A Land-Rooted Plant Turned Maritime Cargo: The “ Seng ” Story across the Pacific

A Land-Rooted Plant A Land-Rooted Plant Turned Maritime Turned Maritime

Cargo: Cargo: The The “SengSeng” Story Story across the Pacificacross the Pacific

The New Tale of the Two CitiesShanghai Jiaotong University

Hsiung Ping-chen

Chinese University of Hong Kong

Zhang Jiqing (1938-) Kun opera, an episode from “The Peony Pavilion.”

Illustration of American ginseng from Father Joseph-François Lafitau, Mémoire … concernant la précieuse plante du gin-seng de Tartarie, découverte en Canada, Paris, 1718. Image from the Collections of John Carter Brown Library.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Library Art Gallery

Garden of Flowering Fragrance, the latest addition to the Huntington Botanical Gardens

Hortus Cliffortianus (1737)

Carl von Linné(1707–1778)

OutlineI. Introduction: Ocean Connects — the Case of the Pacific

i. Pacific Spaces: Comparisons and Connectionsii. Early Modern and Modern Times

II. The Tale of the “Seng”: A Curious Historyi. In Chinese Documentsii. In Pharmaceutics and Botanyiii. In Natural History and Geology

III. Markets and the Fluidity of Knowledgei. Markets and Knowledge of Ginsengii. Growing Market in Ginseng in Late Imperial China: the North to the Southiii. Changing Market in China

IV. The Maritime Story – the “Seng” that Moves across Continents as well as Oceansi. Ginseng across Boundariesii. Missionaries and the Popularity of Ginseng

V. Afterthoughts

I. Introduction:

Ocean Connects — the Case of the Pacific

Semyon Dezhnev (1605-1672) discovered the Anian Strait between Asia and Alaska in 1648.

• Maritime history not only concerns with trans-oceanic activities, human mobility and trade, more importantly it also reminds us that land-rooted people, animals and plants have always been drifting across the oceans for millions of years.

I. Ocean Connects — the Case of the Pacific

i. Pacific Spaces: Comparisons and Connections

• The ocean is both an impediment and a highway for the connection and exchange of life forms and species.

• The tale of ginseng is yet another such example.

• This is a study of the evolving story of ginseng (Latin name: panax ginseng) in the early modern period,

• during which this medicinally-employed root plant originally discovered in China, due to the geographic expansion of human activities, began to take on first a “foreign” properties (the Korean ginseng), then a “maritime” element (the American ginseng).

• Although many alleged that the Chinese knowledge and use of ginseng had a long history that may go back thousands of years, its significant expansion in pharmaceutical applications, thus its role in maritime trade, has only a short history (less than five centuries).


i. Pacific Spaces: Comparisons and Connections

• In the 1990s, over 75 percent of ginseng grown in North America is shipped to Hong Kong. It is estimated that 80 percent of the ginseng traded in Hong Kong is re-exported to China. The other 20 percent is redistributed to the Chinese diasporas or used for local consumption

• According to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) Annual Report data, Canada exported 2,442 tons of wild and cultivated North American ginseng root to Hong Kong from 1980 to 1996 while the United States exported nearly 9,000 tons.


ii. Early Modern and Modern Times

Hong Kong herbalist

store

Ginseng in Namdaemun Market, Seoul, South Korea

Year Price1714 10 timesthe weight of silver1750 16 times1763 32 times1782 85 times1796 300 times

Rapidly Changing Value of Ginseng in the 18th Century


ii. Early Modern and Modern Times

II. The Tale of Ginseng: A Curious History

Wang Shih-min (1592-1680). View of Chang-pai Mountains. Courtesy of National Palace Museum, Beijing.

Korean White Ginseng


i. In Chinese Documents

• The term “pen-ts’ao 本草 ,” for many years the general term for Chinese pharmaceutics, literally refers to the use of root as medicine. It’s first use can be traced back to the Chinese chronicle Hanshu 漢書 (completed in A.D. 111).

