The development of printing culture in China: (i) From AD 594 onwards, books in China were printed by rubbing paper – also invented there – against the inked surface of woodblocks. (ii) As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed, the traditional Chinese ‘accordion book’ was folded and stitched at the side. (iii) China possessed a huge bureaucratic system which recruited its personnel through civil service examinations. (iv) Textbooks for this examination were printed in vast numbers under the sponsorship of the imperial state. (v) From the sixteenth century, the number of examination candidates went up and that increased the volume of print.