Feng Gensheng: The Merchant Master
Despite his devotion to tradition, Feng Gensheng is an icon of the decades since China’s reform and opening up. His titles include the last inheritor of Hu Qing Yu Tang drugstore, sole inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sector, and longestserving head of a Chinese state-owned enterprise. And he continues operating the company at the age of 82.
Founded by Hu Xueyan, a notable businessman in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Hu Qing Yu Tang drugstore opened for business 142 years ago. Feng Gensheng began working at Hu Qing Yu Tang at the age of 14. By 2016, he has spent 68 years with the company.
Over the past nearly one and half centuries, the company has developed its profound culture of TCM – uncompromising quality – Feng and his colleague pharmacists have been taught and followed from day one they started working for this drugstore. Unlike Western drugs, Chinese herbal medicines require boiling, frying, baking and many other complex production procedures. “As an apprentice, I spent 10 hours a day in the factory year-round,” Feng recalls. “I learned to endure hardship. Later I was transferred to the extraction department, where I worked 16 hours a day for two years straight. Over 100,000 prescriptions went through me during that period.”
After so many years, Feng Gensheng has memorized the quality, potency and efficacy of over 2,000 types of medicinal materials and shown effortless mastery of medicine making.
When it was first established in 1874, Hu Qing Yu Tang drugstore featured a workshop with a shop in front and a factory at the back. After becoming a public-private partnership in 1956, the company changed its name to Hu Qing Yu Tang Chinese Medicine Store. In 1972, the original factory was split into two subdivisions. The original factory was renamed Hangzhou No.1 Traditional Chinese Medicine Factory. The other, in the outer suburbs west of Hangzhou, was upgraded and became Hangzhou’s second Chinese medicine factory, with Feng Gensheng as its director.
After assuming office, Feng carried out major technological transformation in the factory, improving production lines, and introducing automatic extraction and mechanized packaging. He ushered the making of Chinese medicine into the era of large-scale industrial production. Along the way, the factory was expanded and its buildings improved. In June 1982, journalist William Sexton of the Associated Press reported the drugstore is like any other advanced biochemistry research center in Boston or New York, but for TCM.
Ultimately, the century-old Hangzhou No.1 Traditional Chinese Medicine Factory had been encountering more and more difficulties in the tide of market economy, and teetered on the verge of bankruptcy in 1996 due to inefficient management.
Buying it back was full of risks, but Feng Gensheng did not hesitate to take the chance. Afterwards, he changed the traditional business models and proposed promoting the brand with its reputation, famous physicians and high-quality drugs. Incorporating modern ways of commercial operation in his traditional drug business, Feng opened “Clinics of Famous Physicians,” established Hu Qing Yu Tang Pharmacy, and launched the Hu Qing Yu Tang Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicines. With Feng Gensheng at the helm, Hu Qing Yu Tang’s business scale, brand value and cultural reputation continued to improve.
From a small traditional workshop 140 years ago, Hu Qing Yu Tang has evolved into a large modern Chinese medicine company. Some media reports have called Feng Gensheng “bold.” In his mind, the most important task is maintaining this spirit. “If I lost my bold spirit, I would not be the Feng Gensheng I’ve come to know.”
Feng Gensheng is the longest-serving head of a Chinese state-owned enterprise and he continues operating the company at the age of 82.