Rui'an Wooden Movable-Type Printing

The wooden movable-type printing of Dongyuan village in Rui'an is a living continuation of ancient movable-type printing, used chiefly for printing family genealogies. Its craft traces back to Bi Sheng's eleventh-century invention and is still practised in the countryside, the sole living survival of one of China's four great inventions. It entered the second national ICH list in 2008 and in 2010 was inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding.

The craftsman first carves individual reverse-reading characters in relief on pear or crabapple wood, then sets type from the genealogy's contents, inks and prints; the full sequence of writing, carving, sorting, composing, printing and binding is done entirely by hand, an ancient and exacting craft.

Rui'an wooden movable-type printing is a living fossil of China's ancient printing invention, of major historical and technological value for studying the origin and spread of printing and the culture of genealogies, evidence of a great Chinese contribution to the world.