From imperial elixirs to kopi-o: Tracing the opium trail in Asia
From emperors and opium dens to kopi-o myths and colonial trade, this is the story of how opium shaped culture, addiction, and power across China and Southeast Asia.
During the Ming dynasty over 400 years ago, Emperor Wanli was said to have added opium to his medical elixirs, which made him feel like he was floating in a celestial realm. He was so pleased that he bestowed upon opium the elegant name fu shou gao (福寿膏, lit. paste of fortune and longevity), giving it a hypnotic allure that suggested blessings and long life. In fact, opium is a death sentence that shatters one’s will; once addicted, it is hard to turn back.
Rich and poor alike hooked on the drug
During those centuries, Western empires — with their superior ships and firepower — expanded their overseas colonies, cultivated vast fields of poppies, processed it into opium, and sold it aggressively in foreign lands. Those who resisted were met with force. The trade enriched their own coffers, but devastated the bodies and minds of others. The two Opium Wars of over a century ago stained the annals of world civilisation, while the gentlemanly manners behind the Western aristocrats’ masks continued to deceive generation after generation.
Even as recently as 60 years ago, the mere mention of opium sent shivers down the spines of ordinary folk. My mother used to sternly warn me: once a person gets involved with opium, they become as good as useless, like our neighbour known as the “Opium Immortal” (鸦片仙). Not yet 50, he was unemployed with seven mouths to feed, all surviving on meager welfare assistance. His wife and daughters queued at church on Sundays to receive free powdered milk, which they then sold at low prices to fellow villagers. At times, they even swallowed their pride and trespassed into neighbours’ sweet potato fields to pick the leaves to cook, just to make it through the day.
Thanks to the British, Chinatown became packed with opium dens, and turf wars among gangs over drug profits were a frequent occurrence. The most severely affected were the labourers and prostitutes at the bottom of society.
As a child, my mother often warned me not to play at that neighbour’s house, but I would sneak over anyway. I was mainly curious — what was it like to smoke opium? What kind of allure did this “paste of fortune and longevity” have that left its users so entranced, so utterly possessed, that when their supply ran out and withdrawal hit, they would become a wailing, howling mess of mucus and tears?
Most of the time when I visited, our neighbour lay sprawled on a wooden bed, vacant-eyed, coughing weakly and gasping for breath, with his voice barely above a whisper. Even when he cursed at his wife or scolded his children, it came out like the muttering of a worn-out Taoist hermit — a hoarse, unopened voice box carrying the resignation of a soul that had long given up on the world.
Opium had poisoned lives in our region even before the Opium Wars between China and Britain. The British colonisers used Singapore as a transit hub, where opium produced in India was processed before being exported elsewhere. Thanks to the British, Chinatown became packed with opium dens, and turf wars among gangs over drug profits were a frequent occurrence. The most severely affected were the labourers and prostitutes at the bottom of society. Addicted but penniless, they could only afford the low-grade dregs of opium, derisively known as “opium residue”, increasing their chances of dying in misery.
Opium smokers at the time were split between the rich and the poor. In the late Qing and early Republican periods, some wealthy households even believed that instead of letting their second-generation heirs fall into gambling, debauchery and reckless squandering of the family fortune, it was better to have them hooked on opium; at least they would be confined to their opium beds, zombified and harmless. For the rich, smoking opium did not threaten their livelihood.
But when the poor got hooked, it often dragged the whole family into ruin. Many who were shackled to opium for life back then were manual labourers.
Movies and songs to help curb the addiction
During the late Qing period, opium became a prevalent theme in novels; it could even be considered a literary genre of its own. Novels from the 1950s and 1960s from Singapore and Malaysia also left behind vivid traces of opium smokers’ lives.
In that era of rampant opium use, cinema became a tool for moral correction. In the 1930s and 1940s, a legendary singer, movie star and rumoured companion to intelligence agents Li Hsiang-lan (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) starred in the film Eternity (《万世流芳》), which depicted Lin Zexu’s campaign to suppress opium. She played a candy seller who met a young opium addict in a smoky den, and from there unfolded a love story centered on persuading him to quit the drug.
Over a century ago, unable to resist the lure of vast profits, the British colonisers set up a factory at Opium Hill in Pasir Panjang (today’s Kent Ridge Park), where they processed and packaged Indian opium for distribution across the region. Historical records show that, at the time, nearly half of the colonial government’s revenue came from opium. I once came across historical photographs in the magazine BiblioAsia showing the Singapore colonial government running retail shops that openly sold opium.
While the colonial authorities peddled the drug publicly, local intellectuals not only condemned it, but also helped addicts overcome their dependence.
While the colonial authorities peddled the drug publicly, local intellectuals not only condemned it, but also helped addicts overcome their dependence. In the 1930s, the Singapore Anti-Opium Society ran an anti-opium clinic along Kampong Java Road. This colonial-style bungalow bore a sign that read “医院” (hospital) in Chinese, and “clinic” in English.
‘Opium’ kopi-o
Before Japan occupied Singapore in 1942, as many as a third of adult men were reported to be opium users. The opium processing factory built by the British on Opium Hill was accidentally destroyed during a Japanese air raid on Singapore. After the British forces surrendered, the Japanese swiftly repaired the facility and, following in their predecessors’ footsteps, continued the drug trade to reap profits.
How effective was opium’s “refreshing” effect? When I was young, I heard that some local coffee owed its addictive quality to the secret addition of a trace amount of opium. Coffee laced with opium for double the stimulation was a rumour we took with a grain of salt. What I did witness in my childhood, though, was people adding a slice of butter into their piping hot kopi-o (black coffee). I didn’t understand its appeal so I never felt inclined to try it.
The story goes that after opium addicts had their fill, their throats would become dry and sore, and a cup of this buttered coffee would help soothe it.
It wasn’t until I read a feature in Sarawak’s See Hua Daily News that I learned some coffee shops there promoted a gimmick called “opium coffee”. Of course, it didn’t actually contain opium — just a small pat of butter added to the brew.
The story goes that after opium addicts had their fill, their throats would become dry and sore, and a cup of this buttered coffee would help soothe it. Such a recipe is truly whimsical, but in today’s world where opium is no longer legally sold, coffee can still invoke curiosity about that chapter of living history through its lingering association with opium.
This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “福寿膏”.
