Buying children's books in Beijing bookstores

[trisha2766]

I've been buying children's books to eventually read to our daughter we will be adopting from China. However, the places I've been buying them from seem like the prices are more expensive than they need to be. Would it be better to wait until we travel to China and buy some children's books there and ship them back?

We would probably need to ship them back since it would be too much to carry around with us in China, so maybe the shipping costs would make it less cost effective and it would be just as well to order them from the U. S. On the other hand an additional advantage to buying them in China would be that I would actually be able to look through them myself in the store rather than buying them from a web site where I can't see the whole book. I would also have more to choose from. Would there be any issues with customs, taxes, etc. with buying books outside the U.S. and bringing them home? I have had no experience with these kinds of issues.

I'm also interested in buying kids activity type books like connect the dots, dry erase, pre-writing and writing practice books, etc. I'm guessing those would be pretty widely available in Beijing, is that correct?

And has anyone seen any Kai-Lan stuff in China yet? I see Chinese versions of Dora stuff everywhere, but no Kai-Lan yet.

Oh, and I'm also interested in kids vcds/dvds.

[Daan]

I bought a staggering amount of books when I was in Beijing a few months ago. The prices were much lower than online and shipping them home (admittedly by surface mail) hardly cost anything, so I would recommend you to buy them when you're in Beijing.

I don't think American customs would require you to declare books you're bringing into the country, but you should probably check with someone in the know. And even if you have to pay taxes, remember that those online bookstores have to pay those as well if they send your books to the States.

[chrix]

Yes,l you would need to declare it if it exceeds the exemption for citizens/residents returning to the United States (I don't know if you remember the trouble Jeb Bush's wife got into when she forgot to declare the exploits of her shopping spree in Paris). But you're unlikely to come even close if you went on a book-buying binge in Beijing...

[Daan]

The CBP says the exemption is 800 USD, if I'm not mistaken. Good luck spending that on books in Beijing. I think I got to, what, 100 USD? And that was a lot of books. My arm still hurts from carrying them to the post office.

(I don't know if the exemption is the same if you're mailing them into the country rather than carrying them through customs. EU law would treat that differently.)

[xiaotao]

I know a few children who are adopted from China. They attend a Chinese immersion school. They don't not read very much Chinese books outside of school. I say, buy what you can carry. If the parents know Chinese, than maybe the child might be more interested in Chinese. Most will prefer books in English. When my kids were young, I used to translate English books to them. Much later, I purchased Chinese books for them.

[trisha2766]

Thanks - it sounds like it is best to wait then. Or at least don't buy too many before we go. I want a few first, for my own reading practice too.

I know it will be difficult for her to learn very much Chinese, but I'm going to try. I figure if I can talk to her at home in Chinese sometimes and read story books in Chinese to her, that might help especially until she is old enough for Chinese school.

[bianfuxia]

The "Beijing Books Building" at Xidan subway station (NE exit in the line 1 station) has a big selection of books for children (in Chinese, I mean). They're cheap. I think that bookshop might be one of the biggest in Beijing. It also has a reasonable English selection (not very cheap).

I went to the kids section looking for basic Chinese books for myself (now you know the level of my Chinese...though I am better now) and they have a good range of stuff starting from the most basic picture books for babies up to really awesome stuff like tintin cartoons in Chinese. These are only 10 kuai a throw and the quality is great (size is about A4 when opened, smaller than the old ones we had in the west). They've got the connect-dots type stuff too.

Like someone else said you'd be hard-pressed to spend much money on books here unless you're getting imports or the big glossy art books.

That shop is open until 9pm too.

Also, they have a great selection of maps on the ground floor - China road maps but also maps of most countries in the world. These have Chinese and local names (English, German, etc depending on where the map covers). These too are cheap - I bought USA and Canada just yesterday for 10 yuan each to plan a trip I'm doing.

Kids might benefit from studying their geography in 2 languages, when they are a little older.

I'm pretty sure there is a post office just nearby that shop somewhere too but if not, there is one just south of Xidan on Xuanwumen da jie at the Xidan Mercure Hotel. Being next to the hotel it does a good trade in laowai posting stuff home.

[roddy]

I've got a feeling that there's somewhere at the Xidan bookstore (which is indeed huge) where they'll mail books home for you - maybe in the basement? I can't find anything online to confirm, so could be wrong, but maybe worth a look.