The Fall of Tradition

“An Old and Established Name” is a fitting title for such a tale, because it is essentially a life story of the business The Fortune Silk Store.
“The Fortune Silk Store – an old and established name of years standing! – now demeaned itself into employing every kind of trick to rope in customers. Xin Dezhi’s mouth hung so far open in dismay that his face began to look like a dumpling that had split apart while boiling. An old hand, an old and established name, old rules – all had vanished along with Manager Qian, perhaps never to return again. Manager Qian had been very honest and gentlemanly, so much so, in fact, that the Fortune Silk store lost money.”
The business begins as a place that exercises solely on old rules, but as quickly as the leave of its old manager, its old customs are gone. There is a strong focus of the past practices of the Fortune Silk Store as a constant reminder and simply to emphasize how strong and important to these ideals once were. The old and established name was what the store sold; it did not need anything else.

However, because of the external forces of societal and cultural changes, the business cannot carry on to operate as it once did. It must change with the times in order to continue. Everything must change. The arrival of the new manager brings along with him the needed transformation. The old vanishes, and the new takes over. There is no return to the past even if one tries.

The life of The Fortune Silk Store embodies the conflict between the traditional culture and doctrine and the new and foreign western capitalism. The presence of capitalism in the city and in the country brought upon significant cultural change and cultural split in Chinese society in the 1930s. The changes in business operations resulted primarily from the increasing brutal competition and social transformation. There was a great urge to modernize simply to survive in the city, in the country, and in the world.

The demise of the old and established store symbolizes the losing battle of tradition against modernization. No matter how hard tradition fought, it cannot compete with the new, and ultimately, it will be overpowered. Honesty and simplicity can no longer guarantee survival; only facades and deceits can ensure a position in the new world.

Lao She’s “An Old and Established Name” is a direct representation of the struggles and failures in preserving the tradition in a new society as well as a clear representation of the conflicting inner turmoil of those helplessly affected by their surrounding environment.