You never forget your first love:
Stick with the old machines, or catch up with the age? Old print masters feel their hearts tugged in both directions. Li Ching-chuan has worked at Yutai for 24 years since beginning as a printer's apprentice. After the company switched over to computers, he has been one of the fastest of the printing masters to adapt.
It turns out that he also does printing work at night for the United Daily News, so he experienced one computer revolution a decade ago. Thus he has been able to adapt quickly, and even be transferred to be a shift director in the computer typesetting room at the factory.
Recalling that time when he was first struck by computerized printing, Lee seems a bit hesitant and unenthusiastic. "Everybody just cursed. " Still, in a panic that they might lose their jobs, as well as with various incentives like a newspaper sponsored computer entry competition and financial awards to encourage them, and relying on a unrelenting spirit, the vast majority gradually got familiar with the computer keyboard and learned the new typesetting technology.
In the computer typesetting machine room, the work environment is clean and bright, and there is a lot less noise. But Lee still prefers the old conditions. "Everybody could keep an eye on the characters on the one hand and chat on the other, and there seemed to be a lot more fellow feeling among co-workers, " he reminisces. He has nothing bad to say about the trend toward moveable type being washed out. But when he faces that cold and unfriendly computer, it's hard for him not to feel a little down; when that happens he mutters a few appropriate condemnatory phrases to vent his annoyance.
The times changed long ago!
"Perhaps moveable print isn't as fast as computers, but when you talk about technique, it clearly requires more skill, " says an old master, recalling fondly the skills he used to be able to show off.
Just take for example arranging a sheet music score. It takes large and small notes, as well as all types of slides and half notes, with marks for volume and tempo; it requires a command of spacial distribution as well. An experienced master would take three hours just to arrange a pop song, while a typical worker could be setting type all day and still not necessarily finish. But young computer operators even more often move marks around here and there, misplace things, and get things all turned around. "That's just inexperience, " states Yang Cheng-fu, recalling that it took him 20 or 30 years and he still can't be omniscient. Even he might not be able to find some extremely rarely used characters!
Thirty or forty years might still not be enough to learn all the ins and outs of moveable type but it only takes several months to get familiar with computer typesetting. It used to be that an experienced master could arrange a maximum of 2,000 characters in an hour. But a young girl of some dexterity who has studied only three months can do at least 60 characters a minute with a word processor. Moreover, she can fix her mistakes even faster. So how can old masters compete?
"You couldn't find any apprentices even ten years ago, " says an old master unhappily. It seems that the times had changed long ago.
Fast eyes, a steady hand, and dedication:
Yet there remains something admirable about the old masters. Lee Tien-jen, chairman of the Department of Printing at Chinese Culture University and also the director of the Chunghua Printing Factory, points out that it was no mean feat to become a print worker in the old days. One had to have a certain level of knowledge to be able to arrange a written article or document. Moreover, because the standards were high and the demand in society great, print workers could typically have two jobs, working in the printing factory by day and going to the newspaper office by night, making for quite a tidy income. Moreover, they had more chances than most people to come in contact with written information, an enviable perquisite in the early days.
Chang Yung will always remember the day he entered the printing industry, August 14, 1968, because through work in printing he has truly learned hand-eye coordination. "For example, in setting the type for physics or mathematics books, there are all kinds of special symbols, or special print methods. You had to pay special attention to the characters and the relative size of the print, and you couldn't do anything half way. " He says that the older masters really put their hearts into their work. When they got an article into their hands, they would try to understand what the article tried to say before moving on to type setting, so that chicken scratch hand-written drafts could emerge clean and well ordered.
Type casting aside:
Now that moveable type is being replaced, most of the old masters seem resigned to their fate. "Some things you have to be able to pick up some things you have to be able to put down, " says Yang Cheng-fu as his hand rummages over old lead characters he feels ought to be preserved. He states metaphorically: "If everybody else is driving, could you race them on a bicycle?"
Everybody understands that the computer era is here and that this is the way the tide is running. But what the old masters worry about is whether or not the younger generation developing the new technology can respect the old traditions.
Yang Cheng-fu grabs a few funeral announcements from his office desk and says that you can easily differentiate which are computer type set and which are moveable type just from the form of the printing. " With computer typesetting usually there is a set form already in the computer. You only have to change the name for each client. So in the end all the funeral announcements look exactly alike. And for convenience, these fixed formats are not based on traditional rites, with the names of relatives set in large or small styles depending upon their importance in the clan. They don't look like funeral announcements set by an old master who really knows his rituals, where you can tell who is who in the family with a quick glance at the print size. " He says that of course it is not that computers can't deal with these basic rituals or information--indeed, they could very well do even better. It is just that the young people using the computers need to be a little more humble and learn their stuff.
Life was once glorious:
Whatever one may say, moveable print technology is passing into history. Can it only leave behind nostalgia? Perhaps a certain respect from those who come later? This probably will depend on the meaning that people themselves give it. It can simply be hoped that the next time you walk into a printing museum, when someone picks up a lead character, you might think "these characters really did have a life to them, and they had a substance that one could grip in the palm of one's hand."
[Picture Caption]
p.52
Computer typesetting has already replaced traditional movable type.
p.54
These character molds will be useless hereafter, but they have irreplaceable historical value.
p.54
It was impossible to master the skills for lead typesetting in a short time.
p.56
In a traditional moveable type printing factory, radios, pinups, and religious statues accompanied chatting workers, making the work less like drudgery.