Hong Kong residents visiting the city's flagship book fair on Wednesday said that it is one-of-a-kind event that can only be experienced in this city and a unique symbol of the special administrative region's reading culture.

Residents said the 33rd Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened on Wednesday at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, is also a significant platform for the city to build itself as a hub for arts and cultural exchanges between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world.

The seven-day fair, organized by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, features over 600 cultural events, including talks, seminars, workshops, and performances. It will run until Tuesday.

Yang Bo, a 36-year-old marketing director who has attended the fair 10 times, was extra excited about this year's fair, as it is the first major book event held in the city after the COVID-19 pandemic ended.

Yang, who works in the fields of culture and art, was particularly drawn to the newly introduced World of Art and Culture exhibition zone, which is designed to promote cultural exchange and art appreciation. Yang said he was eager to visit the special exhibition to learn how to combine literature and art more effectively.

Yang has enrolled in five lectures at the book fair given by various cultural celebrities, including Xu Zhiyuan, the founder of One Way Space, a highly popular library in the mainland and host of Thirteen Invitations, the talk show featuring dialogues with 13 celebrities from various backgrounds.

Yang was also excited about attending a lecture by mainland novelist Ma Boyong, whose recent book on Chinese history had captivated him. Ma won the People's Literature Prize in 2010, one of most prestigious literature honors in the mainland.

In Yang's view, the book fair is a significant platform for the city's lofty goal of becoming a hub for arts and cultural exchanges between the mainland and the rest of the world. It also offers people a chance to slow down from the hectic demands of daily life and enjoy the simple pleasure of reading.

As the pace of life increases and work pressure grows, people need literature more than ever to enrich their lives and find moments of respite, Yang said.

This year's book fair, which adopted the tagline "Reading the World: The Joy of Reading for Children & Youth," attracted many young individuals and children.

Lily Lee, a third-year student at the University of Hong Kong, said that the book fair is a treasured part of her routine. Lee, who has attended more than a dozen book fairs, was fond of reveling in the relaxed atmosphere, enjoying the pleasure of browsing books that capture her imagination.

Another frequent book-fair goer was fresh graduate John Chan. This year, he joined the fair as a volunteer in charge of a booth of an international bookstore. He spent the whole morning busily shelving books and engaging with book lovers.

Jonah Law, a physician, attended the book fair with his 11-year-old son.

The event was an opportunity to encourage his child's interest in reading, Law said, adding that they spent the whole morning scouring the fair for interesting books, with his son particularly drawn to science magazines.

Caleb Vondrab, a 40-year-old English teacher from Chicago in the US, said he considered the fair the only place in the city where residents can find a diverse selection of English books.

For him, the fair is a trove of reasonably priced and high-quality books, which he finds refreshing compared to the exorbitant prices he's used to in the US.

The book fair is also highly valued by booksellers.

Chow Kin-pong, president of the Power of Life Educational Company, a local youth education organization with a book-selling business, said the fair has been an essential part of the company's operations for the past six years.

According to Chow, the book fair offers an opportunity for his company to quickly sell tens of thousands of books in just one week, which would otherwise take months.

Ernest Kan, deputy general manager of SUP Retail, which specializes in the wholesale distribution of books, periodicals, and newspapers, said his company has attended the book fair three times since its founding in 2020.

This year, the company has sourced nearly 5,000 Chinese and English books covering a wide range of topics, including finance, humanities, social sciences, literature, fiction, history, philosophy, and life, Kan said.

The company has secured a more centralized booth at this year's fair, hoping to make books more accessible to residents and encourage reading as a habit, thus promoting cultural communication, Kan added.