Living in Australia, Reading in Chinese

The first Chinese-language book I read after moving to Australia was titled Fifty Simple Stir-fried Dishes, or 五十道家常小炒. It was smaller than a P plate, with a photo on the cover of stir-fried eggplant with pork mince and black bean sauce. Each page had a recipe for a different dish, with a list of ingredients and simple instructions. The book came in a heavy parcel from my family in China, which included clothes, snacks, and various stationery items I had ordered online from Taobao. It was November 2014, three months after I had arrived to study in the University of Melbourne’s foundation studies program. I had turned eighteen only a couple of weeks before, and having seen my classmates receive various parcels from their families in China, I had asked my parents if they could post me one too.

In hindsight, it was a childish request. But my parents agreed, and after finding out that I was learning to cook for myself, my mother went hunting in local markets for small, simple recipe books that I could easily follow. I put the book on a white shelf in my studio apartment. I had just moved into these student lodgings in October, and the shelf was practically empty. Over the following decade, after moving several times, I lost the recipe book. But I also accumulated more books written in Chinese. They filled half of the dark brown four-tier IKEA bookcase in my bedroom in Sydney.

I was once worried that moving to Australia would mean saying farewell to Chinese-language literature, but on the contrary, the move to Australia enabled me to get a fuller sense of the Sinophone literary landscape. The geographical distance from Greater China somehow allowed me to traverse the political and cultural divisions within the Chinese book world, especially the ones created by the differing usage of simplified and traditional characters.

In 1956, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in mainland China decided to promote Simplified Chinese to counter illiteracy. Simplified characters, the argument went, would be easier to read and write. But in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, locals continued using traditional Chinese characters, partly for historical continuity, partly to distinguish themselves politically from China. The two different character systems augmented divisions within the Chinese-speaking world. Each Chinese-speaking literary scene was distinct, deeply embedded in its own politics and local history, nurturing very different authors and literary concerns. For instance, in the 1980s, China’s authors embraced themes of trauma to express the pain caused by the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s authors used romance, sci-fi, and martial-arts fiction to explore the city’s anxiety and identity issues in the wake of the 1997 handover from the UK to China. In Taiwan, the period of martial law under the Kuomintang was documented through fiction and essays in magazines. As martial law was lifted in the late 1980s, the literary scene also became more diverse, with the publication of First Nations-authored works and romances exploring women’s changing views of marriage and love. 

As political tensions grew in the Sinophone world, so did barriers to literary exchange between the Simplified and Traditional Chinese bubbles. Mainlanders ordering books from Hong Kong and Taiwan would have their parcels carefully inspected and even intercepted, while Simplified Chinese books and social media platforms were met with resistance from many Taiwanese and pro-democracy Hong Kongers, who saw them as propaganda from the CCP. To this day, publishers working with traditional characters are often averse to adapting books written in Simplified Chinese, and vice versa. Each bubble’s readers lack familiarity with the other’s literary contexts and concerns, potentially affecting the marketability of adapted works.

After I moved to Australia, the invisible wall between Simplified and Traditional Chinese literary works disappeared in my reading world. Thanks to developments in international shipping, I could order books from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, without having to worry whether any of the parcels would be intercepted. (Though of course, I had to pay much more than I would have in China due to high postage fees.) 

I also began frequenting the multilingual sections of various libraries, both at universities and in the neighbourhoods where I lived. This became a favourite activity – a treasure hunt that would yield interesting and surprising reads. Once, at Marrickville Library, I discovered an anthology of award-winning longform reports about the 2019 protests in Hong Kong – one that independent bookstores in Hong Kong and Taiwan had long sold out of, and that the publisher had no plans to reprint. I devoured the whole three-hundred-page collection within a day.

The more Chinese-language literature I read while in Australia, the more curious I became about what kinds of books other Chinese people in this country might be consuming. There are 1.4 million people of Chinese heritage living in Australia today. According to the most recent ABS census, over 980,000 of them speak Chinese. What were they reading? According to research released by the Australian Publishers Association in 2025, around one quarter of Australian adults didn’t read or listen to a single book the previous year. From such figures, one might surmise that books have declined in popularity among Chinese-language readers, too; especially as social media and messaging apps like RedNote, WeChat, and Douyin increasingly dominate Chinese-language speakers’ daily lives. Who was still insisting on reading Chinese-language books?

Three weeks before the Christmas shopping season kicked off in December last year, I went in search of answers. I caught up with Chloe Ye, the manager of the Chinese Books Department at Kinokuniya Sydney. Kinokuniya is well known in Australia for its extensive selection of Asian-language books, and its Sydney CBD store is divided into three sections: English, Japanese, and Chinese. The international brand has recently opened a second branch in Sydney, in Chatswood, where 20 per cent of residents speak Mandarin at home, and 12.3 per cent, Cantonese.

