Original link: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/302
?The full text is easy to read and share: “If you don’t listen to others, you will be more satisfied with your life”: The education path of Vanessa, a menstrual sister
Text / Wang Yingzhi
In early May of this year, Kaina’s “Moon Brew Disc” was launched on the Taiwan fundraising platform. This is the first Taiwan-made menstrual disc, which can block the flow of menstrual blood and use muscles to control “when to expel blood”. Raised more than 10 million Taiwan dollars.
“Many people think that ‘physiological products’ are only sanitary pads, and they don’t know there are many options.” Zeng Yingfan, the founder of Taiwan’s local sanitary products brand “Kina”, said regretfully.
Zeng Yingfan, known as Vanessa, has the titles of “Menstrual Sister” and “Menstrual Leader”. From selling tampons to promoting children’s sex education, the gap between ordinary people’s knowledge of menstruation and physiological products is a gap she tries to fill.
In addition to sanitary napkins and menstrual pants, women’s menstrual period also includes tampons, moon cups and menstrual discs and other implantable products, all of which have been established in Europe and the United States for many years. However, due to various reasons, Taiwan’s sliver users account for less than 10% so far, and the moon cup is less than 1%. Zeng Yingfan is not afraid that the market is not big enough. It took 18 years to build a full range of Taiwan-made sanitary products, and squeezed a space for “non-sanitary napkins” on the store shelves.
Her name is tied to her period, and it’s not just because of Keena. Since 2004, Zeng Yingfan has been promoting menstruation knowledge on various platforms. Ten years ago, she searched the Internet for “cotton sliver”, and the first page was almost all her introduction. She also battled the myth of “the hymen will hurt” with netizens, telling worried men and women that menstrual freedom and women’s values should not be bound by a small piece of tissue.
“I’m generally happier if I don’t listen to others!” In an online interview, Zeng Yingfan’s voice was fast and enthusiastic.
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The shocking education of the sliver wall
Looking back on the starting point of this venture, it turned out to be the Eight Immortals Water Park. In 1999, in order to participate in the last class outing of the third year of high school, Zeng Yingfan secretly bought cotton slivers without telling his mother, and played with water all day during his menstrual period. She recalls the first experience very fondly, but she didn’t try to be a customer. In her mind, cotton sliver is not something that can be used every day.
The real shock came four years later. When she was an exchange student in the United States, the huge “cotton sliver wall” on the supermarket shelf was more than ten meters long. She couldn’t help but think, “Why did I use it, but I didn’t think it should be used?” This time, Zeng Yingfan officially invested Holding the sliver in his arms, he also decided to act as a purchasing agent and sell a tube-type sliver that is not yet available in Taiwan on the Internet platform.
It was only after Zeng Yingfan found out that he and his consumers didn’t like to use them, but they hardly knew cotton sliver. In the face of repeated questions from customers, she decided to make use of what she had learned from the Department of Educational Technology and began to share the knowledge about sliver and the evaluation experience of various brands one by one.
It was still the era of web 1.0. She started with the most popular e-newsletters and BBS, and has continued to this day as soon as she wrote it. Almost every article on Kaina’s blog and Facebook page is still written by her.
“This trip is very hard, but I like to let others know how hard it is. Openness and transparency are the only way. You will get a group of fans who make decisions after thinking,” Zeng Yingfan said. The joy of writing articles not only comes from profits, but also her experience of sharing new knowledge and growing together with customers.
Purchasing career ended with Zeng Yingfan’s return to Taiwan. As soon as she graduated from university, she negotiated the right to import Tampax, a major American company. Only when she registered the company and prepared the cargo ship, did she find out that tampons are medical equipment in Taiwan and require a license to import, losing the first place. next chance.
The license application process was complicated, but with the support of his parents, Zeng Yingfan slowly obtained the required qualifications, and once again negotiated to become the agent of Playtex, the second largest cotton sliver manufacturer in the United States. Unexpectedly, Playtex was acquired by other companies in 2007, and the plan that has not been officially signed broke again.
Once again, the effort was zero, which should have been a heavy blow. But Zeng Yingfan said she immediately made up her mind to create her own brand and no longer be controlled by any company. “No one can tell me who bought whom. I’m just so self-willed to do what I want.”
Behind the willfulness is also the stupidity of local steelmaking. For example, when Zeng Yingfan didn’t know the factory at first, he searched for the list of manufacturers on the paper on cotton sliver, wrote letters across the sea, and called to inquire. Another example is that the Israeli foundry that agreed to cooperate does not care about the brand reputation, but only requires enough order quantity. She couldn’t help laughing: “You know how frustrated I was (nervous)! I didn’t know who to sell to.”
