4 - Re-perfuming China

Summary

Alongside the grand scheme of deodorization, the arrival of a variety of mass-manufactured scents instigated an olfactory revolution in everyday life, feeding new sensory data into Chinese bodies and neurons. Drawing on trade statistics, advertisements, and corporate archives, Chapter 4 restores the materiality of the changing smellscape, exploring both imported scents and domestically produced perfumes, with special attention to state-of-the-art synthetic scents that invaded and contaminated the sensorium. Equipped with industrialism, capitalism, consumerism, science, and nationalism, this revolution’s key battlefield was none other than the human body. The regulation and management of its odours were intended to transform the body into a consumer object. The thrust of my inquiry is the question of how the united forces of olfactory modernity tuned neurons to accept new scents, and how the body was re-educated to internalize a new set of codes, values, and aesthetics.