Vernacular Industrialism in China by Eugenia Lean

Author:Eugenia Lean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press

The passage dwelled in particular on the chemical experimenting and scientific methods used to refine the raw ingredients and improve the final product, pulp. These contributions were on display and available for adoption by other nativist factories and paper mills. Published in a publication by the Ministry of Industry, Chen and his approach of experimenting and improving a product had now become endorsed by the state.

However, if the state encouraged industrial tinkering and chemical experimentation to improve Chinese industry, it also sought to regulate these processes. As industry started to grow in the first few decades of the twentieth century, civic, provincial, and national bureaus and testing centers sought, often in the name of hygienic modernity (weisheng), to regulate and discipline a variety of industrial practices, including the experimentation with chemicals and raw ingredients in the making of manufactured goods. When Household Industries tinkered with new products—especially those involving chemical experimentation—it would submit prototypes to industrial testing bureaus (gongye shiyansuo) for approval. When the company chemically manufactured a wild-grass and flower-based pill to help smokers quit smoking, it submitted its prototype in 1929 to the Central Hygiene Experimentation Institute (Zhongyang weisheng shiyansuo) for approval.57 In 1933, the company submitted an improved table salt refined through chemical experimentation to Hebei Province’s Industrial Testing Institute (Hebei sheng gongye shiyansuo).58 Both were granted approval.

State commendation of a company’s efforts at improving technologies enabled manufacturers like Chen to lay claim to certain technologies. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce publication Industry and Commerce Report announced in 1930 that Kong Xiangxi, the ministry’s head, had approved that seven yuan be paid and a plaque issued to “Chen Xuyuan” (another of Chen’s sobriquets) for his “improved tool for printing characters (gailiang yinzi qi),” the Butterfly Pen, to recognize his efforts to improve the technology.59 An Industry Journal (Shiye zazhi) article discussing the making of the writing implement similarly described how Chen and his disciple, Lin Lübin, remade the body of an ordinary pen by piercing a hole into the side in order to insert the Butterfly brand dual-tone ink (“Wudibi” 1935). The result, the piece boasted, was that the pen could write up to three thousand more Chinese words. The process of improving the pen’s body is described in detail: “On the side of the body of the pen, [Chen Diexian] pierced a small hole without compromising the aesthetics. He proceeded to refine it by filling up the hole to make it into a thumbtack prick. He also improved the body of the pen, turning it into a ‘double-style pen.’ … [Chen] applied for a patent with the Ministry of Industry … and fixed the name, Butterfly Economical Pen [Wudipai jingji bi], which was shortened simply to ‘Butterfly Pen’ ” (“Wudibi” 1935, 20). This passage literally outlines the steps in Chen’s adjustments that allowed him to change an ordinary pen into a new-style pen. These improvements were the grounds upon which he sought to apply for a patent and to trademark the object. Tinkering to improve served as the basis for claiming formal intellectual-property rights.

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