The streets and alleys of the business district at Tai-pei's Tai-yuan Road evoke a heady nostalgia. At the periphery, nestled amongst the myriad hardware stores for which the area is best known, is the storefront where Ri-xing, the source of much wonderment in the publishing and literary communities, has plied its trade for 42 years.

Inside, a nearly extinct variety of furnace used to forge lead type burns furiously, pumping out quaint old-world heat to a rotating machine's steady clang.

The copper molds used to create type have attained a distinguished, weathered appearance after 40 years of use. The alignment of the copper mold characters is normal, but the type they produce is image-reversed, much like viewing something in a mirror. This is what allows the final print-the reverse of the reverse-to appear correctly.

For people under age 30, the mention of lead type or moveable type might be met with blank stares. Yet until a few decades ago, they were the primary vehicle for the dissemination of knowledge and an indispensible tool of the publishing industry.

The origins of moveable type go back to the Northern Song Dynasty in 1040 CE, when a craftsman named Bi Sheng carved characters onto blocks of moistened clay and fired them in an oven to harden them. After arranging the different characters on an iron plate, ink was then applied and a text was thus ready for printing.

In the years following this breakthrough, Chinese printers throughout the country gradually gave up clay in favor of metal and wood type. The Western-style lead moveable type that became standard was invented in 1440 by the German Johannes Gutenberg. Using lead, tin, and other metals afforded numerous advantages, most saliently that the type was inexpensive to make, easy to cool after heating, and highly resistant to pressure. His invention dramatically lowered overhead, expedited the print process and increased output, all of which served to facilitate the promulgation of Western technology, culture, and civilization.

Western-style lead type spread to China in the 19th century. Its arrival in Taiwan came about 100 years ago, courtesy of Japanese colonists. The various type fonts that were so prevalent in Taiwan until the past few decades were the work of now long-forgotten calligraphers, active in the mainland in the 1920s and 1930s, who painstakingly rendered each individual character by hand. The characters furnished the basis for templates made by seal cutters which were in turn employed to make the copper molds used to cast the individual lead types.

(left:) Gardens of the Divergent Path, a compilation of poetry published last year, was printed using the traditional moveable type, a move that garnered a positive reaction in the publishing community. (right:) Rixing's plan to refurbish its copper molds has brought together a group of designers who are using computer software to restore the damaged original fonts. Each of the characters they create bears a unique creative stamp.

Today there are only two lead type manufacturers in all of Taiwan. One is, of course, Ri-xing, founded in 1969 by Chang Chieh-kuan's father, Chang Hsi-ling; the other, run by Chang's uncle in Kao-hsiung, is entering its swansong. Father Chang had worked at a printing press during the period of Japanese rule, and also worked as a typesetter for the Taiwan Min-pao newspaper. He went into business for himself originally with the notion of running a printing press, but when the necessary machinery failed to arrive on time, he turned to manufacturing lead types instead.

Chang was only 16 when the business first opened during a period of tremendous boom within the industry. In Taipei alone there were more than 5000 printing presses churning out a seemingly unquenchable deluge of work. He playfully recalls: "We were one of the smaller operations around, yet even we had 35 people working for us. Every day there was enough work to occupy us morning and night!"

But cracks appeared in paradise starting in 1986. Lithographic printing and computer typesetting made steady inroads into the market, and within 10 years they had laid waste to the letterpress traditionalists, who could not contend with the upstarts' superior output, lower overhead costs, and reduced need for labor. In the blink of an eye, it seemed, they had gone from having more work than they could possibly fulfill to the brink of obsolescence.

In 2001 Taiwan's biggest type foundry, Zhong-nan, surrendered to the changing times. At that juncture, many of Ri-xing's old clients wanted to know if they might be contemplating a similar decision. "I swore then and there that we would stay our course no matter what difficulties lay ahead-as long as there was the slightest demand for lead type, Ri-xing would be there to the very end!" Chang says that he is greatly indebted to his father's old industry friends, whose patronage enabled them to survive the crisis.

