Books in traditional characters in Mainland China

[amytheorangutan]

Just out of curiosity, are there any books in traditional characters printed and sold in mainland China? Or maybe books that were originally published in Taiwan or Hongkong, are they available in bookstores in mainland China? 

[Jim]

I've bought reproductions of pre-modern editions of the classics, 中华书局 and上海古籍出版社 both publish books of that type. The only modern new writing I've seen is self-published poetry and the odd art catalogue.

[honglam]

Any professional Textbook of Classical Chinese uses traditional characters, so the majority of these textbooks published in Mainland is in traditional characters. And many Classics are published in traditional characters. Our professors always say that students in the department of Chinese language and literature should be exposed to the original version of any Classics, that is to said, reading the original text.

And there are many Hong Kong and Taiwan books sold in Mainland.

[amytheorangutan]

On 9/9/2024 at 3:38 AM, honglam said:

there are many Hong Kong and Taiwan books sold in Mainland

Oh really? Are they modern books? And are they sold in major and big bookstores or more small independent/specialised bookstores? I'm curious as people talk about it as if it's a crime or something for traditional characters to exist in mainland, even though I know many signage and classical books probably are still printed in traditional characters, but I'm more interested in modern books. With Tsutaya a major Japanese bookstore just opened in Beijing which I thought probably would have many Japanese books and the fact that books.com.tw sells books from mainland China/simplified characters, I was wondering if it works the other way around too and that bookstores in mainland China might have sections for books printed/published in Taiwan/HK.

[Tomsima]

I believe the law requires a publisher to have a 'legitimate reason' to publish using the traditional character set (eg. for study of the classics, literature on calligraphy also often uses traditional) otherwise books must be published in simplified. Correct me if I'm wrong, I am just vaguely recalling this from the introduction to a book on 说文解字 I read years ago

[Jim]

@Tomsima That seems to be what the law says, though as usual it's fairly vague: https://www.fmx.gov.cn/content/2021/787885.htm Clauses 10, 11, and 17 seem to say use simplified but you can use traditional if you can justify it, usually for educational or research purposes.

[honglam]

On 9/9/2024 at 6:35 PM, amytheorangutan said:

Oh really? Are they modern books? And are they sold in major and big bookstores or more small independent/specialised bookstores?

I've seen these books in both Xinhua bookstores and independent bookstores. It is actually not that uncommon, though the majority are books for specialties or good literatures. And lesser people buy books offline today in mainland - buying them online seems to be more convenient since you don't have to try them on so that you could find whether they are fit for you or not. So instead of offline bookstores, most of times I see these book selling online.

There are clauses stipulating that you should publish your book with current standardised language and writing system(well, actually this description includes the languages of minor ethnicities. I myself own many books published in Modern Standard Tibetan, since I studies in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics), and only to use traditional characters when you could provide a validated reason. But this is the case when you PUBLISH your book - to make it a licensed publishing and get an ISBN. You don't need a license to use traditional characters in daily life. The only barrier is that, many people don't really have enough knowledge to use traditional characters correctly so they often write something wrong. And if it's unnecessary, seldom would a publisher will publish a book in traditional characters - after all, shopkeepers don't purchase things no body needs. We don't really need a recipe written in traditional Chinese. Sim-Tra transcription is no difficult thing in this era of informational technology.

And imported books and magazines are commonly seen as well. There is a specialised bookstore called "外文书店Bookstore of Foreign Languages" in Beijing. But as the majority of countries would do, if you want to sell imported books in the country, you need to get a license and have your book passing the customs - After all, importing goods for nonprofitable reasons but selling them for profit, such action is called smuggling.