A visit to the bookshop is not only about looking at books, it is also about looking at the other customers, staff, and the bookshop itself. The kind of books the bookshop sells and how it is decorated tells you something about the shopkeeper’s personal taste. With so many people coming and going, and so many personal stories being created day and night, a bookshop is one of the best places to observe the lives of others.
I first visited moom bookshop in spring, 2019. The air was both warm and cold. Underdressed, I hunched my shoulders in the breeze as I navigated the alleyways in eastern Taipei. I had thought it would be difficult to find the bookshop in such a residential area, where every building looked identical after dark, but it’s hard to miss moom bookshop around the corner – with its whitewashed façade and narrow windows, which peeped into row upon row of books and an all-white interior. From a sea of residential apartments, moom bookshop stood out as a white cube gallery.
Established in 2016, moom bookshop specialises in photography. The white cube set-up cannot be further from coincidence – in fact, moom bookshop regularly hosts exhibitions. During my first visit, on display was an exhibition centring on the post-war Japanese magazine in the 60’s, Provoke. Aside from academic exhibitions around photography, moom bookshop has also curated unconventional shows. Last year’s “It hasn’t been sold for ______ days!”, for instance, focused on finding new homes for their unsold books.
Peak season and nursing an ill cat, these were just some of the hurdles to my interview with Chang HoTeng, owner of moom bookshop, which eventually took three months to complete. Pressure from the tight schedule, however, was quickly overshadowed by the relieving news that Chang’s cat was making a full recovery. Credits to these unforeseen circumstances, I got to know Chang a little bit better through our correspondence. It’s like talking to a classmate from high-school – the kind who’s always late to your meeting and who might freeride your group project. But you admire their sense of humour and honesty anyway, so you tolerate them, with slight faith that they might actually achieve something great one day.
Now an adult, this imaginary classmate has opened a bookshop, which is just as fascinating as his personality.
The alleys on this side of the road are rather closed off, which makes it very difficult for cars to navigate. Hence the lack of visitors. But it’s good for me; I enjoy the serenity.
Chang: I wanted something short and memorable. I am a space enthusiast, so my instinct was to name my online bookshop “moon”, but that would have been a terrible SEO disaster. I also like the word “Mom”, which reminds me of my gratitude and her calm. I combined the two words and that’s how moom came into being.
Interestingly, a Thai magazine featured us shortly after our opening and offered the translation that “moom” referred to “around the corner” in Thai – they even thought I was Thai! It’s just a wonderful coincidence. (I admire Thai customers – they’re generally very friendly and interesting)
OBSCURA: How would you describe the neighbourhood? What are the architecture and people surrounding moom like?
Chang: It’s a very quiet community, or rather, very empty. Though we are right next to Zhongxiao Fuxing station, the proximity has not attracted the crowd that frequents the shopping mall across the street. The alleys on this side of the road are rather closed off, which makes it very difficult for cars to navigate. Hence the lack of visitors. But it’s good for me; I enjoy the serenity.
There’re a couple of interesting shops in this area: the outdoor select shop “COW RECORDS”, Xingzhe Salon, the designer select shop HYST SHOP, the handcrafted camera bags atelier WOTANCRAFT, and the sustainable outdoor brand Patagonia. Then there are, of course, a few cafes, Jut Art Museum, and the MOT family of shops.
So I guess you can say that our demographic is essentially these shops’ customers, who are enthusiastic about lifestyle.
Before I opened my own bookshop, I had always wanted to tempt fate and sell only books.
OBSCURA: I have an impression that moom is very dedicated to curating exhibitions around a wide range of themes. Why the commitment, and what are you hoping to achieve?
Chang: Running a book business is hard. Virtually every bookshop runs a subsidiary business these days, selling coffee and light meals, or lifestyle objects. Before I opened my own bookshop, I had always wanted to tempt fate and sell only books.
I still had to face down the cliché dilemma: as online shopping grew more convenient, people had less incentive to browse and shop physically. The exhibition space here at moom contextualises exhibitions around books as a subsidiary business. It’s subsidiary, because books remain the primary focus of our business.
The idea is to appeal to different demographics with different exhibitions, and to periodically highlight each book in our shop by giving its story more exposure.
OBSCURA: You’ve organised so many exhibitions. What’s the most memorable one? It’s as though every independent bookshop has its own unique philosophy; some bookshops, for example, sell books as a kind of luxury. Aside from curating exhibitions, how does moom stand out from the crowd?
Chang: We use exhibitions to highlight books that we find interesting, while recommending daily reads on our Facebook and Instagram. Books have always been our main source of revenue; if we don’t sell well, we’ll just have to rack our brains trying to come up with a strategy for our unsold books. I guess that’s our business philosophy, which really isn’t remarkable.
