- Labor Intensive
The lines of yellow are shocks of cut rice waiting to be threshed in the field or bundled into bales and carried to the farmer’s home. I was standing on the adjacent hill when I took this photo. I made it into a postcard. You do things like that when you are old!
Wet rice growing is perhaps the most labor intensive type of farming there is. One estimate says that to farm a small holding requires an average of 3000 hours of labor per year . To compare, working a 40 hour week for 50 weeks a year equals 2000 hours of work. Every year a rice farmer works the equivalent of a half year more than a person who works 40 hours per week.
Supposedly the basis for the hard work ethnic in Asian societies stems from the demands of rice farming. I’m sure this is true in large part, but remember that Asian societies have a code of honor for their ancestors. People living today can bring shame or honor on their long dead forebears. I have read that this inspires them to do well in large part. Even in Western culture, shame used to play a big part in getting people to behave according to the community’s standards.
Shame? Who speaks of shame nowadays? Only protesters call out “shame” to people that disagree with them. I doubt if it is a word used by many mothers these days.
Did you know that the word ‘shame’ derives from the Arabic?
Their word is H’shuma. It’s a good word to know if you visit an Arabic country. For instance if a taxi driver tries to cheat you, or if a man brushes against you purposely in a crowd, you scream out, “H’shuma!’. Everyone will look and your antagonist will want to jump into a hole. It will cause his face to ‘blacken’, something an Arab wants to avoid at all costs.
Their word is H’shuma. It’s a good word to know if you visit an Arabic country. For instance if a taxi driver tries to cheat you, or if a man brushes against you purposely in a crowd, you scream out, “H’shuma!’. Everyone will look and your antagonist will want to jump into a hole. It will cause his face to ‘blacken’, something an Arab wants to avoid at all costs.
I learned about rice farming and it’s influence on Asian society in a book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s an interesting book and will give you new ideas to consider. I recommend it. It’s easy to read, you can just do a chapter at a time. You’ll be able to make interesting conversation at parties. We used to think about things like that.