Chinese Medicine Men : Consumer Culture in China and Southeast Asia

In this book, Sherman Cochran reconsiders the nature and role of consumer culture in the spread of cultural globalization. He moves beyond traditional debates over Western influence on non-Western cultures to examine the points where Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese-owned businesses interacted with consumers. Focusing on the marketing of medicine, he shows how Chinese constructed consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia and extended it to local, national, and transnational levels. Through the use of advertisements, photographs, and maps, he illustrates the visual forms that Chinese enterprises adopted and the far-flung markets they reached. Cochran brings to light enduring features of the Chinese experience with consumer culture. Surveying the period between the 1880s and the 1950s, he observes that Chinese businesses surpassed their Western counterparts in capturing Chinese and Southeast Asian sales of medicine in both peacetime and wartime. He provides revealing examples of Chinese entrepreneurs' dealings with Chinese and Japanese political and military leaders, particularly during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. The history of Chinese medicine men in pre-socialist China, he suggests, has relevance for the twenty-first century because they achieved goals--constructing a consumer culture, competing with Western-based corporations, forming business-government alliances, capturing national and transnational markets--that their successors in contemporary China are currently seeking to attain. FRONT COVER 1 FRONT FLAP 2 FULL TITLE PAGE 7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9 CONTENTS 11 ILLUSTRATIONS 13 1 Consumer Culture in Chinese History 15 The Frontiers of Long- Distance Trade 18 Map 1.1. China's macroregions and central metropolises. Map by Thomas Lyons, based on macroregions from Skinner, "Regional Urbanization," 214, map 1. 19 The Evasion of Political Barriers 22 The Process of Localization 25 The Extent of Homogenization 27 2 Inventing Imperial Traditions and Building Olde Shoppes 30 Yue Pingquan and Tongren Tang 32 ACQUIRING OFFICIAL STATUS 32 USING OFFICIAL CONNECTIONS FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES 35 PRESERVING TONGREN TANG IN A POST-IMPERIAL AGE 38 Yue Daren and Olde Yue Family Shoppes 40 BUILDING OSTENTATIOUSLY TRADITIONAL NEW STORES 41 Map 2.1. Daren Tang's drugstores, 1930s. Map by Thomas Lyons, based on macroregions from Skinner, "Regional Urbanization," 214, map 1. 43 GIVING CONSUMERS TRADITIONAL TREATMENT 45 PROMOTING THE TRADITIONAL 46 Table 2.1. Tongren Tang's and Daren Tang's Principal Products 47 Giving New Meanings to Tradition 49 3 Advertising Dreams 52 The Dream of Western Solutions to Chinese Problems 53 CHINESE ORIGINS OF A "WESTERN" ALTERNATIVE 53 OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS TO CLAIMS OF WESTERNNESS 55 POPULARIZING WESTERN SOLUTIONS TO CHINESE MEDICAL PROBLEMS 57 The Dream of the Triumph of Economic Nationalism 58 HUANG'S JAPANESE MODEL: HUMANE ELIXIR 58 IMITATING THE JAPANESE MODEL 60 SELLING "NATIONAL GOODS" 61 POPULARIZING ECONOMIC NATIONALISM 64 The Dream of Women's Bodies 65 UNVEILING NUDES 65 KEEPING UP WITH FASHIONS 67 POPULARIZING WOMEN'S BODIES 69 Mass Advertising in Shanghai 72 HUANG'S MASS ADVERTISING 72 PHOTOS 75 2.1 Tongren Tang's store (circled) in eighteenth-century Beijing 75 2.2 A catalogue of Tongren Tang's medicines 76 2.3 The Yue family in the 1890s 77 2.4 Yue Daren and his family in the 1930s 78 2.5 Tongren Tang's store in the 1920s 79 2.6 Daren Tang's main store in Tianjin 80 3.1 Huang Chujiu 81 3.2 Ailuo Brain Tonic 82 3.3 Letterhead of the Great China-France Drugstores 82 3.4 A billboard for Humane Elixir in North China, 1910s 82 3.5 Sandwich board carriers promoting Humane Elixir in the Middle Yangzi Region, 1914 83 3.6 Human Elixir's trademark with "Chinese National Goods" in the circles and the pairing of the dragon and the tiger 84 3.7 A calendar poster by Hang Zhiying advertising Huang Chujiu's medicines 85 3.8 The Great World amusement hall 86 Table 3.1. A Comparison of Chinese-Owned New-Style and Old-Style Drugstores in Shanghai, 1936 87 HUANG'S MASS CONSUMERS 87 Poaching and Popularizing 88 4 Capturing a National Market 90 Establishing National Headquarters 91 Table 4.1. Five Continents' Branch Stores in China 92 Table 4.2. Five Continents' Regional Branches and Local Affiliates, 1936 94 Table 4.3. Five Continents' Sales in and outside Shanghai 94 Map 4.1. Five Continents' drugstores, 1930s Map by Thomas Lyons based on macroregions from Skinner, "Regional Urbanization," 214, map 1. 