Prologue 1949 was a year of turmoil in the island. Millions of soldiers and civilians retreated to Taiwan with the government of Republic of China; in a short period of time people everywhere from north and south of Mainland China came to Taiwan for shelter and resided here trying to find the possible ways of survival in the intervals between the rolling wheel of such era. At the beginning of the year Hsu Hung-chang (許鴻璋) who lived and ran type foundry business in Xiamen concerned about upcoming wars and heard that no “Shanghai characters” was obtained by movable type industries in Taiwan; thus he came to Taipei by sea with a set of copper matrices of Shanghai regular script as well ashand-turned typecasting machines and established “Fengxing Type Foundry (風行鑄字社).” At the beginning of the operation Shanghai characters became the typographic character designated by Taiwanese official entities and were popular among the private industry due to its traditional beautiful and solid features. In 1968 Fengxing Type Foundry was forced to leave the printing industry due to the failure in competing with the same trade providing the electric typecasting. | | | Copper matrices of Fengxing Type Foundry (provided by National Science and Technology Museum) | Fengxing Type Foundry brought the unceasing influence although it was closed. Developed by Fengxing Type Foundry the copper matrices have cultivated tens of millions of types printed on pages of various publications on the islandand have spread knowledge and information. People seemed to feel the types moving vividly when gently touching the marks of characters. Besides the batch of the original size of regular script types may also become the category of letters which can continue producing tens of thousands of types after being trimmed and electroplated into casts. Fengxing to Ri Xing Type Foundry (日星鑄字行) As time evolved the lithography and computer typesetting technology gradually replaced movable types and the weight and heat of “lead and fire” waned and “light and electricity” substituted them subsequently. While movable type printing machines and typecasting machines were eliminated by foundries and discarded at the corner foundries in the market were closed one after another and types could only be displayed in the museum a foundry located on the prosperous street in Taipei and producing the temperature and luster of letters by fire still continued to cast types day by day. Almost 50 years before Chang Hsi-ling (張錫齡) the entrepreneur of Ri Xing Type Foundry gave the foundry a beautiful name“Ri Xing” (日星literally means Daily Star) which came from the Chinese phrase “日日生產，日日生財”(“Producing Things Every Day Making Money Every Day”); the second Chinese character“星”(Star) is combined with“日”(Day) and“生”(Produce) thus the name“Ri Xing (日星).” Currently Ri Xing Type Foundry has preserved three complete fonts of regular script Mincho and Simhei and each font has 7 sizes among which the copper matrices of regular script in the original size is trimmed from types casted by Fengxing Type Foundry as the category of letters. In Mainland China simplified characters are adopted; given the incompleteness of copper matrices and types preserved by local newspaper offices and printing factories in Taiwan the copper matrices or types preserved by Ri Xing Type Foundry are most likely to be the last set of Traditional Chinese movable types in Chinese world. Once vowed that “Ri Xing will jointly strive to continue running typecasting machines regardless of the deficit if movable type printing foundries still operate in Taiwan.” Chang Chieh-kuan (張介冠) the boss of the second generation not only insisted in the operation of typecasting but also launched “Letterpress Rehabilitation Project” to make types become actual “living letters” (the Chinese “活字” means “movable type” but its literal meaning can be interpreted as “living letters”); he called on volunteers to rehabilitate regular script of the original size through digital technology and formed “Taiwanese Letterpress Association (臺灣活版印刷文化保存協會).”He hoped to promote the establishment of a movable type printing technology museum through private efforts. | | | Thousands of types in Ri Xing Type Foundry | Archive of Movable Types During the enforcement of Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (2007-2012) National Science and Technology Museum had implemented “The Preservation and Digitalization for Matrices of Regular Traditional Chinese script and Related Fonts (正體中文正楷銅模及其字體數位典藏計畫)” and authorized Ri Xing to re-cast types with the copper matrices donated by descendants of Fengxing Type Foundry and later stored them in digital archives. Related achievements have been made public on the website “The Industrial Heritage in Taiwan.” Given that copper matrices of regular script and other fonts preserved by Ri Xing Type Foundry haven’t been digitalized Academia Sinica Digital Center bearing the responsibility for deepening and activating digital cultures in Taiwan have cooperated with Ri Xing Type Foundry and Taiwanese Letterpress Association for a digital archive project since the summer of 2013 to preserve this precious cultural asset and enrich old achievements as well as give new life to movable types printing. The content of archive includes the culture of movable type printing and the digital preservation of fonts. First Ri Xing Type Foundry was authorized to cast copper matrices of regular script Mincho and Simhei into types which were later examined and typeset by senior masters and sent to printing factories for printing. Besides the preservation of abovementioned printing process through the oral history and video Chang Chieh-kuan was specially invited to demonstrate the rehabilitation of fonts and copper matrices and such a unique technique was recorded during the process. Printed proofs were sent for the HD scan with the presence of printed types on the paper preserved made into letter cards and shot along with copper matrices and types and such way was used to archive various appearances of “movable types.” Last the website will be set up to share archiving achievements with the public. | | | Typeset Movable type printing | | | | | | Rehabilitation of copper matrices Digital preservation of fonts | Although the glory of the movable type printing industry has died out Ri Xing is still sparkling independently. We believe that the digital power will make such radiance thrive and extend allowing descendants to observe luster of types lines of fonts and spread marks of inks as well as delightfully enjoy and pass on the beauty of the movable type printing. | | | Chang Chieh-kuan operated his typecasting machine | Exhibition Information Related Articles MoreInformation | 
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