• Ginseng was first mentioned in the Chinese dictionary Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (completed in A.D. 100), in which the plant is written as “ 人薓 .” Today the Chinese generally write “ 人參” or “ 人蔘 ,” which are actually late phonetic borrowings.

The Shen-nung pen-ts’ao ching 神農本草經 describes ginseng as:

– “sweet and slightly chill”– “it atones the five tsang 臟 organs, appeases the nerves, fixes the

soul, stops nervosity, eliminates the pathogenic ch’i 氣 , improves eyesight, enlightens the heart and sharpens the mind”

Shen-nung pen-ts’ao ching is said the oldest known Chinese book on agriculture and medicinal plants. Its origin has been attributed to the mythical Chinese emperor Shen-nung, who was said to have lived around 2800 BC. Researchers hypothesize that it is a compilation of oral traditions written between about 300 B.C. and 200 AD. The original text no longer exists but is said to have been composed of three volumes containing 365 entries on medicaments and their description.



Illustrations of a variety of “Seng” in Pen-tsao kang-mu 本草綱目 (Compendium of Materia Medica) by Li Shih-chen 李時珍 (1518-1593)



tzi-shen 紫參 tan-shen 丹參 yuan-shen 元參(Purple ginseng) (Red ginseng) (Black ginseng)

sha-shen 沙參 k’u-shen 苦參(Sand ginseng) (Bitter ginseng)

ren-shen 人參(Man’s root)

According to modern botany, the so-called “Asian Ginseng” includes:

panax ginseng (renshen 人蔘 ) Araliaceae

codonopsis pilosula (dangshen 黨蔘 )

Campanulaceae

adenophora tetraphylla (nanshashen 南沙蔘 )

sophora flavescens ait. (kushen 苦參 ) Fabaceae

pseudostellaria heterophylla (taizishen 太子蔘 ) Caryophyllaceae

polygonum bistorta (quanshen 拳蔘 )

Polygonaceae

glehnia littoralis (beishashen 北沙蔘 ) Apiaceae

Asterids

Rosids

CoreEudicots


ii. In Pharmaceutics and Botany

(1) Tang-shen 黨參 , the “Seng” originally from northern China

(2) Liao-shen 遼參 , the “Seng” later on discovered in Manchuria

(3) Kao-li-shen 高麗參 , the “Seng” traded in from Korea

(4) Hua-chi-shen 花旗參 , the “Seng” coming in all the way from North America

8

Route of “Discovery”: Northern China → Manchuria → Korea → North America

Both its Asian and North American kinds grow in the wild under shaded forests between 30 and 50 degrees latitude.


iii. In Natural History and Geology

III. Markets and the Fluidity of Knowledge

Hsü Pen (1335-1393), “Reading Poems with Wine under the Mountains”, courtesy by Wu Xi Municipal Museum.

• It is widely recognized that, in economics, markets and information often have an interplay in terms of their interactive relations to the influence of each other.

• People are more used to the idea that some sort of “discovering in knowledge” throwing the door open for the “discovery of things” before such things create a commercial market.

• In the wielding development of the “seng” story, we have an outstanding case whereby the discovery of the object prepared the socio-cultural grounds for the construction of a new herbal-medicinal understanding.


i. Markets and Knowledge of Ginseng

• [The tang-shen,.which is native to north China, has long been used pharmaceutically at least since the Common Era.]

• [The traditional northern medical school favored purgatory and depleting treatments using severe and punishing medicinal ingredients.]

• [Starting from the 12th century, southern physicians came forth with an advocacy of an enhancing and nurturing approach known as “warm supplement” using ginseng, known to be pharmaceutically “warm”, as the main ingredient.]

• [From the 17th century onwards, China’s nouveau riche indulged themselves in expansive life-saving rhetoric; the demand for ginseng outpaced the supply owing to its extensive use, leading to a relentless price surge and the import of vast amount of Manchurian liao-shen, and eventually Korean kao-li-shen.]

