Harry Potter works magic on Chinese

The fifth instalment of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter made its Chinese debut today - 10 days ahead of schedule in a bid to thwart counterfeiters and because of huge demand, publishers said.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix arrived to great fanfare in Beijing, an actor playing the boy wizard in glasses, black cape and brown moptop, merrily barking out Mandarin to the enthusiastic masses and introducing his latest fantastic tale to the planet’s largest market of young readers.

The first four instalments sold millions and the latest tale was brought out 10 days early because of big demand, its publishers insisted – but also, they acknowledged, to beat slapdash counterfeit versions to the market.

“We want to protect our trademark. We want the best out first,” said Liu Yushan, president of the People’s Literature Publishing House, the Chinese firm that has brought out all the official versions of “Ha-li Bo-te” tales in China.

The publisher shipped 800,000 copies of the latest volume across China in recent days. Officials expect a sell-out within a week.

The fantasy series is wildly popular in China – an entire fake novel was written and published illegally last year – and intellectual-property pirates are known for their resourcefulness. Last week, in the western city of Urumqi, fake copies of Order of the Phoenix were already on sale.

None of that mattered today for the throngs of children and accompanying compliant parents who lined up by the hundreds at Beijing’s Xidan Shopping Street outside the Xinhua Bookstore, where – among other volumes – the collected sayings of Mao Zedong are also on sale.

Copies of the blue-bound Harry Potter book, which cost 59 yuan (€6) were pre-bagged and ready for quick checkout at cash registers set out in the morning sun. A vast balloon shaped like an old Chinese lantern floated above the Avenue of Eternal Peace at one of Beijing’s busiest intersections. “Harry Potter is here,” it said. “Are you?”

Fan Jiaming, 10, waiting behind more than 400 people for his copy, said: “You pick up a Harry Potter book, you just can’t stop reading. He confessed, though, that he hadn’t read Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon, the Chinese fake from last summer.

His father, Fan Bingzhen, said: “Today, he won’t eat. He won’t drink. He’ll just go home and read it.”