Rixing Type Foundry is home to more than 10 million moveable lead types. They are organized according to radical, the same method employed by dictionaries. Pictured here is owner Chang Chieh-kuan.

Chang's love for traditional moveable lead type is what keeps him from shuttering his business for good.

Is there any real difference between computer typesetting and lead type? In response, Chang points over to the wall where an assignment from the Tai-pei City Department of Cultural Affairs hangs, an inscription spanning two rows of characters that will eventually adorn a plaque for the city's Cultural Heritage Management Office. On top are computer characters in the Biao-kaiti font (in the kaiti or "regular script" style); beneath them are characters in the kaiti style made with moveable lead type. The contrast is apparent. The lead type characters show a greater affinity for the aesthetic priorities of traditional brush calligraphy. Each character has a definitive focal point that is easily discerned (mostly in the horizontal midpoint but slightly north of the middle). Moreover, the pictographic origins of the Chinese written language come shining through. The computer characters, by contrast, seem dull and inert, their centers ill defined. "Looking at them for any length of time is tiring," he grumbles.

It is this sensitivity to the beauty of Chinese characters that has resolved him never to let Ri-xing slip away into history's abyss, regardless of what it may cost him.

By 2007, all of Taipei's type foundries had left the field one after the other, leaving Ri-xing as the sole survivor. Just as Chang was beginning to question his viability, he had a fortuitous encounter with a nearby resident who immediately recognized the strength of his craft: Zhang Jia-xing, a man of some repute within the design community and the owner of Boo-day Shop.

Zhang Jiaxing recalls that at the time, Boo-day had just relocated to Nan-jing West Road. He and a few colleagues who shared his appreciation of old-fashioned things headed off to browse the quaint shops nearby when they chanced upon Ri-xing.

"This tiny little shop turned out to be a treasure trove of Chinese types of every imaginable size, each one imbued with a unique character. There in the half-dark underground room, as I scrutinized one lead type after another by holding them up to the light, each one gave off a faint glow. No two were the same. It was so captivating that I could hardly tear myself away," he remembers. He and his colleagues made sure to record this serendipitous discovery that same year in their publication MOGUzine, which elicited a tremendous response from the arts community.

Several major periodicals, including the China Times and the United Daily News, ran major stories in their cultural sections on the type foundry that remained steadfastly loyal to tradition and also on the emergence and demise of moveable type as an industry. And recently, when Editions du Flaneur, a noted publisher of science, humanities, and social science materials, celebrated its first decade in the business, they rewarded readers with Ri-xing lead type.

(left:) Gardens of the Divergent Path, a compilation of poetry published last year, was printed using the traditional moveable type, a move that garnered a positive reaction in the publishing community. (right:) Rixing's plan to refurbish its copper molds has brought together a group of designers who are using computer software to restore the damaged original fonts. Each of the characters they create bears a unique creative stamp.

Ri-xing presently has three basic kinds of Chinese fonts--kaiti, -songti ("Song style," based on the movable wood typefaces developed in the Song and Ming Dynasties), and -heiti ("black" or "sans-serif" style, with strokes of uniform thickness)-each in sizes ranging from one through six. There are over 10,000 characters in each size, adding up to a total of more than 300,000 individual types for these three fonts. All told, he estimates that his store holds at least 20 million lead types-too many for him to keep an accurate count, at any rate!

Thanks to the encouragement and word-of-mouth campaign of the arts community, Ri-xing is experiencing a rebirth in the nostalgia market. Even youngsters who couldn't possibly have had much contact with moveable type come to explore the collection in search of classy and culturally potent gifts for friends or loved ones.

Chang Chieh-kuan explains that in Taiwanese, the words for "lead" and "destiny" are homonyms. As a result, giving lead type to someone has the symbolic subtext of wishing for a deep level of involvement. Besides their own name or that of the intended recipient, the most popular type is "love."

