THE FASHIONABLE BRAND

Named after a famous shopping street and district in Peking, and marketed mostly in Shanghai , it was the cigarette that gangsters, movie stars, dancing girls, and all the fashionable people smoked: Hata Men Cigarettes.

1930'S ADVERTISING POSTER WITH CHOU HSUEN

I'd love to tell you what they were like, but they aren't available locally, and probably aren't even made anymore. The poster above shows a famous movie star dreamily indulging in a cigarette. I suspect that they must have been Virginia-style leaf, possibly grown in country.

The landmark that gave the district, street, and cigarette its name is also gone. One of the city gates of the capitol, many of which were torn down in the fifties and sixties.
The old Hatamen railway station, I've heard, still stands.

HATA MEN - PEKING CITY GATE

That era, those cigarettes, and the famous stars whose willowy forms graced the advertising posters for them, are now impossibly distant. One would have to be past a hundred to have experienced all that in one's youth.

Smoking the modern brands does not recapture the fragrance.
Jasmine tea and a Camel straight; a faint echo.
Cold weather. Moonlight.



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