All the struggles were written by Zeng Yingfan, every step of the obstacles and considerations are spread on the Internet, and if necessary, she has to “fight” against the netizens who oppose the implantation of sexual products, which is why she does not easily fake others – her creed Yes, fully absorb information in everything, and make your own choices. The frankness gradually attracted a group of “iron fans” who were keen to spread the knowledge of correct menstruation, and many of them became her like-minded friends in reality.
She described that iron fans are a group of people who “don’t listen to others”. They won’t give up trying because of social stereotypes, and because they trust their own judgment in everything, “they are very satisfied with their lives.”
“I can’t quantify how many people I influence, at least I see more and more girls living happily. All my articles and videos are for those who don’t know if this is good or not. There are more choices, and it doesn’t cost money.” She said with a smile that some iron fans still use sanitary pads instead of tampons or moon cups, but it’s good to make friends.
Uninterrupted communication finally knocked on the door for her. After Zeng Yingfan ordered the first batch of goods, a blog fan surfaced, stating that he was a purchaser at Watsons and was willing to put Kina tampons on the shelves. With the favor of cosmeceutical leaders, well-known channel cooperation also followed, and Kaina paid back three months after its establishment.
“I’m so lucky!” Zeng Yingfan shouted. But this is actually the way she has written word by word over the years.
Before opening new physiological products, popularize menstrual knowledge
Popularizing menstrual knowledge is also related to market continuity.
When Kaina launched the first Taiwan-made Moon Cup fundraising plan in 2015, because it was the “first case in Taiwan”, she spent a lot of effort to obtain a qualified report. In order to develop his Moon Cup, Zeng Yingfan often tried other brand products purchased abroad, and encouraged fans to share their experiences.
In 2017, Taiwan approved the Moon Cup as a secondary medical device. At that time, some people jointly proposed to completely remove the tampon and moon cup from the medical equipment. After the removal, not only will the sales and purchase threshold be greatly reduced, but women will also have more choices. Although she has gone through a hard road, when she talked about the issue of delisting, she quickly said that she could not support it at this stage.
Her reasoning is that consumers are very likely to buy inferior products when the basic knowledge is not yet popularized, or they will have problems if they do not know how to use them.
Zeng Yingfan said: “Unless the cotton sliver and the moon cup are included in the basic national textbooks and can be learned in the third and fourth grades of primary school, the rash opening of laws and regulations will only accelerate the destruction of the market.”
This worry has its own origin. As early as the 1970s, OB, a major manufacturer of physiological products, began to sell tampons in Taiwan; in 1980, the mysterious incident of the death of more than 1,000 tampon users in the United States within two years shocked the world.
In the following decades, the impression of most Taiwanese on cotton sliver is that “you will die if you use it”, and the budding cotton sliver market has been stagnant.
In the United States, a follow-up large-scale study found that these women used a new super suction tampon, which was not replaced for a long time, causing vaginal abrasions, and unfortunately encountered bacterial infection, which caused toxic shock syndrome ( TSS) and die. In fact, the incidence of TSS is only about 1 in 100,000. Paying attention to the absorption status and replacing it on time can greatly reduce the risk.
Later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration also carefully standardized the material of cotton sliver, and required each brand to use “water droplets” to uniformly mark the absorption amount. Consumers have a benchmark for comparison when purchasing, and it is safer to use.
One is trying to understand and regulate, and the other is fear and rejection. It is the gap between Taiwan and the United States in the “sliver wall”. Also because menstruation education has not been in-depth, until today, Taiwan has not gotten rid of this hidden worry. Taiwan’s imported cotton sliver mainly comes from Japan and the United States, and the absorption indicators of the two are not the same. Consumers can only buy by feeling, or spend more time comparing.
Zeng Yingfan admitted that because the knowledge of physiological products is not widespread enough, she has always worried that a TSS case will occur in Taiwan one day, which may seriously damage public confidence.
“I believe this (unified labeling) is something that Taiwan will deal with in the future,” she said.
From one point to the whole universe
There was also a period of time when she wrote almost all the sliver knowledge she could write. Fans would spontaneously spread her articles and ideas, and brand marketing was stable. Zeng Yingfan’s education enthusiasm seemed to turn warm.
What broke the peace was also the Moon Cup fundraising plan.
Jumping out of the stratosphere of tens of thousands of fans and facing the masses again, Zeng Yingfan realized that most people’s cognition still stays at “physiological products = sanitary napkins”, and disposable tampons may be the limit of understanding. Moon cups with a size of 6 or 7 cm are to be stuffed into the vagina? Can be placed in the body for 12 hours and can be reused for ten years? Everything was clearly too complicated and too magical.
“Many people think that the teaching of physiological products only takes 5 minutes, no, I can’t finish it in 2 hours!” Speaking of this, she became excited again.