96 Table 4.4. Five Continents' Capital, Sales, and Profits (in yuan) 98 Table 4.5. Distribution of Five Continents' Sales of Man-Made Blood by Macroregion, 1931 - 1937 and 1938 99 Controlling Branch Stores and Appealing to Local Consumers 100 MANAGING BRANCHES THROUGH A CHINESE SOCIAL NETWORK 100 PROVIDING CONVENIENT ACCESS 101 Constructing and Localizing Western Architecture 103 Map 4.2. Five Continents' nine drugstores in Shanghai, 1936. Map by Eric Singer 104 ADOPTING THE TWO-PART VERTICAL FORM 105 ADAPTING TO LOCAL TASTES AND CONDITIONS 105 RELYING ON WESTERN ARCHITECTS 107 WHO DESIGNED BRANCH STORES? 109 Localizing the Localizer 110 PREVENTING LOCALIZATION OF BRANCH STORES 110 SUCCUMBING TO LOCALIZATIO N BY LOCAL AFFILIATES 111 Levels of Localization 113 PHOTOS 115 4.1 Xiang Songmao 115 4.2 Five Continents' headquarters, 1913 116 4.3 Man-Made Blood with its Western-style bottle and Chinese label 116 4.4 Shops in traditional Chinese architecture 117 4.5 Five Continents' Western-style branch stores in North China 118 4.6 Five Continents' branch stores in the Middle Yangzi region 119 4.7 Five Continents' branch store in Xiamen with its arcade, 1930s 120 4.8 A commercial district in Xiamen, 1920s 121 4.9 Five Continents' Shanghai headquarters, 1936 122 4.10 Five Continents' headquarters at night 123 4.11 Five Continents' salesroom 124 4.12 Xiang Songmao Memorial Hall 125 4.13 A poster advertising Man-Made Blood with a space where each branch could add the name of its locality 126 5 Crossing Enemy Lines 127 Table 5.1. New Asia Pharmaceutical Company's Capital and Sales Revenue, 1926-1945 129 Table 5.2. Wartime Expansion of New Asia Pharmaceutical Company 130 Prewar Origins and Reforms 130 Map 5.1. New Asia's headquarters, branch headquarters, and factories, 1938-1945. Map by Thomas Lyons 131 REFORMING A DISTRIBUTION NETWORK 132 CAPTURING AN AUDIENCE 134 A PREWAR FIXER 137 Wartime Alliances 138 FORMING POLITICAL ALLIANCES 139 BROKERING FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS 141 Popularizing Science 143 INSTITUTIONALIZING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 143 TEACHING SCIENCE TO PROMOTE DISTRIBUTION 145 USING SCIENCE IN ADVERTISING 147 Fixers across Enemy Lines 153 6 Crossing National Borders 156 Riding the Tiger 157 RECRUITING ARTISTS 159 TRANSCULTURAL TIGERS IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETS 161 TIGER BALM'S MULTICULTURAL CONSUMERS 163 Rising Stars 164 POPULARITY AT THE EXPENSE OF PROFITS IN SINGAPORE 166 POPULARIZING NEWSPAPERS OUTSIDE SINGAPORE 167 TRANSNATIONAL NEWSPAPERS AND NETWORKS 171 Table 6.1. Aw Boon-haw's Business and Newspaper Offices in Southeast Asia through 1937 172 Table 6.2. Aw Boon-haw's Principal Business and Newspaper Offices in China through 1937 173 Making Politics Pay 174 Map 6.1. Aw Boon-haw's network for distributing Tiger Balm and newspapers, 1930s. Map by Thomas Lyons. 175 CELEBRATING GENERAL CAI TINGKAI 176 AIDING GENERALISSIMO CHIANG KAI-SHEK 177 DICKERING WITH PRIME MINISTER TOJO HIDEKI 179 APPEALING IN VAIN TO THE PEOPLE' S REPUBLIC 183 AW'S EFFECTIVENESS AGAINST STRONG GOVERNMENTS 185 Exploiting Asian Advantages 186 PHOTOS 189 5.1 Xu Guanqun 189 5.2 New Asia Pharmaceutical Company's trademark with a red cross at the center 189 5.3 A Child 's Growth to Manhood 190 5.4 The compatibility of the traditional and the modern in a Chinese family 191 5.5 Nonscientific Doctors of the Masses 192 6.1 Aw Boon-haw 193 6.2 The springing tiger on an early twentieth-century tin of Tiger Balm 194 6.3 Guan Huinong, a commercial artist 195 6.4 Roaring Tiger (1908), by Gao Qifeng, a political revolutionary 196 6.5 A tiger on a magazine founded by Guan and Gao 197 6.6 A poster for Tiger Balm, with print in Chinese, Thai, and English by Guan Huinong 198 6.7 Tiger Balm Garden in Hong Kong 199 6.8 Aw Boon-haw with Chiang Kai-shek 200 7 Agents of Consumer Culture 201 Institutions from the Top Down 202 Consumers from the Bottom Up 207 Brokers in Between 211 Agents of Consumer Revolution 214 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES 221 NOTES 223 1. CONSUMER CULTURE IN CHINESE HISTORY 223 2. INVENTING IMPERIAL TRADITIONS AND BUILDING OLDE SHOPPES 225 3. ADVERTISING DREAMS 230 4. CAPTURING A NATIONAL MARK ET 233 5. CROSSING ENEMY LINES 235 6 . CROSSING NATIONAL BORDERS 240 7. AGENTS OF CONSUMER CULTURE 244 ARCHIVES 247 WORKS CITED 249 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS 275 INDEX 281 BACK COVER 295 ISBN:,0-674-02161-4 ISBN: 0-674-02161-4

