Food Culture and Overseas Trade

Traditional Chinese food culture often emphasizes that some animals and plants or their body parts have special balancing or healing functions for the human body. Trepang is a typical example of this theory concerning the relationship between the human body and the outside world. It also sheds light on reasons behind the great demand for trepang in China, especially in South China, during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911 ad). Chinese traders, most were from Fujian province, went all the way to Southeast Asia to import trepang to China when Chinese trepang could no longer satisfy the Chinese demand (see Figure 1.1). Therefore, in this chapter, I will show how a chain reaction occurs where food culture cultivates consumer needs, needs form a market, and then the market promotes trade, from a socio-historic perspective. Again, it is worth mentioning that the trepang trade between China and Southeast Asia in the Qing Dynasty show several interesting characteristics that are closely related to the change of trade pattern in the South China Sea during the time which will be discussed in this chapter. Figure 1.1 Map of Trepang Trade between China and Southeast Asis https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203060346/ef3b9dda-4c01-446c-bd31-de926af13d85/content/fig1_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>