The Living Sino-Library [Lebendige Sinothek]

The Living Sino-Library, a part of ChinakomMitt, was inspired by the Danish NGO "Human Library". We aim to create an engaging platform where people from the Chinese cultural area can share their personal stories and experiences by acting as "living books". Participants will have the opportunity to borrow these "books" and learn more about Chinese culture, traditions and individual life journeys through personal conversations.  The “books” decide on the topics they would like to offer for dialogues, as well as whether the meeting should take place digitally or in person. If there are similarities in the interests of the participants, we will forward the enquiry to the "books" and they can decide whether they would like to arrange a meeting.

  • We, the China Service Centre at the University of Marburg, keep a (non-public) list of people from the Chinese cultural area, which also records which China-related topics these people would like to talk about with others. We call these people "living books" or "books" for short.
  • People who would like to learn more about the Chinese cultural area ("borrowers") can view these topics (but not the people who are associated with them!) online and register with us for a conversation on this topic.
  • We forward the requests to the respective people on our list (the "books").
  • The "books" can then decide whether, when and in what form (face-to-face or online) they would like to meet with the person in question for a discussion.