A warm smile behind the counter awaits you as you enter Junction. Muis is not only an entrepreneur but also a big philanthropist. She opened Junction Bookstore on 4th July, 2010, located at the heart of Thimphu (capital city of Bhutan). It’s known for its aesthetically pleasing interior and for having the cutest bunch of dogs. When I was in high school, my friends invited me to join a book club in Junction and that is how I met Muis. To me she is an inspiring person who chose a unique path that she is really passionate about. In this interview, we talked about how she started her business, the difficulties small business owners face, books and more. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’re working on now Hi! My name is Kunzang Choki but everyone calls me Muis, it’s my nickname. I currently run a small book store called Junction Bookstore in Thimphu, Bhutan. When did you start reading and what made you fall in love with books? I started reading just as anyone else I think, when I was very little. I don’t exactly remember when but I started reading a lot more when I went to boarding school, I was about six years old then. I loved books from the start, I didn’t have any books of my own. Those days we hardly bought books because I was in boarding school all the time but I would spend a lot of time in the school library. We used to have a reading period and I used to love when our teachers would read stories to us. I always liked to read but I never thought that I would open up my own bookstore. The way I opened this bookstore is not that romantic, I thought about it much later in life. I was actually working when I decided to open a bookstore. Junction is more than just a bookstore for so many people and so many dogs as well. What inspired you to create such a unique place? When I returned from college, it was very hard to not just buy the books but also to find bookstores where you could just hang around, spend time and read. When I became confident about my idea to open a bookstore I thought about the kind of space I would want to have and I imagined something like Shakespeare & Co. The dogs came along with the bookstore, it wasn’t really planned. I just wanted to create a space where people could come, talk with each other, discuss things and I’m actually an introvert but it worked out somehow. Since I studied abroad for most of my life, I didn’t know a lot of people in Bhutan at the time. When I opened this store, I met very like-minded people and a lot of the energy of the store has to do with the people who come here. The friends I’ve made over these last 8 years have been very important to what the store is. Getting the support from your friends and appreciating it is really important especially for the store. Speaking about friends, please tell us a little bit about your book club. We’ve had the book club since 2011, it has its ups and downs but right now it’s pretty stable. A lot of the lasting friendships I’ve made is because of the book club. We still meet every Thursday even if it’s just the two of us sometimes. We’ve been meeting every Thursday for the last 7 years. It’s interesting to notice how the book club has evolved, our reading pattern as well and the kind of books that we’ve all decided to read over the years. What were some difficulties you faced when opening the bookstore? I was so excited to open a bookstore that I didn’t focus on the difficulties too much but I think the core difficulties we faced were what any small business in Bhutan would face. Number one, we didn’t have many customers at the time so we would just be sitting and waiting for people to walk in. There would be days where we wouldn’t have any customers so I would think about how I would be able to sustain the shop and keep it going and that problem still exists. It got a little better but then it became worse again so the graph just keeps going up and down and it’s a constant problem that we have to face. Personally, I have to keep myself dedicated and passionate enough to keep this business going. I have days when I don’t know if I made the right choice because I’ve put in so much of me in the store and I’ve also made my own sacrifices for this. 30% of the time I worry about the store but 70% of the time I’m pretty chill and happy being here. I think that 70% counts for a lot. Junction recently expanded its business by adding a café in the second floor. How do you manage it and how has it been doing? The second floor was just used for storage before but we added the café to make a comfortable space for people to read in. We wanted to bring a little bit more coziness to the store and more revenue to sustain as well and it hasn’t been doing bad but it’s a very basic café. We don’t serve a lot of food we keep it very basic just tea and coffee. We’ve also been getting cookies and puffs from home cooks and bakers because I thought it would be cute to bring stuff from other people’s houses. I understand that you take care of the stray dogs who live around Junction. Has it been difficult to do so and how do you manage it? We’ve been feeding the stray dogs around here since we opened the shop back in 2010. We started out with many stray dogs but seven of them were like our main dogs. We unfortunately lost 4 dogs last year so this year we only have 3 of them left. We have a little tip jar where people drop in some money for the dogs and we buy them some rice and chicken and cook it for them. We feed them once a day. You also run an Instagram page called @thewoofingtonpostbhutan. What inspired you to start this page? That’s mostly run by my sister in-law, Zuki. Both of us really love animals and our intention was to start a page where we could invoke discussions and give people tips about how to take care of their dogs and share new stories. Zuki has been sharing Instagram stories about people who lost their dogs or people who want to adopt dogs so it’s become more like a message board. Once in a while we put up posts about animal cruelty which I think needs to be shared because we don’t have a lot of laws that protect animals especially dogs and we have a huge problem with the stray dog population in Bhutan. I think all of us have been thinking about how to solve this issue in Bhutan.
Lastly, what’s one advice you would like to share to girls all over the world? It’s cliché but this is one advice I received growing up which really helped me a lot. First, embrace and love whatever you are interested in and always stay passionate about what you want to do and push yourself to work towards it. Secondly, I feel friendships are very important for young girls. We tend to take the people around us for granted sometimes but it’s really important to appreciate the support we get and also to encourage your friends to pursue their dreams as well. I got that encouragement to start my business and it’s been hard but it’s my journey whether its been good or bad it’s still my experience which makes it very special. It takes years to build up a friendship and you know so much about each other and there is so much love there it’s very important to keep that love going. I love my friends and I will always be there for them. Interviewed & written by: Sonam Peden
May 2019
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