While some people are slowly walking home through the neon-lit streets, or getting ready to hit the club scene, others are on their way to a more unusual nocturnal hangouta bookstore.
The Eslite store in central Taipei opens 24 hours and has more night owl visitors than most Western bookstores could dream of during their daytime hours.
Here, young and old sit side-by-side on small steps or around reading tables, deeply engrossed in literary worlds.
Others stand and some sit on the floor, all reading in hushed silence as soft classical music seeps out from the speakers.
“People in Taipei do many things by night,” says Wan Hsuan Chang, a teacher who sits on a step in the middle of the store, skimming through the children’s classic “When Marnie Was There” by Joan G Robinson.
“You can go to the night market, shopping or nightclubbing. I read,” she adds, before telling me to keep my voice down.
“There are people trying to concentrate on their books here.”
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Eslite’s success may seem counter-intuitive especially when it seems most late-night visitors treat it like a library, leaving empty handed after hours of free reading.
Eslite’s Timothy Wang claims that the business is successful because it creates “a friendly environment” and treats “books as well as the visitors with great hospitality.”
That’s good news for Tom Chen, a 30-year-old police officer reading about global manufacturing trends on a recent Friday night.
Going out to drink alcohol is too expensive, while reading books at the store is free, he explains.
“I love this place. I come here every weekend.”
