Why China’s Libraries Are Always Full | A Night Inside the National Library of China

Welcome to Beijing. This is the largest library in Asia and one of the biggest in the world. The building itself is impressive but what really caught my attention wasn't the architecture, it was the magical energy inside. In this video, I'm taking you inside to figure out what the magic is, what brings so many people into this huge quiet space to study together hour after hour. Hello my friends, I'm Cathy. This National Library of China was actually my very first stop in Beijing. I only had 40 hours in this city and my schedule was already packed, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and a lot of food hunting. But I still squeezed in two hours to come here because I'm the library hunter and honestly, how could I not? Seeing the library at night was really a great experience. Even though the south building, the one for rare collections and exhibitions was closed in the evening, I was still very happy visiting this north building where most people come to read and study. Unlike a lot of the tall skyscrapers you see in Beijing, this library was designed to spread out horizontally instead of going up. As I walk closer, I could really feel how beautiful and grand this building is. It made a very strong first impression. Getting into the library is very easy. You don't need anything special. Your ID is enough. There's a quick security check at the entrance and then you can walk straight in. The study area inside is surprisingly spacious. It's organized into three levels, gradually going deeper inside, so the space feels open but also very focused. At the bottom is the base, where the historical collections are kept. It's heavier and more solid, which makes sense for older materials. Above that is a glass, more transparent middle section. This part is meant to bring in natural light and connect the older collections below with the spaces above. I came here in the evening so I didn't get a full daylight experience, but I'm sure this area looks very different and probably even more impressive during the day. And then on top is where you can find the floating roof. This is where the main reading rooms and the digital libraries are located. When you sit down, especially on the higher levels with a view, you will immediately feel it. Everyone around you is hyper-focused. This energy here feels really positive. It's quiet, calm, and somehow contagious. You sit down and you naturally want to do something meaningful with your time. It's almost like the environment does half the work for you. The National Library of China is world famous, often described as a treasure vault. Rare books, out-of-print materials, niche publications, journals, academic papers, it's all here. The digital databases are also incredibly comprehensive, and all of that is free. Whether you are writing a paper, working on a thesis, or researching for a book, this is where you can find the best reference. One detail I noticed was the age. Access to the open stack Chinese reading areas here is generally limited to readers age 13 and above. When you look around, you don't just see students, you see people of many ages, sitting side by side, preparing for very different futures. There's definitely some kind of magic here, something about the space that naturally puts everyone into focus mode. As a library enthusiast who has visited many libraries across the U.S., I could feel that libraries in China has a very different vibe. You might be wondering, what are these people studying for? Well, this is not the kind of studying you see during final weeks or right before a deadline. For many people here in China, studying feels more like a marathon for months, even for years of sustained preparation. So to answer the question, this library is not just a place to study. It's a place where you can see an entire system quietly becomes visible. Exam-based selection systems are often misunderstood. At their core, they're not about perfect fairness. They're more about creating relative mobility in a society where starting points are deeply unequal. When populations are large and resources are limited, a society has to answer a difficult question, who gets opportunities and why? Exams are not a perfect answer, but they are a standardized repeatable one. This logic did not begin in modern China. For centuries, China relied on imperial examination systems. Before it existed, social mobility was extremely limited by birth, family background, or personal connections. The imperial exams introduced a radical idea for their time. Studying and passing exams could become a legitimate path to changing one's life. Over time, it has shaped the deep cultural values, for example, seeing studying as a morally legitimate form of effort, seeing patience and long-term endurance as virtues. And even today, these values never truly disappeared. In modern China, the National College Entrance Exam carries this legacy forward. A quick note before I continue, I myself grew up inside this system. I took all kinds of exams all the way to the big one, the College Entrance Exam, or what we call Gaokao. And in some ways, I consider myself a lucky beneficiary of the Chinese examination system. Although to be fair, I did work very hard too. Everything I'm sharing now comes from personal experience, not a fixed stance. I'm not here to defend the system or criticize it, just to share my perspective, providing some context, and to help make sense of what you're seeing. Gaokao does not simply decide where people go to college. It plays a vital role in sorting the society itself. It affects the access to higher education, urban mobility, class movement, and often the future of an entire family. That's why it carries so much emotional weight. In some way, it is a compressed negotiation with the future. But exam culture in China does not end at graduation. For many people, exams continue well into adulthood, including the Graduate School Entrance Exams, Kaoyan, Professional Qualification Exams, Zige Kaoshi, and especially Civil Service Exams, Gongwuyuan Kaoshi. These are nationwide, highly competitive exams, taken under the same rules across the entire country. They don't just affect students, they shape adult career paths, especially access to stable government jobs. Civil service jobs represent stability, predictable life path, and benefits that help them feel safer than the private sector, especially during the times of economic uncertainty. The exam is taken not only by new graduates, but also by people in their late 20s, 30s, and sometimes even later. Some are switching careers, some are trying again after earlier attempts. Studying in this context is not just a temporary phase, it's a repeated extended strategy. That's why libraries here are filled with people of different ages, all studying over long periods of time. Now, when you understand this context, maybe the crowded reading room begin to make sense. Not everyone has a quiet room at home, not every family can offer equal resources. Public libraries become a form of collective compensation. Here, effort is externalized into a disciplined environment. In some way, the libraries in China are not just knowledge spaces, they are the physical form of perceived fairness. Another fun fact I learned about this library is that they actually provide food for readers. The price of a lunch meal here is much lower than the market price. I didn't get to try it this time, unfortunately, but I did find a video about it, and honestly, the food looks really good. Beyond just being convenient, it actually makes sense if you think about it. When the society expects long-term effort, it also, to some extent, has a responsibility to lower the cost of staying in that effort. Natural light, space, time, and even food, all of these become part of the learning infrastructure. So I'll say this is not a perfect system, but it helps explain in such a fast-paced city like Beijing, why so many people are still willing to sit down and read quietly. Every library feels different, and this one, here in Beijing, China, really made me think about how much a society is willing to support individual effort. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. On this same trip, I also made another video exploring Wuhan, but from a lesser-known side of the city, through its amazing libraries and bookstores. Coming up next in this China series, I will be visiting Shanghai, Chengdu, and Chongqing, so stay tuned for the following episodes. See you next time. Bye!