The story with Tiger Balm: how ointment was created for each ailment, lost popularity and found a new generation of fans.
The analgesic balm in the hexagonal bank, launched by the Au brothers in Rangoon in 1924, has been one of the main medicines of Chinese families for a generation. Today, Tiger Balm products have fans worldwide, including Lady Gaga.
Approaching a plain factory quarter on a suburban estate on the outskirts of Singapore, you are amazed at the invigorating aroma of menthol and camphor. The sinuses are released, tingling in the eyes.
“None of the workers here are afraid to get sick. Even during the pandemic of the coronavirus Covid 19, ”jokes Han Ah Kuan, standing at the entrance to the factory.
Khan is the CEO of Haw Par Corporation, the company responsible for this powerful fragrance. He has ruffled gray hair, laid-back behavior and small hexagonal cans with tiger balm in his house, office and car. For almost a century, people in Asia and beyond have used his company's product to relieve muscle pain, cold symptoms, headaches, and more.

Former Hong Kong resident Andrea Tam recalls how her grandmother kept a tiny red jar of balm in one of her t-shirt pockets. “She literally used it for everything - from any cuts and pains,” she says.
British journalist Vicki Wong has a similar story. “Using tiger balm reminds me of my nanny,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what kind of ailment — a sore throat, a cold, nosebleeds, mosquito bites — it just puts a tiger balm on you.”
Khan refused to let tiger balm go into the shadows of the past since joining the company more than 25 years ago. He wants the product to continue to treat everyone: both athletes and children.
“Today I would say that our consumer demographic range is all age categories of people,” he says.
The history of tiger balm begins several generations ago in the rural province of Fujian in southern China. This is where, in the late 1860s, the herbalist's son Av Chu Kin went with his uncle to the Burmese city of Rangoon.
It was a long journey that led him through Singapore and Penang to Malaya, where he earned more per day by selling herbal remedies for dockers than a month before returning home.
By 1870, Av founded a balsam pharmacy in Rangoon. Three sons helped him: Au Bun Leong (“Tender Dragon”), Au Bun Ho (“Tender Tiger”) and Au Bun Par (“Tender Leopard”),
Boone Leong died young, and Father Au died in 1908, leaving the family business of Boone Par and Boone Hou. Together, they studied their father’s recipes and adapted them to produce anesthetic balm to treat any disease. When he appeared in 1924, Boon Hou named it after himself: tiger balm.
The product quickly spread all over the world in Chinese communities. While Boone Par focused on business management, Boone Hou sought to gain influence. He donated money to charities and schools and founded a number of newspapers in Singapore, Malaya and Hong Kong, including Sing Tao Daily and the Hong Kong Tiger Standard, which today is simply known as the Standard.
He also built mansions in Singapore, Hong Kong and Fujian with adjoining theme parks known as Tiger Balm Gardens. The gardens were furnished with bizarre and interesting statues in scenes from Chinese mythology.
The Hong Kong park was demolished in 2004 after it was sold to Boon Hou’s adopted daughter, Sally Au Sian, Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong Holdings. Singapore Park was donated to the city government, which supports it as a historical heritage.
The Tiger Balm business went through a period of struggle after the death of the Au brothers; Boone Par in 1944 and Boone Hou in 1954. Shortly after the company went public on the Singapore Stock Exchange in 1969, it was transferred to the British conglomerate Slater Walker, which soon crashed as a result of the banking crisis.
After a period of uncertainty, the Singaporean banker Dr. Wi Cho Yau gained control of Haw Par in 1981 and began restructuring the company. In 1992, Howard took over Tiger Balm Corporation, which had been franchising for 20 years during the Slater Walker period. By that time, the tiger was the shadow of its former self.
“When we took it back, the product lost almost a generation of users,” Khan says. He joined the company in 1992 after he received headhunting from Vicks VapoRub, one of Tiger Balm's direct competitors.

Khan was born in Malaysia, grew up in Singapore and, like most people in the state city, was familiar with tiger balm from his youth. But from a professional point of view, he saw the brand fighting for survival.
Khan was convinced that weakness stems from branding rather than product. Tiger balm acts by deceiving the nerve endings with a sensation of cooling and warming, interrupting other signals from muscle pain or itching insect bites.