1200bookshop

Why it matters: architecture graduate Liu Erxi opened 1200bookshop in July 2014 – Guangzhou’s first 24-hour bookstore – after walking 1,200km around Taiwan on the kindness of strangers, and he paid it forward by keeping a small room of free beds for backpackers, who write in with their story and reasons for wanting to stay. He called himself the city’s night watchman, and in the first two and a half years more than ten thousand people slept here: students, backpackers, people struggling with depression, homeless kids, elderly waste-pickers. Daytime sales covered the nighttime losses, and Liu said he would keep the lights on even if only ten people showed up after dark. The Liwan Lake Park flagship, 1200book&bed, is the one to visit – a bookstore, cafe and hostel in Pantang Village, a 15-minute walk from Changshou Lu metro and the best base for wandering Liwan’s craft workshops and second-hand shops.