Taiwan Sugar Museum

Taiwan Sugar Museum

Taiwan Sugar Industry Museum is a baroque building with a history of nearly 100 years in the development park of Taichung, Taiwan. During the Japanese occupation, it was the auditorium of Taiwan sugar industry. After years of baptism, it shows the charm of ancient buildings. The local plan is to be the sugar industry Museum on the island to show the development track of Taiwan's sugar industry.

Address of the library

The address of Taiwan Sugar museum is No.54, shengchan Road, Tainan City.

Development history

Taiwan, known as a "sweet island", has 188000 tons of sugar in the sugar season, while it consumes more than 500000 tons of sugar in the same period. The shortage of 300000 tons of sugar has to rely on imports. The transformation from a large-scale sugar exporter to a sugar importer reflects the rise and fall of Taiwan's sugar industry.

Sugar used to be the lifeblood of Taiwan's economy. Once upon a time, the budget of the Taiwan authorities depended on the export situation of the sugar industry, because the revenue of the sugar industry accounted for 70% of Taiwan's "fiscal revenue"; many people went out of the island to exchange US dollars, not to go to the bank, but to go to the Taiwan sugar company. At that time, only the Taiwan sugar company had a large amount of US dollar revenue.

However, the sugar industry only accounts for 30% of the total economy of Taiwan sugar company. Building shopping malls, building restaurants, opening gas stations, engaging in food processing, biotechnology, tourism and so on have become the focus of their business. The land resources accumulated due to the closure of sugar factories have become an important capital for Taiwan sugar to invest in industrial parks or science and technology parks. However, due to the economic downturn, Taiwan sugar has been unable to rely on land sales revenue to make up for its huge losses. This industry, which used to be the most profitable in Taiwan, has made a huge loss budget for the first time.

Taiwan has been a typical agricultural society for a long time. Sugarcane, rice and tea are the three major agricultural products on the island. The climate and soil of Taiwan island are very suitable for sugarcane production. At its peak, Taiwan had 170000 hectares of sugarcane planting land and 42 sugar factories, with the highest annual output of more than 1.4 million tons. At one time, 70% of the cargo handled in Kaohsiung port was sugar.

According to Taiwan's China times, a local people surnamed Lin said that according to genealogy and historical records, Lin lietang, a businessman on the island, ran the sugar industry in 1910; when Japan colonized Taiwan, the sugar factory was incorporated into Japan Sugar Co., Ltd. in 1941; after 1949, the Kuomintang authorities expropriated it as Taiwan sugar industry.

The development of sugar industry in Taiwan before the Japanese occupation

As early as the period of Dutch occupation, Taiwan began to make sugar. It can be said that Taiwan's sugar industry laid the foundation at this time. In the period of Zheng's ruling Taiwan, because of the emphasis on military grain, the sugar production in Taiwan decreased. In Qing Dynasty, Taiwan sugar was not encouraged, but not restricted. Therefore, the folk developed the form of Tanggu. Until the opening of Hong Kong due to the unequal treaties, Taiwan Sugar became an important international commodity.

Sugar industry in Holland

The development is mainly based on "Dutch East India Company". Before that, in Taiwan, deer skin was the main international trade commodity. After considering Taiwan's environment, the Netherlands decided to produce granulated sugar in Taiwan. In order to develop the sugar industry in Taiwan, the Netherlands introduced cattle and attracted Han Chinese to Taiwan, and changed the good farming methods. Therefore, no matter whether the result of its colonization of Taiwan is good or bad, the Netherlands has its contribution to the development of sugar industry.

Sugar industry in the early Qing Dynasty

In the early Qing Dynasty, the Qing government adopted a laissez faire policy in order to win over the people of Taiwan. Without the influence of the government, Taiwan's sugar industry has developed vigorously among the people. After the opening of Taiwan's port (1860), Taiwan's sugar industry became more prosperous. Despite the influence of the Qing French War (1883-1885) and typhoon (1886), Taiwan's sugar industry is still developing vigorously.