In 2020 we organised an exhibition titled “It hasn’t been sold for ______ days”. It was the fourth year of our business, and we’ve accumulated a pile of books that no one seemed to ever want. We did wonder: are these books really that unpopular, or are they just unnoticed?
Our exhibition statement read, “This book hasn’t been sold for 1,469 days! Based on our staff’s observation, we’ve selected a collection of 50 books that we think are destined to be unsold – as a counterintuitive guide, a fantasy of the marginalised. These books are either going home or going into a pile of unwanted stock. In a world where bestsellers take centre stage, are unpopular books destined to go to waste in a corner? Come on down to moom bookshop and explore the cruel reality of the bookshop!”
Eventually we did attract a lot of people who were drawn to our counterintuitive guide, and who took these unpopular books home. They really, really loved those books. At the till, we took Polaroid pictures for these customers and their newfound treasure, as though celebrating the fact that these books had found a forever home.
It’s not really an interest, but I do enjoy wandering around for ordinary views.
OBSCURA: Can you introduce yourself? What’s your name, age and birthplace? What are your responsibilities in the bookshop? What did you used to do before opening your own shop?
Chang: My name is Chang HoTeng. I was born in Taichung, where I lived in a sanheyuen with my grandmother when I was little. It was a place in the countryside surrounded by rice fields and the ocean.
In the bookshop, I have responsibility for anything my colleagues cannot do (rather abstract).
Before opening this bookshop, I used to work as a web application developer. Sometimes I acted as consultant, other times I offered urgent support to various projects. Most of the time, though, I was staying home building things that I thought were interesting. Being self-employed and not very active in seeking clients, I didn’t have a fixed income. I suppose I was more like an unemployed deadbeat from the government or the bank’s perspective.
I used my spare time to start a publishing business with a couple of friends. Together, we’d done graphic design, published a few books and a magazine.
OBSCURA: What motivated you to open a bookshop?
Chang: The publishing business I started with my friends had accumulated a lot of unsold books, so I came up with the idea to launch an online shop. Enter moom!
OBSCURA: Apart from books and photography, what are your other interests?
Chang: It’s not really an interest, but I do enjoy wandering around for ordinary views.
OBSCURA: What’s your favourite music genre?
Chang: I like post-rock: Sigur Rós, The Album Leaf, MONO, Mogwai, Hammock, and Gregor Samsa are among my favourites.
OBSCURA: If you hadn’t opened a bookshop, what would you be doing now? What do you imagine Chang is doing in a parallel universe?
Chang: That’s a hard one… If the multiverse theory is true, then I am but one of hundreds of millions of selves. Surely some of them would have won the lottery and retired. Life after retirement sounds rather boring, so I guess the version of myself that has won the lottery would probably use the money to open an even bigger bookshop.
The newspaper industry and the book business share similar fates. As the Internet subjugates our attention, fewer people are making time for books. Deadline signifies the end of an era.
OBSCURA: What kind of books are available in moom? What are your criteria for selecting books to sell?
Chang: We specialise in photography books. At first, we tried to import books about the arts and lifestyle, but there’re just too many for our budget. If we made a selection, we would be able to maintain the range – by risking the quality of books. Eventually, we settled on photography, which made it a lot easier for us in terms of decision-making when it came to what books to import. We would accept virtually any photography book.
OBSUCRA: Finally, can you recommend a book to our readers? Why did you choose this book?
Chang: Deadline is a photography book five years in the making. It’s also a testament to the downfall of traditional newspapers.
As Facebook becomes the popular choice of news outlet – at the expense of traditional newspapers’ advertising revenue, a close examination of the newspaper industry’s predicament has largely gone untold. Between 2000 and 2013, the American newspaper industry had shed 30% of its workforce, making it the fastest shrinking industry in America. Whilst technology has revolutionised the way we receive information, traditional newsrooms and media workers – who pour heart and soul into their reporting – have been replaced by Internet news and bloggers’ opinion pieces.
American photographer Will Steacy spent five years between 2009 and 2013 photographing, the newsroom and printing plant of The Philadelphia Inquirer with unrestricted access to the editorial desks, archives, and employees’ portraits. In 2011, The Philadelphia Inquirer sold their head office, which had been in use since 1924. Steacy documented the move-out in images of editorial desks littered with documents, and empty offices, revealing the irrevocable challenges and harsh realities that confronted the newspaper industry then.
The newspaper industry and the book business share similar fates. As the Internet subjugates our attention, fewer people are making time for books. Deadline signifies the end of an era.
