From Hong Kong to Honeoye Falls

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Bleak House Books opened its doors in Honeoye Falls last year.

Bleak House Books, a family-owned bookshop founded in Hong Kong seven years ago, is continuing its legacy thousands of miles away in Honeoye Falls, New York.

The independent bookstore is owned by husband and wife Albert Wan and Jenny Smith. After working in the U.S. as a lawyer and college professor, respectively, the couple and their two children moved to Hong Kong in December 2016. It was at this point Wan decided to give bookselling a try.

The original Bleak House Books opened on the 27th floor of a high-rise in San Po Kong in 2017. What followed was an outpouring of community support. 

The bookstore was one of a few that prioritized English literature in Hong Kong and sold books of all genres online and in person. Bleak House Books became a community for bibliophiles inside and outside the shop, hosting author signings and book talks and also selling books at local markets and schools.

Despite being a literary haven, the landscape around the bookshop began to shift. In February 2019, the Hong Kong government introduced an amendment allowing for the consideration of extradition requests from any country, including those with which Hong Kong does not have existing treaties, such as mainland China. Hongkongers feared this change would have implications on Hong Kong’s legal independence, forcing residents accused of crimes to face trial in mainland China.

The public response to the controversial legal framework change was immense. Widespread protests in Hong Kong and abroad followed, including a June protest in which two million Hongkongers—a third of the administrative region’s population—participated. The police presence at protests grew, protesters were tear-gassed and arrested, and the government did not formally withdraw the bill until October. 

What followed was the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government passing its 2020 national security law. This law established particular crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign organizations, and criminalized open speech promoting Hong Kong seceding from China. As a result, journalists were arrested, books were banned, and movies were censored. Hongkongers began to flee the city they once called home.

The Bleak House Books location in Hong Kong

Amid these circumstances, Wan, Smith and their family made the difficult decision to announce the closure of Bleak House Books on Aug. 28, 2021.

“The backdrop to these developments is, of course, politics,” wrote Wan in the announcement about the bookshop’s closure, entitled “The Last Memo.” “To be sure, what my wife Jenny, my kids, and I do in our daily lives is not overtly political…But as George Orwell once remarked, ‘[i]n our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues.’ This observation is as true today as it was in 1940 when Orwell first made it. And given the state of politics in Hong Kong, Jenny and I can no longer see a life for ourselves and our children in this city, at least in the near future.”

Supporters of the bookstore took the next few weeks to arrive in masses, bidding the shop farewell before it closed its doors. Current and previous customers reached out with messages of support, and online orders flooded in, causing the staff to work overtime to fulfill them in time. 

Bleak House Books officially closed its Hong Kong location in October 2021. In the back of his mind, though, Wan knew this wouldn’t be the end of the store’s legacy.

After leaving Hong Kong in a bit of a hurry, Wan’s family settled in the village of Honeoye Falls, drawn to the quality of life. With a desire to eventually reopen the bookstore, Wan began to look into retail storefronts downtown Honeoye. He found one that was suitable but not available for rent. He was able to reach a compromise with the landlord. In 2022, the Bleak House Books team made it Instagram official that they would reopen in Honeoye Falls.

Albert Wan and Jenny Smith

What came next was building from scratch the new store, which was twice the size of the original location. The family did not have any books or keepsakes from the Hong Kong store, but knew they wanted to combine design elements from the original store with their new home in Honeoye Falls.

These elements included custom-made shelves that line the walls of the space and a neon sign at the front of the shop that includes the name of the store in both English and Chinese. The building plan also included an island in the middle of the store that would act as a workspace while paying homage to the Hong Kong location.

“In our new bookshop we have a staff-only island that was designed to represent the shadow of our old bookshop. We commissioned an art student from Cornell to draw a mural on the ceiling above the island that depicts the layout of what our old bookshop was like,” says Wan.

After months of designing, construction, and ordering and organizing books, Bleak House Books had its soft opening on June 24, 2023, only opening on weekends for about a month. Now over a year into business, the shop is open five days a week and primarily sells through its physical location, with some sales online. The business also buys and sells used books.

Wan says the community’s reaction has been positive.

“The response from the community has been very encouraging,” he says. “This encouraging response is something we hope to build on not only for our own bookshop, but for other folks who take the plunge and try their hand at opening a business in a small village like ours.

“I can’t tell you how many times people have thanked us for being here. Even if they’re not big readers, they’re thankful that there’s somewhere in the village that they can go to that is a community space and an old-fashioned retail space, which we don’t have a lot of. Hopefully this will change in the future.”

The bookstore hopes to continue to grow its customer and community base, and eventually get back to hosting book talks and author signings. The location has also allowed the family to maintain a connection with their community on the far side of the Pacific Ocean. It receives orders from Hong Kong and ships books there occasionally. Previous customers and friends still support the shop from afar via social media.

“Even though we are in a totally different place, thousands of miles away, we are still pretty close to what’s going on there and to the people who have stayed there,” says Wan.

Evan Coleman is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a University of Rochester graduate. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected]

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