A young man named Wei Liming born after 1990 spent over 2 million yuan over five years to replicate movable type printing. Photo:web

As April 23 marks as World Book Day, in Xi'an city, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, story of a young man named Wei Liming born after 1990 spent over 2 million yuan over five years to replicate movable type printing has touched many netizens. 

After visiting the whole country and going through hardships from finding a typecasting machine to the first piece of movable type being restored, Wei now operates 65 cultural and creative stores in 23 cities nationwide, with an annual revenue exceeding 6 million yuan ($0.83 million). 

Wei believed that cultural heritage like movable type printing is temporarily buried in dust, but not useless. As long as there are young people who continuously embrace traditional culture, the dust will be swept away, and the cultural heritage will shine anew, Wei said. 

Wei first saw movable type in a warehouse at school when a teacher asked him to fetch a globe, but he was attracted to the movable type. The collapse of movable type printing motivated Wei to replicate it. "Words have power, carrying the history of a nation and the emotions and culture of individuals," he said. Now, restoring movable type printing is more like a career to him.