When Chloe joined Kinokuniya Sydney as a part-time employee in 2016, her primary tasks were reshelving books and other light tasks. Nowadays, she can be found at the counter between the Japanese- and Chinese-language books, searching for titles on the store computer and answering enquiries from readers. On my visit, I observed that the counter also marked the border separating the shelves for Simplified Chinese books and Traditional Chinese ones.

The Simplified Chinese area, to the left side of the counter, was made up of three aisles of shelves. Among the books housed in the foremost aisle were works of contemporary short fiction by emerging Chinese writers and several translations – of Scandinavian and French literature, of works by South Korean Nobel prize-winning author Han Kang, and of scholarly works by Ueno Chizuko, a Japanese feminist theorist who gained great popularity among young Chinese women for her bestseller, Disgust Against Women. The second aisle housed still more translated literature, mostly from non-English speaking countries such as Japan and South Korea. The third set of bookshelves, built into the wall, displayed Chinese novels from various periods, from the ancient classic Journey to the West (西游记) to the 1992 bestselling novel Golden Age (黄金时代) by cult writer Wang Xiaobo.

I even noticed a special section for novels that had been turned into Chinese TV dramas, such as the political thriller Nirvana in Fire (琅琊榜) by Hai Yan and Empresses in the Palace (后宫·甄嬛传) by Liu Lianzi. ‘Those books are very popular among the aunties,’ Chloe later told me. ‘Many of them watch Chinese dramas at home, and when they finish the drama, they will come and buy the original novels to read.’

Chloe further explained that many Simplified Chinese readers follow the book trends in China, and Scandinavian and Nordic literature had been a popular genre in recent years. She also noticed that in 2023 and 2024, books with feminist themes were popular among young female readers here in Australia, around the same time young women in China were turning to feminist comedies and books amid growing censorship on gender issues, which included the suspension of social media accounts promoting LGBT content.

I strolled towards the Traditional Chinese books section to the right side of the counter. It was twice as large as the Simplified Chinese one. Books were organised by genre: among them, Fantasy, General Fiction, Psychology, Self Development, History, and Politics. Manga has always been one of the most popular genres at Kinokuniya, and the Chinese Books Department also sells Traditional Chinese translations of manga from Taiwanese publishers.

In the General Fiction category, novels were further divided into ‘Hong Kong Authors’ and ‘Taiwan Authors’. Chloe explained that despite both sets of authors using Traditional Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong customers tended to purchase books published only where they were from, due to differences in everyday language and idiomatic expressions.

Chloe had always assumed that the main customers for Chinese-language books were international students, but then COVID-19 hit. ‘There were no international students for a long time, and we thought it would be a fatal blow for us. But it wasn’t,’ she said. That’s when she realised that the Chinese Books Department’s main clientele were actually Chinese Australians, including first-generation migrants who had settled in Australia.

Chloe added that the department’s bestselling category was Business and Finance – which was also the only section running across the whole area, shelved with a mixture of Simplified and Traditional Chinese books. She also noted that biographies of historical figures were also popular, with two books always standing out in particular: one being The Private Life of Chairman Mao (毛泽东私人医生回忆录) by Li Zhisui, Mao’s physician, and the other, a translated edition of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (鸿:三代中国女人的故事) by Chinese-British author Jung Chang.

Over the past year, Chloe had noticed a rise in sales of philosophy and psychology-related books, among them the works of Albert Camus. ‘Anxiety has become a mainstream issue. The popularity of philosophy and psychology books shows people are paying attention to themselves and their self growth.’

I asked Chloe which demographic was reading the most: readers from China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. ‘From sales records, Simplified Chinese books are more popular, but from customer enquiries, people ask more about books in Traditional Chinese,’ she said, adding that Simplified Chinese books tended to be cheaper than Traditional Chinese ones.

There tended to be an age difference among readers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, according to Chloe. ‘Taiwanese readers tend to be between thirty to fifty years old, and Hong Kong readers between forty to sixty, while the age range for Chinese readers is larger, spanning people in their late teens to those in their sixties and seventies.’

In May last year, the Chinese Book Department started a new section, for Chinese translations of Australian books. I cast my eye over the shelves and saw Simplified Chinese editions of Bri Lee’s Eggshell Skull, Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip, and Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie. Chole said they came across the Chinese translations of these titles after readers enquired about them.

My jaw dropped when Chloe showed me two of the most popular Australian-authored books customers were purchasing in Chinese translation – The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, and Law in Australian Society by Keiran Hardy. I asked Chloe who was buying them. International students? ‘No, actually. Chinese Australians,’ she said. ‘Some say they want to buy a book about Australia as a present for their families in China. Some say they want to learn about Australia now that they’ve settled here.’

Since 2022, there has been a rise in independent Chinese-language bookstores outside the Greater China region, spurred by the recent migration of young people overseas. For many mainlanders, the instigating factor was frustration with COVID lockdowns, culminating in the youth-led White Paper Protests. For Hongkongers, the aftermath of the 2019 protests and the passage of the National Security Law in 2020 meant the city they loved was no longer the same. In Taiwan, reasons for migration included an increase in the cost of living and the threat of military action from across the strait.

