- 2025-05-12
When the scent of ink meets the glow of the silver screen, and the passion for football culture intertwines with a citywide reading initiative, a vibrant cultural movement comes to life in Qingdao's Shinan District. Shinan District recently launched the Reading Shinan Public Welfare Film & Reading Campaign in collaboration with Xinhua Bookstore, Dashang Cinema, China Film Cinema, and other partners. The campaign has quickly gained momentum, drawing enthusiastic participation from residents across the city.
The initiative adopts an innovative "Moral Education+Physical Education" model to provide residents with a unique cultural experience, while injecting fresh vitality into the local cultural economy. Designed primarily for primary and secondary school students, the program offers an engaging educational journey where participants earn books to help build classroom reading corners—and movie tickets to the football-themed film Mountain Soccer Boy—by completing reading check-ins at designated bookstores. This creative format has captured widespread attention and sparked an enthusiastic response throughout the community.
Participating bookstores have been bustling with activity, filled with the scent of fresh books and eager readers. Residents strolled between shelves, fully immersed in the joy of reading as they completed check-in tasks, creating a vibrant atmosphere of literacy and learning. According to official figures, more than 29,000 reading check-in vouchers and movie tickets were distributed over the course of the campaign—effectively encouraging a love for reading while also driving traffic to local cinemas. The initiative has energized the "reading + cinema" cultural consumption model, promoting its ongoing development and popularity.
Since the launch of the campaign, Qingdao Book City has donated over 50,000 yuan worth of high-quality books to primary and secondary schools within the district free of charge. These books, covering a wide range of categories including literary classics, popular science, and youth development, have been used to enrich classroom reading corners, benefiting numerous teachers and students by enhancing campus reading resources and inspiring a greater interest in reading among students.
"We hope this campaign not only contributes to the growth of school library collections but also encourages the habit of loving to read and reading well," said a representative from Qingdao Book City. The new reading corners have already had a positive impact on students' enthusiasm for reading. Looking ahead, Qingdao Book City plans to continue supporting such public welfare initiatives and will work with educational authorities to organize author talks and reading-sharing events to further cultivate a vibrant reading culture on campus.
As a district with a rich football culture, the creative integration of football elements has been a major highlight of the campaign. One young football fan excitedly shared, "Being able to participate in Shinan District's reading activities while also enjoying the passionate football movie Mountain Soccer Boy makes this cultural fusion an incredibly exciting experience."
Zhang Wenjia, General Manager of Dashang Cinema in Shinan District, noted that parents watching movies with their children not only boosted the cinema's attendance but also effectively stimulated cultural consumption. He expressed hope that events like this would continue and become an integral part of the city's cultural life.
Looking ahead to 2025, the Reading Shinan series will continue to build a comprehensive, inclusive reading ecosystem with broad public involvement. Year-round themed monthly reading events will be held to encourage the habit of "reading every month" among residents. At the same time, digital innovations—such as livestreams, online book clubs, and check-in challenges—will extend the reach of reading activities, bringing literature from the page to people's fingertips and injecting a modern vitality into the city's reading culture.