In a small alley in Datong, the Rixing Type Foundry is the last surviving Chinese-character lead-type foundry in Taiwan and one of the few in the world still casting traditional Chinese characters. The workshop occupies a single shophouse: walls floor-to-ceiling with wooden cases of lead sorts, a row of casting machines clattering in the back, and the owner working steadily at a bench.
Visitors are welcome to wander quietly during opening hours. You can buy small sets of cast type as souvenirs — your name, a meaningful phrase, the date of your visit — for very reasonable prices, packed into a small wooden box. The visit is part educational, part working-museum, part rescue mission for a dying craft.