A hidden gem. Sell selected Chinese music instruments, gifts/ decorations, stationeries, Chinese calligraphy products, Chinese kids board games etc, some sport equipment, books, and a children book section. It also offers Chinese painting classes and Tai Chi classes. It's soothing to browse in this bookstore. It was quiet and I could take my time to look around. Definitely recommend! read more

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The best place for Chinese art supplies and books. the staff is friendly and helpful and the atmosphere is very relaxed.

My 300th review! I can't believe this place never crossed my mind bedfore. My daughter is currently attending Chinese classes during the weekends, and I have been driving myself nuts drawing lines and making boxes in those black and white notebooks just so she can practice writing Chinese characters properly. I had some errands in Chinatown today, so I decided to find a book store hoping to find something close enough, perhaps some graph pads. This was the first stop on my hunting trip. I asked the lady at the front, just to the left of the store, there was a shelf filled with the same exact books my mom used to buy me 20 years ago for my Chinese homework. I was jumping in joy, and almost came to tears knowing that they we're dirt cheap. I walked out the door with 15 of those books, plus some stationary and spent a little less than 15 bucks! Thinking that most places in Chinatown are quite snug, this place is pretty big, surprisingly. They carry a selection of calligraphy brushes and drawings, old fashioned chinese games, and books (of course). They can even customize name stamps and seals. I did find some of the stuff a bit dusty, though. Nonetheless, I will be coming back more often to stock up on more books once my daughter goes through them all, which I'm sure that's gonna be soon. read more

Oriental Culture - Art Galleries Near Me - New York, New York

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I always enjoy coming here as my resource for Chinese calligraphy brush and Mandarin language books at moderate prices. Recent 2013 visit did not enable me to seek a refill of my ink stone but I was able to attain a new goat calligraphy brush at $3.00 to further enhance the "Four Treasures of the Studio" in the Chinese written language. Staff are able to converse fluently in both Cantonese and Mandarin. read more

Oriental Culture - Art Galleries Near Me - New York, New York

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This place is hard to find because it is within a building on the second floor. However, once you exit the elevator, you step into the book store and it is huge. They have so many different genres of Chinese books including a chef full of chinese learning books. However most of the books were simplified chinese instead of traditional. There was still a variety among that learning books. It's also very clean and nicely organized. read more

Well this is my idea of a Chinese bookstore. This place has been around for a veeerrrry long time. Since I was a kid really. I still have vague memories of this place opening up. They use to have a bag check, but that was years ago. As you walk to the second floor next to the Elizabeth Center Mall and a school. You enter this small store, and to your right is a separate room that is filled with items for discounted prices. To your right and maybe a bit on the left is Chinese music and DVDs. As you walked toward the back you see rows of books, with some English/books relevant to Chinatown and language learning nearby. There are romances cookbooks, non-fiction, history, wuxia relevant books. Toward the back are the writing supplies.. for my practice books I come and purchase a bunch of blank writing books to practice Chinese or Japanese with. I also have to say that I love a type of eraser that this place sells. Hmm you would have to be here to actually realize more about this spot. read more

I went with my boyfriend to buy simple children's books that can help him with reading Chinese characters. Oriental Culture Enterprises Co carries a good selection of Chinese books however they are all in traditional Chinese, but we are only looking for simplified Chinese books. Disappointed :( read more

I went to this store specifically for writing supplies - ink, brushes and rice paper. They had a good selection of basic brushes, reasonably priced ink and simple pads of rice paper both plain and with guides. I first went to look at the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya in Midtown. While I did purchase some basic supplies at this store, the variety and quality were superior at Kinokiniya. If you are a beginner learning sumi-e, the supplies at this store are good to start with. Beyond the calligraphy supplies, many of the books appeared to be dusty. This bookstore doesn't look like it's been updated in 30 years but I suppose that's what makes mom-and-pop businesses so charming. read more

Chinese language books of all sorts -- mostly PRC books, but the owners are, I believe, one of the big Hong Kong book dealers. There are some English-language offerings, and books for learning simple Mandarin. Hong Kong and Taiwan books are to be found here, too. This place is not inexpensive, but they have regular sales, and the selection is the best in the New York area. Offerings of brush-calligraphy books and supplies are good, and there are calligraphy classes on the weekends. You can subscribe to Chinese journals here, too. Surprisingly, there are offerings in serious Chinese belles-lettres and philology -- not quite as many as there were twenty years ago, but with the demise of the World Journal Bookstore's Manhattan storefront there's now no other source for these things in New York. I've been coming here since the 1980s -- they used to be on the north side of Pell -- and while a lot has changed, this store is really one of the treasures of New York. read more

At first glance this seems like just another Chinatown bookstore, but they have easily the best collection of Chinese-English dictionaries I've seen in this or any other city outside of China; for my work (which involves extensive use of Chinese) they're an absolute godsend. If you're learning Mandarin and are disappointed the tiny selection of Chinese dictionaries at Barnes & Noble then come here and prepare to be dazzled. read more

In addition to taking the stairs to get to the bookstore (which I think that another Yelper describes in her review), when you enter this shopping complex on Elizabeth Street (13-17 Elizabeth St), you can take one of the elevators to bookstore on the second floor. If you get in the wrong elevator (like I did), you'll see a sign that says that you can't use that elevator to get to the OCE bookstore. The elevator also will not stop at the second floor, even if you press the second floor button. I ended up taking the elevator to the 6th floor, walking down the hallway and taking the other elevator to the second floor. I was torn btwn giving this place a 4 or a 5. I would give it a 4 1/2 or maybe a 4 3/4. You can wander around and browse the books without being accosted or harassed which, to me, is the best part of the best bookstores. There are a ton of great books here in both Chinese and English. I also saw a few books for studying korean and japanese. When I was there, I even saw a learn-Spanish-language book that was in Chinese. I saw origami papers, calligraphy materials, ping pong paddles --- I'm not sure if they always have ping pong paddles or if that is a seasonal/sometimes available thing. I was a little nervous to go here b/c my Chinese is shoddy at best. But, it was definitely a wonderful bookstore. i highly recommend. read more

This is another of my mandatory haunts while visiting Manhatten & Chinatown. A great selection of Chinese reading material. For me, the Chinese language materials section is what I make a beeline for. There simply is nothing like the wide selection of materials available here anywhere close to my neck of the woods (Washington DC), and at good prices too. I was also pleased to find Chinese scrolls and watercolors available. I ditto other reviewers comments on selection. Staff have always been warm and welcoming to me. read more

I had my 2 hour surfing through the books in this store. I must admit that the variety of books they have is quite big. For me it was very important to find big amount of chinese learning books. After checking other prominent bookstore, only this store satisfied me in terms of choice. I managed to find the books I needed but one of them supposed to have also CDs and they were lacking. I asked the store vendor to help me ordering one version with CDs but she just said that they don't have it. read more

This place used to be the go-to bookstore in Chinatown. Now people, even the Chinese have turned to electronic periodicals, smartphones and e-readers instead of paper to print books. Sigh. The shop used to be filled with customers and families. They still carry multitude of study aids for adults and kids but a lot of their other products don't seem to have much movement. Some items are dusty and dated. They custom make stone engraved stamps. Chinese stationary supplies like ink, brushes, calligraphy paper and notebooks are available. read more