Some Asian menstrual products:
Japan:
Emil tampon, 1974
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"Origami" tampon: Anshin (Japan,
1977) Tampons, box, directions. Origami applicator. (Tambrands gift, 1997) It's the same as Ortex
Gold and Cameo tampons.
Cellopon (Japan, 1968) Box, instructions, tampons.
No applicator. With a discussion of the mutual influence
of European and Japanese art & an example
from Van Gogh.
Elldy (Japan) tampon with finger
cots, box - ad in Junie magazine (October
1996).
Shampon Young stick tampon (Japan, 1977)
Japanese pads and belts,
early 20th century: instructions for making
the so-called uma (pony or horse, because it
resembled in function the device on horses to catch feces).
Ads for Japanese commercial
menstrual belts from the early 20th century with
a comparison with the English source of the drawing: Aubrey Beardsley, England's
best artist (just my opinion).
Early 20th century ads
for Japanese menstrual belts, pads & underpants with some translation.
Thailand:
Thai magazine ad, date?
China:
Chinese pad and belt (2000)
Chinese pad, Anerle
Chinese panty pad, Huitlao
India:
Washable menstrual pads for women in Almora,
Uttar Pradesh state, India, giving them
more freedom (1999).
Teaching girls in rural southern Rajasthan about
puberty, menstruation and how to make washable menstrual pads.
More recent information about menstrual
management in India with an article critical of this
museum.
Some tampon curiosities: L & F [Lehn &
Fink] Improved Tampons (U.S.A., 1930s-1940s?) Box,
instructions, some tampons. From the company that made Lysol.
- Medical tampons mentioned in newspapers, U.S.A.,
1894-1921 - o.b. folder, Germany, early 1950s
(tells what o.b. means!)
 
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MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH
Pine menstrual tampons, Japan, 1977
Much of what I said about Emil tampons could
be written about this one, Pine. Both have Western names written in a Western
alphabet as well as in a Japanese phonetic script. I think this betrays
the foreignness of tampons in Japan; Japanese
women seemed to prefer pad-like devices to soak
up menstrual blood.
Both look very much like the Tampax of the
time: cardboard tubes & cotton plug (the absorbing part), just like
the near contemporary British St Michael tampon.
All three avoided plastic delivery tubes and super-absorbent
material unlike the ill-starred Rely that appeared
just a few years later.
But EMIL - sounds very un-Japanese to me
and male. This could be the Japanese version
of a Western tampon.
The pine tree is a revered part of Japanese culture.
The Japanese have developed or marketed interesting tampons, including
one with cots to protect the fingers.
My knowledge of the Japanese language is primitive but I've tried to
point out some interesting aspects of Pine. But read some Japanese
words and euphemisms associated with menstruation.
Tampon directory. Related
products in the column at left.
I thank the former Tambrands, once maker of Tampax
tampons, for donating this box!
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Below: Tambrands sent these boxes bound
by a strip of taped (Japanese?) paper
annotated as shown. The identical boxes measure
5 1/8 x 3 1/8 x 1 1/4" (13 x 7.7 x 2.9 cm).
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Below: The cellophane wrapping reveals
itself by the shadows cast from the upper labels.
Did Tambrand operatives - Tamhands, if you
will or even if you won't - write on and stick the labels?
The red band rrrrips off to open the cellophane.
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Below: At far left on the above box sits
(on its tail) this combination of Japanese kana characters
(snatched from the Chinese about 2000 years ago to give the Japanese their
first writing) - the first
seven characters, at left - and katakana, the
phonetic script Japanese use for foreign words as here for
the sound of "Pine tampon." Katakana developed from kana long
ago.
The whole thing reads
Internal--use menstrual product [American tampons
have said this since the beginning - and here]
Pine tampon.
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Below: A combination of the other phonetic
script, hiragana - the first four characters -
and katakana. The hiragana sounds out the Japanese word
oshare [a MUM visitor corrected my pronunciation
& reading to mean fashionable, stylish, or smart]
and the katakana sounds out the English word
tampon
So Pine is a tampon that's fashionable.
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Below: The other large side of the box.
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Below, two pictures: the sides of the box.
Japanese has its own number characters that can often be - no surprise here!
- pronounced
in different ways. But they also use Western numbers when it suits
them. Mysterious Japan!
Someone once wrote that Japanese is the most unnecessarily difficult language.
The Japanese journalist
grandfather of a friend suggested to the American occupiers of Japan right
after WWII that the
country adopt English as its language. But Japanese would lose thousands
of years of written culture.
And they like being different and inscrutable.
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Below: The first two characters of the
tiny string of kana on the left side of the
box beginning at the red band is the
end of my translation attempts (well, almost):
the first one means river, the second tree, root, book,
this, or the unit (counter) for cylinders (like tampons); one possible
pronunciation of the combination
is KAWAMOTO, the company name written in Western script
under the blue logo at far left that I enlarged below.
The Japanese language is infamously ambiguous.
The line reads
KAWAMOTO BANDAGE CORPORATION
Interesting, isn't it, that both Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark made bandages as well as
menstrual supplies? Kotex allegedly started
out as a bandage for American soldiers in World War I.
Emergency medical crews sometimes use it as a bandage today. When it was
possible to rummage through
the actual boxes of patents in the U.S. Patent Office - can you today? -
the menstrual pads,
tampons,
belts and panties were in the bandage
section.
Both deal with wounds,
one in the womb.
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Below: The address
of the company. The first two kana mean the city Osaka. O
- the first character -
is usually interpreted as a man with outstretched arms and means big.
Of course, Chinese invented most of these characters,
although the Japanese devised the phonetic scripts
and borrowed the kanji from the Chinese. The underlying languages are very different.
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Below, two pictures:
The ends. The box cost 220 yen.
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© 2009 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
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