Four Hundred Million Customers: The Experiences--Some Happy, Some Sad of an American in China and What They Taught Him

by Carl Crow, G. Saponjnikoff (Illustrator)

Four Hundred Million Customers (1937) is a collection of humorous essays and piquant anecdotes underpinned by well-informed insight and highlighted by witty drawings by G. Sapojnikoff. Like a bowl of salted peanuts, these vignettes make you want "more." The book was welcomed on its publication as the most entertaining and instructive introduction to the rapidly modernizing people of the new China and their resilient customs. While it has been taught in recent years at the Harvard Business School, the book — or at least its title — has been cited much more than read, usually to illustrate American illusions about the China market. Yet the book has lost none of its still perceptive insights into China, which is now more than triple "four hundred million."

"Crow, living in Shanghai [in the early twentieth century], wrote in a bemused manner about city dwellers. [While] Crow’s book was of little value to the China watcher of the 1950s and 1960s … once Chinese reform and opening took off after 1978, the clever city dwellers that Crow described in the 1930s are a far better guide to the China of today than [Edgar] Snow’s revolutionaries or [Pearl] Buck’s peasants.

"I have a former student, a successful businessman, who opened a factory in Shanghai a few months ago. On his reading stand he keeps a copy of Four Hundred Million Customers. ‘No other book,’ he said, ‘including many more contemporary works on the Chinese economy, provides as much insight into the business environment I face. And it helps me keep my sense of humor as I face the frustrations of doing business in China.’ No need to repeat the wonderful stories and phrases found in the book. Enjoy." —from the Introduction by Ezra F. Vogel

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Business, History, Essays, Asia

318 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1937

About the author

Carl Crow was a Missouri-born newspaperman, businessman, and author who managed several newspapers and then opened the first Western advertising agency in Shanghai, China. He ran the agency for 19 years, creating calendar advertisements and the so-called sexy China Girl poster. He was also founding editor of the Shanghai Evening Post.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Crow wrote 13 books; and his most popular book, 400 Million Customers (1937)won one of the early National Book Awards: the Most Original Book of 1937.

Carl Crow arrived in Shanghai in 1911 and made the city his home for a quarter of a century, working there as a journalist, newspaper proprietor, and groundbreaking ad-man. He also did stints as a hostage negotiator, emergency police sergeant, gentleman farmer, go-between for the American government, and propagandist. As his career progressed, so did the fortunes of Shanghai. The city transformed itself from a dull colonial backwater when Crow arrived, to the thriving and ruthless cosmopolitan metropolis of the 1930s.

Among Crow’s exploits were attending the negotiations in Peking which led to the fall of the Qing Dynasty, getting a scoop on the Japanese interference in China during the First World War, negotiating the release of a group of western hostages from a mountain bandit lair, and being one of the first westerners to journey up the Burma Road during the Second World War. He met and interviewed most of the major figures of the time, including Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, the Soong sisters, and Mao Zedong’s second-in-command Zhou En-lai. During the Second World War he worked for American intelligence alongside Owen Lattimore, co-ordinating US policies to support China against Japan.

Reviews

[Mark OMeara · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand Chinese business, read this book!

[Dong Luo · Rating 5 out of 5]

还不仅仅讲述的是广告商在上海的经商过程，他将百年前上海的社会阶级上至富人下至乞丐都观察到了并未带有色眼镜和偏见写在了书中，尽管部分文字毫不意外地彰显了白人至上主义，但整体瑕不掩瑜且极易品读欣赏。作者去重庆那段太好玩了，但也侧面反映当时挑担子抬轿子的人们赚钱太过辛苦，因此形成了极为默契成熟又不惹人厌的讨价还价模式；相较之下用长江泥土做蚕豆的加工厂完全是丧尽天良，经商可不能这么做，但奈何百年间许多食品安全问题相继曝光甚至还威胁了大部分人的安危，要么捂嘴要么从轻发落，这就是历史。

[Christopher Wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating snapshot on doing business in Shanghai 90 years ago. A great and easy read.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever written about China. Amazing how much of Crow's insight has stood the test of time. Also amazing how many aspects of China culture have stayed constant and how many have completely changed.

[Sy. C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. China really hasn't changed that much.

[Miaomiao Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

打广告是门学问，这得赶上人类学研究了吧😂
相比之下更喜欢作者另一本Foreign devils in flowery kindom，那本讲外国人在华经历会多一点，好多匪夷所思的搞笑外国事件，这一本更多的是有种“一百年多年过去了俺们老中还真是一点都没有变”的感觉（社畜读到外企那一章节简直流下泪水🥲