Sugar industry in the period of Japanese occupation

After the promulgation of "Taiwan Sugar Industry Award rules", many new Japanese sugar factories entered Taiwan. The productivity of the new sugar factories is far higher than that of the old sugar factories. Therefore, with the huge demand for raw materials, Taiwan's old sugar factories are not competitors at all. Even the improved sugar factories using machines are severely hit. Since then, Japanese capital has controlled Taiwan's sugar industry.

On February 16, 1898, er yuyuantaro became the fourth governor of Taiwan, and at the same time, goto Xinping became her right-hand man as the director of civil affairs. After more than eight years of dedicated operation in Taiwan, Mr. goto is regarded as the founder of Taiwan's modernization. Sugar is the industry he chose to promote as an important resource in Taiwan. The biological principles advocated by shinhei goto and the "survey of old habits" have laid a good foundation for the development of sugar industry.

In 1901, the governor's office promulgated the "rules of land acquisition" to support the "sugar making society" with strong power. At the same time, it also formulated a set of "raw material adoption area" laws and regulations to enable the society to buy sugarcane by force, and obtained a large amount of land from big landlords. Relatively, Taiwan farmers changed from serfs of big landlords to serfs of Japan. Therefore, there was a Taiwan proverb against this inequality.

The governor's office of Taiwan stipulated that the regional system of raw material harvesting and the price of sugarcane purchase were implemented. Therefore, sugarcane could not be transported to other regions, so that sugarcane farmers were bound to become the subsidiary of sugar capitalists. Therefore, there are some proverbs to express the inner injustice, such as "the first simple, planting sugarcane to the club", "Three Guarantees, 60 Jin".

It is reported that the general office of this Baroque building is located in the old industrial park of Taiwan sugar. The structure and interior of the building are well preserved. Taiwan sugar also intends to be a sugar industry Museum, which will collect the history of sugarcane planting and sugar making in the past, so that people can understand the development history of Taiwan sugar industry, and also record the scenery of Taiwan Sugar in Central Taiwan.

architectural composition

As far back as the early 17th century, the Dutch occupied Taiwan. In order to extract economic resources, they actively rewarded sugarcane cultivation with rich economic value. Taiwan's sugar industry gradually developed. In the era of Japanese occupation, in order to meet the needs of Japan's domestic sugar, they made great efforts. In 1915 and 1916, four sugar making societies were set up one after another, and the sugar industry became the largest enterprise in Taiwan. On May 1, 1946, Taiwan Sugar Co., Ltd. was formally established. In order to preserve historical and cultural relics of Taiwan's sugar industry, record the development process of Taiwan's sugar industry, publicize the great contributions and achievements of our ancestors to Taiwan's sugar industry, and enable the public to have a better understanding of the sugar industry, the company established the Taiwan Sugar Industry Museum in 1980 and officially opened it for people to visit on January 24 of the same year. The museum belongs to Taiwan Sugar Research Institute.

Display content

The museum has three exhibition rooms and an open-air exhibition hall. The main contents of the exhibition are as follows:

Historical relics of Taiwan sugar industry.

The distribution map of main units and institutions of Taiwan Sugar Company and sugar producing countries in the world and the export situation of Taiwan granulated sugar.

Research results of Taiwan Sugar Research Institute.

All kinds of steam locomotives and agricultural traction machines.

Development prospect

In addition, temporary special exhibitions are arranged in the museum from time to time. Important exhibits include Kong Mingding, shimozi, experimental crystallizer, early small train, early pump, evaporation tank, early publications published by Taiwan Sugar and Taiwan Research Institute, old sugar outline model, various steam locomotives, various traction cars, and early sugar harvesting machinery such as sugarcane harvester. From these machines and research results, we can see clearly the scene of farmers suffering from hardship and being cut to develop sugar industry.

Target outlook

The museum also shows movies and slides about sugar industry to introduce the collection and sugar industry knowledge. In addition, roving exhibitions in villages and towns are often held to teach agricultural knowledge about sugar.

Address: 24 TangChang Road, Qiaotou District, Kaohsiung

Longitude: 120.3142969

Latitude: 22.7556997

Tel. + 886-7-6119299

Ticket information: free.

Chinese PinYin : Tai Wan Tang Ye Bo Wu Guan