When we were discussing the theme this year, our teacher explained the eight main categories of the competition in advance and asked us to propose themes for everyone to discuss together. All of the classmates responded enthusiastically, and the themes of “Gyotaku artist- Kuo-Lung Chou”, “National master ink stick production expert- Chia-Te Chen”, “The world of type- Ri Xing Type Foundry”..etc. were put forward. The next thing was the discussion of theme. Which theme should be chosen? How to conduct the research and produce the theme?

We collected the information online and explored the data found for theme proposed and produced the draft of the mind map before doing the theme presentation to introduce and explain the theme to other classmates. Mr. Chieh-Chang Li stated that his mother was doing the part-time study at Taipei National University of the Arts, and it happened to work with Ri Xing Type Foundry. Ri Xing Type Foundry is the only remaining movable print type foundry in Taiwan, and it is a place full of deep cultural meaning.

After the introduction by Chieh-Chang Li and the further information that the classmates got from internet, we learnt that the owner Chien-Kuan Chang still insists to keep Ri Xing Type Foundry and carry on the history of printing technology in order to pass on typecasting technique and the culture of movable print at the current moment that movable printing industry has been replaced by the computer planographic printing! After discussion, we all think it is a wonderful theme and we hope more people will be able to know Ri Xing Type Foundry through our specific research so they can feel the subtle of movable print, the beauty of traditional technique of the type, and the charm & value of standard Chinese characters.

Data compilation: Pei-Yen, Yu-Chen