1. Dylan Mulvey
Prof. Stephen Platt
JYW in History: China and the U.S.
10 November 2016
Carl Crow and the Chinese Fear of Exploitation
On the streets of Shanghai during the height of the Chinese Republic stood two American
businessmen with aspirations of grandeur. One was a man by the name of Carl Crow – a prominent
head of a Shanghai advertising firm who was well-seasoned in the cultural ties between the two
nations, after having entrenched himself in China for over a decade – and the other was his client. In
their midst sat several small packets, each containing a dozen needles with varying degrees of size. For
Carl Crow and his client, these needles were wholly unremarkable and by no means dissimilar to the
countless other needles they had come across throughout their lifetimes; merely an avenue to turn a
quick profit. After all, as Crow and his partner reasoned, the needles were of utility to all Chinese,
seemingly blind to their economic situations. The illusions of Carl Crow and his partner would soon
shatter, however, as they were approached by their first customer, a native Chinese woman.
The first red flag signaled to Carl Crow was the way in which the woman, upon opening the
packet of needles, proceeded to meticulously count each individual needle, so as to assure that all
twelve were rightly accounted for. By the time the woman had begun to measure the needles and
requested that Crow and his partner provide her with a twelve needles of uniform length to her
specifications, Crow had understood the mistake he had made; for this woman was not an outlier in the
sea of Chinese consumers, but rather the standard. After a series of similar exchanges had transpired,
Carl Crow and his client were more than ready to cut their losses, with Crow going as far as to describe
the situation abusive. As Crow was keen to point out, albeit with flares of jaundiced, the attitude this
woman, and the many others like her, held was one in which she genuinely believed that the two needle

2. vendors were out to manipulate her and give her a rotten deal.1
Crow's experience with the needles is
just one of many scenes that show a divide between the expectations of Western businessmen and the
reality that is the Chinese consumer. Together with his anecdote about cigarettes, the needle episode
represents a much larger trend among Chinese as a whole, one which illustrates skepticism and fear of
exploitation by the West.
Early on in his career as an advertising agent in Shanghai, Crow experienced first-hand the
Chinese fears and skepticism towards foreigners. Working on a project that aimed to improve the sales
of American cigarettes among the Chinese, Crow was committed to promoting the blended cigarettes
which were immensely popular throughout the United States. The primary competition was a brand of
British cigarettes, packed with tobacco of a goldenrod hue. As Crow and his team had finished
developing a strategy for advertising the cigarettes, a campaign in which he described as one of the
best, the vendors were ready to stock their shelves with the American blended cigarettes. The packages,
marked in both Chinese and English print in red and gold font, featured the image of a scenic
landscape while posters displayed a smiling Chinese woman, young and beautiful, with her gaze
directed slightly out of focus and a cigarette in hand.2
The optimism of Crow and his clients soon faded,
for the cigarette packages would continue to align the shelves, unmoved and undesired. Not a single
Chinese was interested in experimenting with the blended cigarettes that were being marketed by the
Americans.3
The prudence of the Chinese shows a degree of brand loyalty on the part of the Chinese, to
which Crow himself attributes the failure of the cigarette campaign, but also a skepticism of
Americans. The way in which the overwhelming majority of Chinese were unwilling to deviate from
the established brand of cigarettes that they were familiar with indicates that there existed a level of
anxiety among the Chinese population in regards to purchasing foreign products. They understood what
they were getting when they purchased the British cigarettes and saw no appeal taking the risk of
1 Carl Crow. Four Hundred Million Customers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937. 28-31), 28-31.
2 Embassy Virginia Cigarette. 1930s.
3 Carl Crow. Four Hundred Million Customers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937. 28-31), 16-20.

3. experimenting with other brands. Furthermore, there was another instance involving the sale of
American cigarettes in Shanghai in which an advertising poster for cigarettes displayed an open
package containing nine cigarettes, while the package in fact contained ten in total. Although it was not
obvious at the time, the disparity of cigarettes in the poster came with grave ramifications, for all of the
posters would have to be disposed of.4
This is in many ways reminiscent of Crow's later experience with the needles. On the surface
level, both of these stories show that the Chinese were willing to demand that they receive exactly what
they required, with little room for compromise. It did not matter if they were selling twelve needles for
the price of one, the Chinese woman was unwilling to pay unless every individual needle was the exact
size that she preferred. In the case of the cigarette advertisement, the ten cigarettes in the package,
when advertisement showed only nine, was met with skepticism and the Chinese were left only to
conclude that it was a trick and the Americans were trying to rip them off. The Chinese in both of these
cases required that the product met their strict expectations. Likewise, the failure of the Americans to
successfully implement an advertising strategy that would see a rise in the sale of their cigarettes
among the native population shows that the Chinese were stubborn and feared being exploited by being
tricked in to purchasing a lesser quality product.
On the larger scale, the attitudes of the Chinese towards Americans reflects the defeatist culture
that had been created by the widely perceived mistreatment of China on a global scale. China had been
the victim of several conflicts at the hands of foreigners starting with the Opium War against the British
in the middle of the nineteenth century. The war culminated in the signing of a treaty that was seen as
punitive and having taken advantage of China. This continued with the Sino-Japanese War and the
Boxer Rebellion, which likewise ended with China being forced to sign agreements which were highly
unfavorable. Although of these conflicts, the United States only participated in the Boxer Rebellion, the
mindset of the Chinese during this time was one in which the foreigners were constantly out to get
4 Carl Crow. Four Hundred Million Customers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937. 28-31), 20-21.

4. them, and by extension this included the Americans. It should come as no surprise that the native
Chinese were overly cautious when dealing with foreign merchants because for nearly an entire
century, foreigners had been exploiting the Chinese. In conclusion, the stubbornness of the Chinese that
was witnessed by American businessmen such as Carl Crow, which had manifested itself through a
skepticism of products such as needles and cigarettes, shows that the Chinese had a distinct fear of
being exploited by foreigners. As for the relations between China and the United States as a whole, it
appears as though the unfair treatment of China on the international level contributed to this outlook.