in This Book, Sherman Cochran Reconsiders The Nature And Role Of Consumer Culture In The Spread Of Cultural Globalization. He Moves Beyond Traditional Debates Over Western Influence On Non-western Cultures To Examine The Points Where Chinese Entrepreneurs And Chinese-owned Businesses Interacted With Consumers. Focusing On The Marketing Of Medicine, He Shows How Chinese Constructed Consumer Culture In China And Southeast Asia And Extended It To Local, National, And Transnational Levels. Through The Use Of Advertisements, Photographs, And Maps, He Illustrates The Visual Forms That Chinese Enterprises Adopted And The Far-flung Markets They Reached.

cochran Brings To Light Enduring Features Of The Chinese Experience With Consumer Culture. Surveying The Period Between The 1880s And The 1950s, He Observes That Chinese Businesses Surpassed Their Western Counterparts In Capturing Chinese And Southeast Asian Sales Of Medicine In Both Peacetime And Wartime. He Provides Revealing Examples Of Chinese Entrepreneurs' Dealings With Chinese And Japanese Political And Military Leaders, Particularly During The Sino-japanese War Of 1937-45. The History Of Chinese Medicine Men In Pre-socialist China, He Suggests, Has Relevance For The Twenty-first Century Because They Achieved Goals—constructing A Consumer Culture, Competing With Western-based Corporations, Forming Business-government Alliances, Capturing National And Transnational Markets—that Their Successors In Contemporary China Are Currently Seeking To Attain.

daniel J. Meissner - Canadian Journal Of History

chinese Medicine Men Is An Elegant Examination Of Complex Cultural And Commercial Change In Modern China...for Scholars Of Modern China And, To A Limited Extent, Southeast Asia, This Book Suggests New Approaches To The Historical Interpretation Of This Period. In Particular, It Provides Strong Evidence That Native Pharmaceutical Companies Were Not Severely Restricted By Nationalist Exactions And Japanese Oppression, But Rather, Successfully Navigated Treacherous And Uncertain Terrain To Maintain Their Markets Cochran’s Work Indicates The Need For Additional Research Focuses On Native Companies In Other Trades, Which May Also Have Flourished Despite The Upheavals Of This Turbulent Period.

"Sherman Cochran reconsiders the nature and role of consumer culture in the spread of cultural globalization. He moves beyond traditional debates over Western influence on non-Western cultures to examine the points where Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese-owned businesses interacted with consumers. Focusing on the marketing of medicine, he shows how Chinese constructed consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia and extended it on the local, national, and transnational levels. Through the use of advertisements, photographs, and maps, he illustrates the visual forms that Chinese enterprises adopted and the far-flung markets they reached." "Cochran brings to light enduring features of the Chinese experience with consumer culture. Surveying the period between the 1880s and the 1950s, he observes that Chinese businesses surpassed their Western counterparts in capturing Chinese and Southeast Asian sales of medicine in both peacetime and wartime. He provides revealing examples of Chinese entrepreneurs' dealings with Chinese and Japanese political and military leaders, particularly during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. The history of Chinese medicine men in presocialist China, he suggests, has relevance for the twenty-first century because they achieved goals - constructing a consumer culture, competing with Western-based corporations, forming business-government alliances, capturing national and transnational markets - that their successors in contemporary China are currently seeking to attain."--Jacket Cochran reconsiders the nature and role of consumer culture in the spread of globalization and illuminates enduring features of the Chinese experience of consumer culture. The history of Chinese medicine men in pre-socialist China, he suggests, has relevance for the 21st century because they achieved goals that resonate with their successors today.