Catering to various Chinese diasporic communities around the world, these independent bookstores usually sell books in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, with a focus on contemporary literature, social science, and gender studies. They have also become community hubs for a new generation of Chinese-speaking migrants, often hosting author talks, seminars, film screenings, and even stand-up comedy acts – gatherings that allow these young members of the Chinese diaspora to connect as they start new lives abroad. 

Elsewhere Books (別處書社) on Franklin Street in Melbourne is located on the second floor of a rundown shop building. I entered to find the ground floor empty except for construction debris. On the first floor was a mahjong club, advertised by a green plaque reading ‘Mahjong Talent Exchange Association’, complete with stylish decor tailored to its Gen Z customers. Upon reaching the second floor, I saw a dozen Chinese international students playing board games. Elsewhere Books was at the back.

I paid my visit on a November afternoon, just two months after Cliff Xiao launched the shop. Piles of open boxes lay under the wall-mounted white bookshelf, its collection a mixture of everything, ranging from travel writing by Taiwanese authors to US journalist Ian Johnson’s latest work, Sparks. These books were curated by a group of volunteers who worked at Elsewhere on rotation. Cliff, who led the group, told me that volunteers could pick any books they wanted for the shop to stock, as long as the selections weren’t bestsellers that customers could easily buy somewhere else.

‘We hope Elsewhere will attract readers who have a curious mind and are open to reading any book when they step into our shop – that the books might serve as a window for them.’ He noted that the majority of their customers were students. ‘Maybe that’s because we focus on social media promotion.’

Elsewhere only carries two to three copies of each book and sells them at the same prices found in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This means that a book might cost as little as six dollars. In terms of profits, Cliff said the team currently aimed for breaking even and to his surprise, they achieved this in their first month of operation.

On the other side of the wall, there were seven built-in display boxes. Cliff told me they were for renting to people who might want to run their own self-curated ‘bookshops’ but had no space or time to operate a business. Four of them had already been leased out to local Chinese community groups, including a Melbourne-based Chinese novelist association. A local Chinese lesbian peer support group had also asked if they could use one of the boxes to run a library. ‘They put books about LGBT and gender in the box for people to borrow if they’re interested,’ said Cliff.

Like other independent Chinese-language bookshops across the world, Elsewhere also hosts film screenings and events. In February this year, they held a talk with a Tokyo-based Chinese publisher on producing Simplified Chinese books for diasporic readers. ‘As those living overseas may have experienced,’ read Elsewhere’s social media in promoting the event, ‘even though we are in a multilingual environment, Chinese texts are still the ones that bring us spiritual comfort and reading joy.’

Reading Chinese-language books has always played an important part in the Chinese community in Australia. In my years here, I’ve come across Chinese reading groups in Sydney and Melbourne that have been running for almost a decade, and that still attract at least a dozen people every monthly meeting. On social media, especially on Threads – which became immensely popular among diasporic Chinese users since its launch in 2023 – I often encounter posts from users in Australia enquiring where they can access Chinese books. In March, a Hong Kong IT engineer posted on the platform, saying they had created an online system so Sydney-based Hongkongers could share Traditional Chinese books, especially ones about Hong Kong.

The worlds of Chinese- and English-language books do overlap sometimes. In mid-May this year, Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-zi and her English translator Lin King won the 2026 International Booker Prize with the novel Taiwan Travelogue. In less than two days, Traditional Chinese copies of the novel were sold out at Kinokuniya Sydney. On Chinese-language social media, many readers in Australia were asking where they could buy a copy. According to Chloe, however, this was the book’s second wave of popularity, not its first. Among Chinese-language readers, the novel had already attracted positive attention when it was first published in 2020. Chloe cited the International Booker Prize win for pushing the book’s sales to another level. ‘[It] suddenly refreshed public attention around the title and created a huge surge in demand almost overnight.’

In an age where we are constantly bombarded with information and social media, reading Chinese books reassures me of who I am. It’s my way of coping with uncertainty and confusion while trying to make sense of the rapidly changing world. I still remember the thrill – and the peace – I felt after finishing Darkness Under the Sun (黑日) by Hong Kong author Hon Lai-chu. That was back in 2021, when Melbourne was still in lockdown. I had ordered the book online, and after it arrived, I spent the whole day lying on the couch reading it. It was an essay collection of Hon’s observations on the Hong Kong protests in 2019, which I had been watching from the other side of the ocean. I lived alone during the lockdowns, and I was hardly speaking to anyone, except maybe the barista at my neighbourhood cafe. But as I read the lines, I could feel my facial muscles moving, tensing, as if I were speaking, in Cantonese. The concise, poetic words by Hon warmed my heart. Tranquillity spread through me, intimate, peaceful, comforting – as if I had travelled back to November 2014, when I had opened a parcel from my mother and discovered a small recipe book resting on top.