Blog 5 - Literati

A couple of weeks ago Kyle, one of my participant suggested that we go to an American bookstore for one of our sessions so this Tuesday that's exactly what we did. I was a little worried about it, to be honest. The last 'excursion' session to the Kelsey didn't feel particularly productive conversation wise. But I wanted to make sure we did what Kyle had suggested.

It went so well. And I'm trying to figure out what was different. Perhaps it was because all but one showed up. Perhaps it was because Literati was open, instead of the closed UMMA which we tried to go to first. Or perhaps it was that walk - which was at least three times longer. 

On the sidewalk we ended up splitting into groups, Xin and me talking about conferences and Kyle, Sen and Hiroki behind. My conversation with Xin was brought up by her and lasted the entire way - we had seemed to have moved beyond small talk. And when we got there, we all spread out  and Kyle came and asked me about American authors - which led to me being able to lend a book to him. Otherwise we circled about asking questions. Hiroki loved the covers of the books - a personal love of mine, and Xin and I played a non competitive game of scrabble on one of the tables. I found Sen looking at travel books and we had a nice conversation about that. I was surprised by how quickly the time passed. I found I had to say "oops, we've got to go" so everyone could make it to class on time.

On the way back a conversation struck up about bookstores in America vs. their home countries. I learned that Taiwan still has 'bookstores like department stores' and that in Japan almost everyone still buys books from bookstores - compared to trouble that bookstores are facing here because of Amazon and the like. I like the new direction this week seemed to take us in.

I plan to ask them to bring something in and talk about it for next week. Show and tell. And I hope that i'll get us talking more about each other and our stories.