Happy ending for Parentheses, a French bookshop in Hong Kong saved from closure

In April, the shop wrote a post on their website which read, “This message is a cry of alarm because Parentheses is in peril ... After 37 years of serving our community, your bookstore could close its doors for good at the end of the year.”

The message encouraged the community to visit more often and order textbooks and other titles.

Progin, who has been running Parentheses since 1990, said she was grateful for those who helped them stay afloat.

“For me, it’s not a job; it’s much more. And I suppose if [customers] are all here after so many years, it’s really because you like it,” she said.

Parentheses opened in 1987 in the Duke Wellington House in Central. At the time, Progin said, they sold books alongside items like wine and chocolate.

When Progin took over in 1990, they moved to a larger space in the same building to focus specifically on selling French books.

“After a few years, it was full until up to the ceilings with books,” said Progin, who has been living in Hong Kong since 1979.

She said the shop started by selling books to schools and others interested in learning French. Today, they still have a large section on teaching and learning French as a foreign language, in addition to their selection for children, young adults and adults.

“We even got some from primary [schools] already [learning] French,” she said.

While Hong Kong’s university entrance exam still offers French, Progin said the language had become less important in school curricula over the years.

“The syllabus here has changed. French lost its importance for Mandarin took a lot of space,” she said.

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Progin cited two reasons for the recent decline in sales: online shopping trends and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“[Many] of the French people living here have left [after the pandemic], and there are newcomers, but not as many as before,” she said.

Progin said that their turnover “dropped by half” after the pandemic, making it hard to pay rent.

An employee, Ines Ng, who started working at Parentheses in 2009, said the drop in customers was “quite obvious, from very busy days to very quiet”.

“After Covid, we are hoping that people can come back again,” Ng said. “[But people] no longer look for a bookshop. It’s just that the habit is different.”

To save the bookshop, Progin said they reached out to all the people they knew in Hong Kong’s French community.

“We had a lot of people coming and supporting, and now we just touch wood and hope,” she said.

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One supporter was Camille*, a French woman who discovered Parentheses after the pandemic and “immediately loved the shop”.

“[They] always find some time to chit-chat with the clients. The young local shopkeepers remember what you ordered,” said Camille, who has lived in the city for six years. “We would hate to see this old Hong Kong centre of culture [disappear].”

She added: “What we wish is for Parentheses to be a place where more people meet by chance and talk about what ... we read.”

Ng added that even beginning French learners came to show support. “They say, ‘Oh, I’m learning French ... Can you introduce some easy readings to me?’” she said. “That’s quite touching, because for them, they may not be able to finish one whole book, but they still want to show their support.”

The business has brought a moment of relief to Progin, her employees and their customers – but she is unsure how long it can last.

“I think Hong Kong needs to keep these kinds of places. Not only us, but ... there are many old places that are closing, and I think it’s sad,” she said.

*Name changed by interviewee’s request.

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