#Movable type definition series#
According to the technique, Chinese characters of different materials are engraved, picked out, and arranged into typeface based on the requirement of the text to be printed for completing the printed material with a series of specific processes. If not safeguarded, this traditional practice will soon disappear.Īs one of the Four Great Inventions in ancient China, movable-type printing technique was invented during the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty (1041-1048 AD). At present, only eleven people over 50 years of age remain who have mastered the whole set of techniques. However, the intensive training required, the low income generated, popularization of computer printing technology and diminishing enthusiasm for compiling genealogies have all contributed to a rapid decrease in the number of craftspeople. The techniques of wooden movable-type printing are transmitted through families by rote and word of mouth. A ceremony marks the completion of the genealogy, and the printers place it into a locked box to be preserved. There, they compile and print the clan genealogy by hand. Throughout the year, craftspeople carry sets of wooden characters and printing equipment to ancestral halls in local communities. The movable characters can be used time and again after the type-page is dismantled. Women then undertake the work of paper cutting and binding, until the printed genealogies are finished.
This requires abundant historical knowledge and mastery of ancient Chinese grammar.
Men are trained to draw and engrave Chinese characters, which are then set into a type-page and printed. One of the world’s oldest printing techniques, wooden movable-type printing is maintained in Rui’an County, Zhejiang Province, where it is used in compiling and printing clan genealogies.
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