The Rice of Life



After reading this excellent post, I think I'll appreciate rice more! Here's a wee snippet...

"The rice fields are like muddy ponds. Some of them have the male farmer walking behind his beast or some other crazy machine from yesteryear readying it for its next crop. Other rice fields have the women walking barefoot through mud that is nearing their knees. In their hands are rice plants or shoots (I have no idea of the correct term). As they walk they throw the shoots into the mud like a dart. Where it lands it stays sticking half in and half out. As they walk along they leave trails of rice plants that end in a perfect line. This then creates the beautiful pictures you can see in my travelogue entries along with those we see in our travel brochures back home. It takes so much work to farm rice. So much time goes into planting it. Lisa [one of Shane's Chinese friends] will never leave rice uneaten. Her parents are farmers and she can never waste what takes so much time and effort to create."