| dc.description.abstract | When people nowadays have varieties of cleaning products at his/her disposal such as shampoo, bathing gel, face wash, hand cleanser, laundry detergent, laundry soap etc., people in Taiwan have already changed their traditional habit of using natural cleansers into chemical soaps a hundred year ago under the influence of Japanese. In this transition from natural tê-khoo to chemical sat bǔn, my dissertation mainly focuses on the following three aspects:
(1)The reasons of changing and the cleansing habits of Taiwanese during the early
Japanese Occupation:Before soaps were widely spread, people in Taiwan mostly used the natural tê-khoo or Soapberry to clean their clothes or body. However, with the enactment of all kinds of hygiene policies provided by the colonial government, Taiwanese people gradually changed their sanitary notions and the cleaning ways. The transition led to the daily increasing demand for soaps and the boost of soap industry.
(2)The production and promotion of soaps in Taiwan during Japanese Occupation Period:At first, those who used soaps in Taiwan were mainly Japanese. Soaps got their popularity in Taiwan with the advance of Japanese culture. The most produced and used one was the cleansing soap. In order to increase the public’s purchasing interests, businessmen and agents in soap industry exhibited and publicized their soaps through every promotion activities such as sales activities, exhibitions, advertisements etc.
(3)The situation of soap usage in the life of Taiwanese during Japanese Occupation:
In this period, soaps were chiefly used for cleaning clothes, followed by body wash as the second common purpose. Environmental or utensil cleaning was the least common usage. After 1930, except for the poorest, it’s very usual to have every household wash clothes with cleansing soaps. In the aspect of body wash, the frequency of using soaps was lower than for clothes wash. However, comparing with the early period of Japanese occupation, soaps for body cleaning was more general even though people didn’t take a bath everyday. The medicated soap with specific purpose was predominantly used for the prevention of contagious disease, such as disinfecting household goods or the living environment. Some public areas such as outdoor bathing pools or the barbershops, in order to maintain hygienic condition of all, would highlight their application of soaps in particular.
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