibliophiles rushing to post selfies taken in front of the stacks. I felt almost compelled to go and pay homage as well, you know, as long as I was on this side of the world. My mind made up, we got back on the road after lunch. This library isn’t in the city of Tianjin proper, mind you— it was nearly another hour’s drive on top of the two we’d already put in. It also didn’t help that the directions to the “Binhai Cultural Center” were a little foggy— our GPS said something like, “Get back on the highway, turn right, and keep heading northeast. If you come to Pyonggang, you’ve gone too far.”
But when we finally did pull in, it didn’t take me long to realize that something was up. The so-called “Cultural Center” turned out to be nothing more than a far-flung shopping mall, and for a moment I thought we’d arrived at the wrong place. Yes, it was awesome to see a KFC and a McDonalds so far from home, although you don’t normally see fast food restaurants located within temples of higher knowledge. Undeterred, though, we all rushed into the place, cleared the brief security check, and dutifully began snapping photos. The library was absolutely glorious, as promised. It was a thrill to be completely surrounded by books, stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see… at least, until I realized that we actually weren’t!
Of course, a simple search of the mixed reviews on TripAdvisor might have taken some of the sting from my disappointment, but I’ve found that researching a trip never fails to take some of the adventure out of it. If you’re at all inclined to head out this way, though, you should know that from up close, the Tianjin Binhai Library makes for a disheartening sight. Yes, the interior is beautiful, a sweeping design that launched a million selfies… but there’s definitely something missing here. Call me old-fashioned, but shouldn’t a library have… books? Upon closer inspection, it looked like only the foremost stacks in this beautiful atrium actually had real, live books on display. I’m told that the main collections are stored in a number of other reference rooms, but the atrium’s higher levels, including those amazing shelves that sweep high overhead, don’t actually hold any volumes. They’re decorated with stickers made to look like bookends, allegedly so that the building’s architects could complete the project on time. I guess that’s understandable, but the end result is that this building feels more like an Ikea than an actual lending library.
But before you ask, yes, there were still more than a few selfies taken among our group. It’s what you do here, apparently. The drive home that night was a long one, another lonesome haul back across the province while the cold winter night fell quickly around the car. To top it all off, I had nothing to read.
Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, the Tianjin Binhai Library had turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment. On the bright side, however, the whole experience had also been… well, it had been an experience. A chance to glimpse behind the Bamboo Curtain, and possibly even gain some insight into real life here in China.
And isn’t that worth a three-hour drive?