Potter Fever Sweeps the Mainland
China Daily’s front page headline Saturday said it all: “Chinese Bookworms Going Potty About Potter.” Saturday’s release of the final installment of the kid wizard series is making Chinese kids wish they could read in English. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows became available in China at 7am Saturday morning and is expected to be the biggest English-language book release in China’s history. But back to the China Daily headline. “Going Potty?” Doesn’t that mean go to the bathroom? Does that mean that Chinese kids are making poopy and peepy for the new Potter volume? Rather, I think it means that if a kid in China can read Potter in English, then his or her level of English might be higher than those writing headlines for the China Daily. According to the China Daily’s “potty” story Saturday, China’s largest foreign book trading company ordered 50,000 copies of Deathly Hallows, as opposed to the normal demand of about 100 copies for a New York Times bestseller. While the official Chinese-language version will not be released in China until October, both the U.S. version (218 yuan) and the UK version (208 yuan) are available at foreign language bookstores and a select group of newsstands in Beijing. Suffice it to say, I am not only excited about the Potter release, but I have gone potty about it numerous times already.
•China Daily: Chinese Bookworms Going Potty About Potter