Harry Potter fans in China swarmed into book stores in Beijing and
Shanghai yesterday to get the seventh and final volume of the boy wizard's
adventures after standing in line for several hours from the mid-night.
Chinese book stores opened their doors for sales of "Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows" at 7:01 a.m., Beijing time, together with the world.
More than 300 fans queued up at the gate of the Beijing Book Building before
7 o'clock and more than 200 books have been sold in Wangfujing Book Store within
40 minutes.
"I didn't have the opportunity to get the previous books at the same time
with other readers in the world, so I have to catch the last chance to read it
at the first time," said Zhu Shengtao,19, who arrived at the Beijing Book
Building at around 9:00 p.m. Friday.
Although not as lucky as their English counterparts, who may have the author
J. K. Rowling on the spot to read for them some of the chapters, Chinese fans
have got their own pleasure and surprise.
Guo Xuan, 19, a girl from central China's Hubei Province got a collection of
the English version for previous six books of the series during the lottery
drawing session scheduled by the Beijing Book Building.
"I've already got the six books in Chinese. It's so lucky that I could get
all of them in English today," Guo said, with a big smile.
Her friend reserved the book online, which sells the book at a cheaper price
than bookstores, however, Guo said she couldn't wait to find out the final
destination of Harry Potter.
Lei La, 23, a die-hard Harry Potter fan skimmed through the book as soon as
she had it in hand and found the ending is the same as the version leaked on a
foreign website one week ago.
"I'm not disappointed as it's J.K. Rowling's decision," she said.
The leaks in various versions have caused big headache for Harry Potter
publishers, who spent millions of dollars on safeguarding to prevent the content
from being stolen.
A total of 38,000 Harry Potter books had been transported to Beijing on July
15 and Shanghai got some 20,000 from the English publishers.
It's estimated the seventh book will create a new selling record among the
Harry Potter series.
"According to my estimation, more than 2,000 books will be sold out in the
first day," said Yang Xinyuan, manager of the original version books department
of the Beijing Book Building said.
Others who prefer to read the book in Chinese have to wait for another three
months till late October for the translated copy in their native language.
