On a recent trip to Hong Kong, my traveling companions and I found a lovely shop Japanese bookshop. When I say “found”, I mean that we were wandering about and stopped when we saw the sign.
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-1024x576.jpg)
As a moderate consumer of Japanese TV shows, Japanese movies and the occasional j-rock band, I felt duty-bound to check it out. I didn’t speak Japanese so I didn’t own any Japanese books (except for a few manga titles in English), but I did collect magazines that featured, uh, boys of important cultural significance.
It turns out they had a lot of Japanese language books. And I took a good long while browsing through them because book design in non-English languages was fascinating.
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.Japanese-books.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
Look at the covers! I kinda want to design a book in a foreign language someday.
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.books02.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.Google-Analytics.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.Japanese-book.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
Of course, book design for the inside pages in a language I don’t understand will be tricky. Someone teach me Japanese, please?
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.Japanese-book.02.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
Japanese characters are so pretty. But then maybe I just think that because I can’t read them.
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.books_.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
Alas, no music magazines featuring OOR.
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.Japanese-magazines.01.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
![](https://taniaarpa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tomato.Japanese-magazines.02.hong-kong-2015.code-candy-1-768x1024.jpg)
The staff at Tomato Books were very pleasant and helpful. When I go back to HK, I’m definitely visiting the shop again.
Leave a Reply