Traditional sugar-making business lucrative in China
HAIKOU. — For the Spring Festival holiday, Wu Shaoyu managed to sell 230 000 yuan (US$36 400) of hand-made sugar online.
“It just shows that with proper sales channels, traditional craftsmanship will prove its value,” said Wu, an inheritor of Hainan traditional sugar-making, a craft that has received provincial-level recognition in south China’s Hainan Province.
She is also an online influencer, with followers of about 23 000, and her account has drawn nearly 106 000 likes on Douyin, a popular short-video app in China.
As a Hainan local, she keenly promotes the traditional hand-made sugar, hoping the craftsmanship will garner more public attention.
Wu grew up in Xuelan, a small village in the province’s Danzhou City, where most villagers made a living by growing sugarcanes.
“Every family knew how to make sugar by hand,” Wu said, as she recalled how locals made sugar sitting under a thatched shack with a big bowl.
“People would make square-shaped black sugar from the sugarcanes they grew and leave some sugar at home for the children as snacks,” she said.
“The rest of the sugar would be sold at the local rural market to boost family income. Those were memorable, sweet days.”
But the traditional sugar-making technique gradually lost popularity as the modern sugar-making industry burgeoned.
“Traditional sugar-making just faded out in my village, the number of villagers who had mastered the skills gradually declined,” she said.
“More importantly, individual villagers that grew and sold sugarcanes for a living slowly slipped into poverty.”
Wu used to work in the metropolis of Shanghai. Whenever she returned home, her father would complain about the situation.
“I am getting old, the big bowl at home is decaying, and the traditional sugar-making techniques are dying,” her father would often tell her.
“I will probably never be able to eat the homemade sugar again. I’m sad.”
These words struck a chord with Wu, and she decided to help pass on the old techniques.
“If we lose our tradition, we lose our ground,” she said.
In 2013, Wu gave up her career in Shanghai and returned to Xuelan Village to renew the prime of the sweet business.
She built a traditional sugar-making base with her father to help protect and pass on the craft.
“We had an old house, a cow to pull the millstone and big bowls to stew the sugar,” she said.
“The entire process is quite complicated, including 18 procedures.”
Wu realised that expanding new sales channels was essential for making traditional sugar better known among the public. So she chose to explore an emerging industry: short videos.
According to a report released by Shenzhen-based research firm AskCI Consulting, China had about 880 million online shortvideo users as of June 2021, and the number is expected to grow.
Another report published by CSM Media Research said nearly 42,8 percent of shortvideo users have started uploading their own video clips. — Xinhua.