"I always say that what Ri-xing lacks most is 'love.' We're always having to cast batch after batch of them. And everyone seems to want them in the -songti font style, which is relatively rare," he smiles.

Besides selling lead type, he also hosts the occasional tour of the shop, in which he recounts the vicissitudes of this traditional craft.

His dedication to traditional printing has earned him respect amongst those in publishing. Recently two acclaimed collections of poetry, Moonlight, by Yan Yun (published by Editions du Fla-neur), and Gardens of the Divergent Path, by Lin -Weifu (published by commaBOOKs), have especially sought out Ri-xing to do the typesetting the traditional way.

Why would any author prefer lead type printing when it costs three times more than using a computer? "Computer characters are hideous!" responds poet Lin -Weifu, not mincing his words. In publishing, the quality and composition of the typography are an essential part of the presentation. Lin's choice of songti, with its aura of classical refinement, is the perfect foil to his burnished contemporary verse.

Others in arts and letters, including poet Xia Yu, have expressed an interest in traditional typesetting. "Perhaps there will be a retro movement," muses Xia.

The copper molds that Ri-xing uses to make the type exude old-word refinement.But after yaers of usage, the edges have become distorted and inky, which af-fects the quality of the type.

Though Chang Chieh-kuan's drive and persistence have already won the respect of many, his loyalty to his trade extends beyond his previous accomplishments. He dreams of one day establishing a place that is at once a craft museum preserving the history of moveable lead type and also an active typecasting and typesetting business.

With assistance from Zhang Jiaxing and other caring individuals, he assembled a team of 20-30 volunteers to help with the refurbishing of the copper molds used to create the type fonts, a task he feels is a crucial first step to achieving his greater goals.

The copper molds, Chang explains, have been in use for decades, and the signs of attrition are there to prove it: the edges of the characters are a bit distorted and inky, which detracts from the final print quality. The copper molds have to be remade in such a way that the original "house styles" are restored and preserved.

Unfortunately, after two years already, the plan has made precious little progress. The main stumbling block seems to be that the team of volunteers is composed of designer types, each bringing a unique sensibility in regard to the written Chinese language. That fact has proved to be more of a liability than an asset, since the computer renditions of the characters that the various members create are just too varied stylistically.

The overall style of the lead types must possess a high degree of conformity in order to be pleasing to the eye. As a result, the project has remained anchored at the computer stage-the actual rendering of the copper molds is a distant dream.

But these setbacks have not dented Chang's or his volunteers' enthusiasm. Of late, they've been considering doing a complete inventory of all the lead type, to pave the way for a future archive at the craft museum.

He has visited scholars and experts at public agencies like the Council for Cultural Affairs and the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs, seeking both monetary and volunteer support, as well as advice on how to run his museum.

While he fully recognizes the number of obstacles on the path to achieving his dreams, the nearly sexagenarian Chang tenaciously maintains his faith that, even in a society in which efficiency is religion, there is still room for people like him, guardians of traditional arts. His dream requires the support and attention of people throughout the country, so that Taiwan's cultural heritage becomes an enduring presence.

(left:) Gardens of the Divergent Path, a compilation of poetry published last year, was printed using the traditional moveable type, a move that garnered a positive reaction in the publishing community. (right:) Rixing's plan to refurbish its copper molds has brought together a group of designers who are using computer software to restore the damaged original fonts. Each of the characters they create bears a unique creative stamp.

Rixing Type Foundry is home to more than 10 million moveable lead types. They are organized according to radical, the same method employed by dictionaries. Pictured here is owner Chang Chieh-kuan.

The copper molds used to create type have attained a distinguished, weathered appearance after 40 years of use. The alignment of the copper mold characters is normal, but the type they produce is image-reversed, much like viewing something in a mirror. This is what allows the final print-the reverse of the reverse-to appear correctly.