惊艳!四大发明中的活字印刷仍在温州传承!

The ancient Chinese invention of wooden movable-type printing is marching forward inthe village of Dongyuan, Wenzhou.

在温州东源村，古老的中国发明木制活字印刷得以存续及发展。

One-centimeter wooden cubes are arrayed in a jet-black rectangular frame. A reversed Chinese character is sculpted on each cube.

一厘米的木制小方块被整齐排列放到一个乌黑的矩形框架中。一个个方向颠倒的汉字被雕刻在每个小方块上。

Repeatedly smeared with ink for many years, these pale yellow matrices have been dyed nearly dark enough to match the ink itself.

刻有汉字的小方块可以被重复的染墨很多年，这些浅黄色的矩阵已几乎被染至黑色，足以与墨色相媲美。

Once the matrices are inked, a high-quality Chinese art paper is placed on top of them.

一旦这些字块被染色，就会将高质量的美术纸覆于其上。

The paper is then brushed and smoothed until the ink marks appear. Once the paper is removed, the page is printed with vertical, traditional Chinese characters. Assembling and binding such pages together produces a book.

之后，用刷子在纸上来回刷动以使纸张平滑，直到沾有墨水的小方块清晰的印出汉字。一旦拿起此张纸，纸张就会出现方向正确的印刷汉字。之后，将印刷好的纸张整合并装订成书。

Wang Chaohui, 60, inherited the traditional trade from his grandfather. In Dongyuan, there are around 20 technicians like Wang.

60岁的王朝晖是从其祖父处继承的印刷技术。在东源村，与王先生从事相同职业的技术人员约有20个。

Thanks to the strong culture and large demand for genealogy records, this technique has been successfully handed down from one generation to the next.

多亏了强有力的文化和对家谱的大量需求，此项技术得以世代传承了下来。

According to historical data, southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian provinces used to be migrating societies.

根据历史记载，浙江省南部和福建省北部曾经是接收移民城市。

Living a vagrant lifestyle and traveling in groups, people in the region easily formed a strong sense of clan. Genealogy, therefore, is an important concept in Wenzhou.

因此，此地人民的生活方式居无定所并喜群体旅游，此地区的人容易形成对宗族的强烈认同感。因此，家谱在温州是重要的概念。

Over the past decades, Wang has sculpted over 10,000 wooden movable-type cubes every year. He has also used nearly 100 engraving knives and over 7,000 sheets of art paper.

过去的数十年间，王先生每年都雕刻超过10,000个木制活字印刷字块。他也曾经使用过大约100把刻刀和7,000多张纸。

Wang explained that geneaology records generally consist of four or five volumes. They are revised and updated every 20 to 30 years, or as frequently as every 10 years in some areas.

王先生抱怨道家谱通常都包含4卷至5卷内容。每20年到30年，都需对这些族谱进行修订和更新，一些地方更是每10年就对某些方面的内容进行修订和更新。

In terms of cost and operating efficiency, wooden movable-type printing is the best choice for these records.

考虑成本和经营的有效性，木制活字印刷是制作这些记录的最好选择。

The only person who could “inherit” the technique from Wang is his 32-year-old son, Wang Jianxin.

唯一可以继承此项技艺的是王先生的32岁的儿子王建新。

However, so far, Wang Jianxin has not demonstrated any special skill at the core technique of sculpting.

然而，截至目前，王建新对于雕刻的核心技术都没有展现出任何特殊天赋。

Of the 20 technicians in Dongyuan who are able to work on genealogy revision, not a single one is below 50 years of age.

并且，在东源镇的这20位技术人员中，可以进行家谱修订的人没有一个年龄小于50岁。