I will definitely find some sauce but I heard that they worked the Vietnamese until they died in the rubber fields
The Harrowing History of Vietnam's Rubber Plantations
Saturday, 07 September 2019.
"Oh it’s easy to go to the rubber and hard to return, / Men leave their corpses, women depart as ghosts."
Visitors to a colonial plantation might have heard this sorrowful song drifting above the soft, unceasing drops of latex dribbling from the ghastly, slashed flesh of trees. As 19th-century plantation employee and writer Tran Tu Binh explains, Vietnamese were forced to "become fertilizer for the capitalists’ rubber trees."
As much as any other singular substance, rubber helps one explore the brutal exploitation of colonial rule, as well as a variety of political and economic developments in Vietnam during the 20th and 21st centuries. Rubber plantations provide evidence of some of the worst abuses of natives at the hands of the French, while later serving numerous purposes for a range of private and public actors. Investigating their complex history and ecological footprint helps articulate the complex interplay between commodities, exploitation and development, as well as man and nature.
White Blood of the Forest
Photo via Flicker user manhhai.
From tires to sandals to medical instruments, rubber is a ubiquitous part of the modern experience, yet few people know much about its origins or the complex, exceedingly violent history that accompanied its ascension to one of the world’s most important commodities.
Various trees and plants evolved natural latex as a defense against insects. When the outer layer of bark is ruptured, the sticky, milky substance flows out to deter hungry invertebrates. The first recorded use of the material by humans dates back to the 1600 BCE Mesoamerican Olmecs, or "latex people," who used it to make a ball for a game they played. They also applied the latex to capes to create crude rain jackets.
https://saigoneer.com/saigon-culture/17206-the-harrowing-history-of-vietnam-s-rubber-plantations