"Night economy" is a Chinese way to make the night lively and dynamic. Since its birth, the new economic pattern, which aims to increase domestic demand and spur consumption in China, has gained popularity nationwide amid the on-going Covid-19 pandemic.

Therefore, Yunnan province has released a policy to promote night economy in April this year. These days, we have some special reports on the new phenomenon of night economy. Today, let's take a look at some night study activities in Yunnan.

Reading party in Xinhua Bookstore

At 8:00 p.m., a reading party jointly held by the Xinhua Bookstore and the Fandeng app book club is going on in the 28 Xinhua Bookstore branches around Kunming, capital city of Yunnan.

Xinhua Bookstore is one of the city's cultural landmarks. The bookstore has been working hard to facilitate reading, and they hope to achieve both social and economic benefits. 

The bookstore plans to launch live broadcast activities in the busy areas of Kunming in the future, sharing knowledge in varied channels. And then they plan to hold more activities with other institutions to promote night reading.

After-school art classes for children 

After school, some children in Kunming are having art courses in Yuxiang Art Centre. Here, subjects on arts are taught and art practitioners gather to communicate with each other on Wednesday night. 

“We hope to build a platform where various music styles and ideas can be freely shared, so that students can be exposed to different art forms,” said Yan Yuxiang, head of the art center. 

Every three months, the children give a performance on the stage to present the skills they learned.

Movies at Elephant Bookstore

The Elephant Bookstore holds movie-seeing on the Wednesday evenings. Viewers can come and go freely during the show, and they can also enjoy the whole movie with a cup of craft beer.

“Watching movies has almost become the closest to idealism in our life. We chose to show a film on Wednesday because it is in the middle of weekdays,” said Mr. Xu Chao, the store manager. “We hope ours movies allow people to forget about their troubles for a short while and have fun.” 

According to Xu, the flow of people at night will be smaller than that during the day in bookstores. Movie viewing and book readings at night invited in more customers, while boosting consumption.

“The activity was started on May 20. We hope people could come here for reading, watching movie, drinking coffee and sharing something interesting,” said Xu. 

Night learning at bakery 

Nowadays, many parents take their children to bakeries for baking skills in the evening. Yuan Jiang, a clerk of W-Baking, said many children who come to learn baking at night.

“And there are also some adults who come to make a cake by themselves after work. In this process, neophyte learned baking, and I also had new ideas on baking in the interaction with customers.” 

Nowadays, the pace of urban life is getting faster and faster, and people tend to learn new skills at night. In the bakery, some can even learn to bake in just few hours.

More and more people are joining in reading, training and other activities at night, enriching the life experience and tapping their own potentials. By working together, they can create more possibilities for night economy.

Reporting by Li Hengqiang, Yao Chengcheng and Li Wenjun (Yunnan Daily); trans-editing by Wang Shixue and Yuan Yingcen