• It was clear that the Chinese doctors and their customers were ready to stretch their acceptance of ginseng of more than their native kind and certainly from more than one places.


ii. Ginseng Knowledge and Markets in China: North → South

• [The 18th century saw the rise of a powerful intellectual tradition for the omnipresent need of the forces of “warm supplement” in everyday life as well as medical treatment.]

• The creation of knowledge informed and then supplied the informational condition to pull open the door for the making and perpetuation of the demand in economic terms.

• [The “western ginseng” or American ginseng, first discovered in the great lake area in the 18th century, was found to be pharmaceutically “cool”.]

• It brought forth yet another totally new brand of Chinese herbal-medicinal theory called the notion school of “cool supplement” in the early 19th century.


iii. Markets and the Change of Pharmaceutical Knowledge in China

IV. The Maritime Story – the “Seng” that Moves across Continents as well as Oceans

Wen Cheng-min (1470-1559), “Clouds and Mountains,” courtesy of Palace Museum, Beijing.


i. Ginseng across Boundaries

• Given the nature and substance of our “Seng” story, national historiography or regional discourse, whether from the Chinese/Korean end, or from the Canadian/US end, will not be adequate to tell the tale.

• When Manchurian ginseng and later Korean ginseng made their entry into the Chinese markets, it was clear that information and markets recognized few boundaries.

• By the early 18th century and onward, when various wild ginseng productions still fall short of supplying the growing need of this pan oceanic roots, newly arrived foreign parties such as the French Jesuits, the Siberian fur hunters, were all falling for the fantasy name of search for the magical roots beyond everybody’s known border.


ii. Missionaries and the “Popularity of Ginseng”

• Fur traders and Jesuits in that region were but latest additions to an already multi-regional enterprise.

• Father Pierre Jartoux (1661-1728), a Jesuit who went to Manchuria to draw a map for the emperor K’ang-hsi (r. 1661-1722), discovered the popularity of ginseng in local market.

• He wrote a letter reporting the discovery and popularity of ginseng in 1711 and sent it back to Paris. It was later translated and published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions in 1713.

Informed by Father Jartoux’s letter, Father Joseph-François Lafitau (1681-1746) who worked in Quebec and Montreal realized the popularity of Ginseng in Chinese market and began to promote the search and dig of Ginseng in North America, and publish his report on Ginseng in 1718.


ii. Missionaries and the “Popularity of Ginseng”

Illustration of American ginseng from Joseph-François Lafitau, Mémoire … concernant la précieuse plante du gin-seng de Tartarie, découverte en Canada, Paris, 1718. (Image from the Collections of John Carter Brown Library.)

JesuitsJesuits passed on information of Ginseng from China to Europe to North America

American ginseng came to China as maritime cargo

Fur tradersFur traders travelled between Eurasia and North America

• Critical twists and turns:

(a) the global networking of the Jesuits(b) the on-spot translation and shrewd connection of the fur traders in Siberia

and North America, and(c) the intellectual and clinical flexibility of Chinese medicine and herbalists

V. Afterthoughts

This picture is taken from the Dictionnaire encyclopédique Trousset, also known as the Trousset encyclopedia, Paris, 1886-1891.

V. Afterthoughts

• The main body of this study, then, is an exercise to show how new economic and pharmaceutical (even epistemological) possibilities were thrown open with the coming of the “maritime” age that move across borderlands and tested the frontiers of knowledge and frontiers of trade.

• The case is chosen to help us reflect upon the novel, outlandish character that maritime/global history turns out to be in the longue durée of the unfolding of man-made records.

Wang Shih-min (1592-1680). View of Changbai Mountains. Courtesy of National Palace Museum, Beijing.

Maria Sibylla Merian(1647–1717)

Here is another example that has been familiar to residents of southern California

“Là, sui monti dell'est,” from Giacomo Puccini’s (1858–1924) opera Turandot, adopted from the 17th Chinese tune “Jasmine Flower”

Thank you!Thank you!