Hong Kong Type publication information
Hong Kong Type is the first complete set of movable lead types in Chinese characters. It was minted by the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, with experiments starting in Malacca in the 1830s, until completion in Hong Kong in 1851. It was then used to print the Chinese Bible and works introducing Western knowledge to China. It brought about the modernization of the printing industry in China, gradually replacing traditional wood block printing by movable type printing.
In the twentieth century, the knowledge about Hong Kong Type fell into oblivion. It was until 2020, in an exhibition on the history of printing in Hong Kong, that the existence of Hong Kong Type was rediscovered. Since then, thanks to the devotion of Hong Kong Open Printshop, efforts have been made to excavate not just related historical records but also the original types and matrices scattered around the world.
This work is based on the facts about Hong Kong Type but it is not a historical novel. It is both about the past and the present. A typeface is where the word and the object meet, where culture and technology, or the spiritual and the material, converge. The novel is about writing itself, which is both a letter and a record, a séance and a testament.
The novel is set in three sections:
1. Testament: The main story is set in Hong Kong from 2019 to 2020. It begins with the female protagonist Sun Fei’s failed suicide attempt. During her convalescence from her mental disturbances, she becomes a research assistant for an exhibition on Hong Kong Type, which turns out to be both a search for family roots and a spiritual journey into the depth of her psyche.
2. Séance: A series of conversations between Sun Fei and “character spirits,” whom she meets while typing on her computer. The character spirits tell her the story of Hong Kong Type and help her connect with her ancestor Dai Fuk.
3. Resurrection: A love letter in six parts written by Dai Fuk who grew up in the early days of the colony, first as a student at the Anglo-Chinese College, then as an apprentice at the printing workshop of the London Missionary Society. The letter is addressed to his beloved Heng Yi, a girl suffering from a cruel fate.
The novel was originally published in Chinese in 2021. The initial draft of this English translation was completed in September 2023 using the open-source application Bilingual Bookmaker, connected to the GPT-4 API. Later chapters were retranslated using the same method in December 2023 and March 2024. The text is checked, corrected and edited by the author himself to ensure the accuracy of the translation.