In Zeng Yingfan’s eyes, there was only one point in the menstrual education in the past, that is, the sanitary napkin, which is completed by sticking it on and tearing it off; when it comes to tampons, it’s just a little more understanding of menstrual blood and vagina, which can be called a line; when it comes to the moon cup, menstruation Education has finally become a facet covering all points.
When many consumers are confused: “Sometimes the flow is large, sometimes the flow is small, should I choose a moon cup or a cotton sliver?” She was shocked that few people could think that each product has different characteristics and can be adapted to different occasions or Different flow every day during menstruation, do various combinations and changes.
The uterus and vagina are 3D, and there are many kinds of physiological products on the market, but people still stop thinking on the plane, just like the pictures in the health textbook. Zeng Yingfan finally understood that putting the four-dimensional space of menstruation in a girl’s head is the next goal.
The website ” Dayin Encyclopedia ” launched last year, Zeng Yingfan has included his blog articles for more than ten years, divided into three categories: menstruation, women and technology. Most importantly, she obtained the authorization of a 3D picture from France, from the vulva to the ovary, depicting the reproductive system in detail, so that people can drag left and right, zoom in and out, and understand the uniqueness of female organs.
Kaina also recruited an obstetrician and gynecologist to build a “uterus museum” in the game “Minecraft” to create a huge palace-like reproductive system. Players can see how the endometrium thickens and see The appearance of the moon cup stuck in the vagina, and the small characters symbolizing good bacteria and bad bacteria, faithfully present the inside of the uterus with a three-dimensional gamification design.
Zeng Yingfan said that after becoming a mother, she further realized that “girls are a more powerful species than boys”, she praised: “Our body will give birth to something with its own will, the origin of all this is menstruation, the uterus. The inner membrane is the first home of man.”
Menstrual education is sex education
After 18 years of menstruation education, Zeng Yingfan went from a young college student to a mother of 2 children. She used to mock herself as a “sliver radical”, but she became softer as she walked.
The leader who once advocated “revolutionary revolution” on his blog now reminds users that parents may be conservative in their thinking, and most of their worries are still out of love. Faced with parents who are worried about their daughter’s amputation, or that their daughter will not be forgiven by their partner, she will say that they can use it secretly and slowly educate their parents, but don’t quarrel, and don’t destroy family relationships for physiological supplies.
Seeing the love of the previous generation, Zeng Yingfan also saw the anxiety of his peers. The fans who grew up with her are now parents, and everyone wants to pass on the importance of menstrual education, but is not sure how to teach it.
The situation in the school field is even more uneven. Zeng Yingfan was often invited to go to schools at all levels to conduct “physiological supplies education”, but some school executives saw the content of “cotton sliver and moon cup” and suddenly canceled the speech because “the national conditions are not suitable”. It was 2020, and she still encountered this kind of thing.
“Menstrual education is sex education, and the most important sex education is family education,” she realized.
Zeng Yingfan knew that the school was afraid of the opinions of conservative parents and would not joke about work. But she knows best, who gave birth to two boys, that there is a group of parents who attach great importance to children’s sex education. They want to teach girls to understand menstruation well, and they also want to teach boys not to treat girls like pornography. It’s just that they also “learned sex education from pornography” when they were young, so they need someone to guide and learn together.
In the second half of 2021, Zeng Yingfan and a group of partners set up a non-profit organization “Do Not Teach Children Action Alliance” (abbreviated as “No Little League”), with the goal of promoting children’s sex education, menstrual education and menstrual equality support projects.
“It’s because we don’t know how to teach, so we have to study hard, and all parents who value sex education come together to study,” she said.
Zeng Yingfan said that after becoming a mother, she would feel that she was too slow, because children will grow up quickly, but education requires patience. But she, who never hits children, believes that as long as the concept of equality is discussed seriously, children can understand and there is nothing that cannot be taught.
“It doesn’t take three or five days to plant a seed in a person’s heart, but three or five years is fast. But the day he changes his behavior is a lifetime.” She commented on the path of education. (Finish)
About the Author｜ Wang Yingzhi (Master of Arts, Department of International Communication, National Chengchi University, Internet media worker. I believe everyone has their own pursuits.)
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The fully developed vaginal opening has a ring of elastic tissue, commonly known as “hymen” in Chinese. As the name suggests, many cultures see it as a testament to whether or not a woman has sexual experience. Although studies point to sex, exercise, and many other reasons for causing the tissue to bleed or shrink, many people still refuse medical consultations or tampons, as well as plastic surgery to rebuild the hymen. In order to break this myth, some people in recent years have also called for the medical community to rename it “vaginal crown”.
This article is reprinted from: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/302
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