Sugar Water, Salt Water, and Bitter Water (on-going)
As a child, I was introduced to the sugar industry through my father, who leased sugarcane fields and hired workers to cultivate them. He sent large quantities of cane to the refinery, and I vividly recall the towering chimneys, the sweet scent in the air, and the hot, murky water being discharged into the river, eventually merging with the salt water of the sea. The rapid development of the Pearl River Delta in the 1990s led to the decline of the sugar industry. Many factories closed, and golf courses replaced farmland. My father, adapting to the changing times, shifted to a different line of work.
In Southern China, sugarcane cultivation and the sugar industry were overtaken by more lucrative industries, with much of the production moving to Southeast Asia, where labor and land were cheaper. Across the salty ocean in the Americas, sugar was deeply intertwined with the early plantation economy and the transatlantic slave trade. From the late 18th to early 19th century, sugar became "the first commodity to embody the capitalist relationship between labor productivity and consumption" (Mintz, Sweetness and Power), shaping the world-system and fueling the triangular trade.