*Chen Liji Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture

*Chen Liji Traditional Chinese Medicine Culture

Nominating Unit: Guangzhou Chen Liji’s Medicine Factory

Chen Liji Pharmaceutical Factory, located in Guangzhou, is an important representative of Chinese traditional medicine and has been known as “Guang Yao”. In Wanli years of the Ming Dynasty, Chen Tiquan and Li Shengzuo worked together with an agreement to help the people and let the goodness stay long so that a Chinese herbal medicine store Chen Liji was established and named after the two partners with their surnames plus Ji (means help). It has been 400 years since then. Because of the surprising effect of the medicine, Emperor Tongzhi in the late Qing Dynasty honorably gave the name “Xinghetang”, which was registered as a brand name and is still in use today, so it is also called “Xinghetang Chen Liji”. At the very beginning in the late Qing Dynasty and the first years of the Republic of China, Chen Liji only manufactured in small scale. But from then to 1940s, as it gained fame, it set up branches in Foshan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Macao, Singapore and Taiwan, and expanded into Guangzhou Chen Liji Joint Pharmaceutical Factory after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, entering into a new period of development.

Based on the establishing principle of working together to help the people, the company formed a core culture of Chen Liji traditional Chinese medicine in the following several hundred years and formulated a set of rules and principles with rich culture content. Sticking to the pharmaceutical principle of “however complicated the technique is, never skip procedures; however various the odor is, never reduce materials”, the company makes medicine from the top-grade materials, using materials which is exactly needed, doing what is exactly asked, putting quality at the first place. The couplet of the company emphasizes the importance of the patient, the technique and the ethics of making drugs. Its name, “Xinghetang – helping people get rid of illness”, suggest a spirit of humanitarianism while it treats and gives prescription to every patient they meet. Since its establishment, Chen Liji has been dedicated to collecting ancient prescriptions, proved and secret recipes among the people, attaching great importance to inherit ancient culture of the Chinese medicine while at the same time developing new formulas and new techniques. 300 years ago it initiated the unique skill to make spills enwrapped by wax to protect things from wet, mildew and moth, which has been used till now with honor. Drugs manufactured at the same time, for example Dahuoluowan (large bolus for activating channels and collaterals), wujibaifengwan (White Phoenix bolus of black-bone chicken), Zhuifengsuhewan (Zhuifeng so hop pills) and the later made pills to strengthen the waist and kidney as well as the capsule to cure the throat illness, are famous in and abroad for its top quality and effectiveness, indicating its cultural character of rich in creativeness.(https://www.daowen.com)

As one of the earliest scale production bodies of the Chinese medicine, Chen Liji has been listed as an old and famous shop or enterprise for its long history. Guangzhou attaches great importance to the protection of the culture of Chen Liji traditional Chinese medicine and built a large scale Chen Liji traditional Chinese medicine museum. But due to the long span of time as well as the twist and turns it went through, many precious resources and material have been scattered or lost, which needs urgent excavation, collection and salvation.

Chen Liji traditional Chinese medicine was selected into the list of the second batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage in 2008.