A staff member showcases the 2020 admission letter, which was made using wooden movable-type printing, at Wenzhou University in Zhejiang province. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

Wenzhou University, based in the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, recently released its latest admission letters for first-year undergraduates.

The admission letters were specially printed using an ancient technique – Chinese wooden movable-type printing, paying tribute to Wenzhou's intangible cultural heritage.

Every single admission letter was personally printed by officially recognized inheritors of the ancient technique who live in Dongyuan village in Rui'an, a county-level city administered by Wenzhou. The whole process took more than half a month.

Wu Kuizhao has been practicing the quickly-disappearing skill for 48 years and has used it to print a great many books, but this was the first time that he has printed admission letters.

Chinese wooden movable-type printing, invented by Bi Sheng (990-1051) during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), is one of the world's oldest printing techniques. Today, it is only practiced among a few craftspeople in Rui'an's Dongyuan village. In November 2010, Chinese wooden movable-type printing was inscribed by the UNESCO on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.