Rice Harvesting

This weekend was one of my favorite weekends in Vietnam so far. On sunday we went to a village about a 45minute drive outside of Hanoi to harvest rice. While I was sad about missing the HAD meeting and nervous for how much work harvesting rice would be I was super excited. It turned out to be an even more amazing experience then I had imagined. The field was supposed to be dry but recent rains had made it semi flooded. While many people complained about the mud and I was intially freaked out by the thought of all the creatures living in there, I quickly grew to love the way you could sort of glide through the mud with little effort. Soon we were all 6 inches deep in mud attempting to cut rice plants with little blades. At first i was a little unclear on the concept and spent alot of time and energy sawing at the rice stalks. It didn't help that the first patch I tried to cut was blown over by the wind so I couldn't distinguish individual rice plants.

I eventually figured things out and and got into a rhythem: thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, thunk. I would grab the rice plants upside down about a foot up from the base and give one quick thwack with the sickle. After four thwacks my hand would be full of rice and i would set the stocks on a pile either on the side of the paddy or on top of some of the already cut area. I managed to clear a whole corner of the field by myself -- a truly satisfying experience. After we finished cutting the rice we had to haul it to the side of the paddy and then cary it on shoulder hoists to the mechanical thresher. Then we spent a considerable amount of time collecting the rice that was left in the field. It was amazing to see how inefficient we had been--there was leftover rice everywhere and a considerable amount had been destroyed by being stamped into the mud. I also started to understand those old parables from the bible where poor people would gleen grain from the fields. I don't think there is a similar occupation in vietnam because if you do it right the method of rice harvesting is actually incredibly efficient.

After harvesting we had an amazing meal (the nem which I helped make tasted particularly delicious :P ). Then we went out and interviewed people in the village. It was amazing how much of what was said about job diversification in the article was true. One store keeper we talked to said that she and her husband worked in the fields as well as owning a shop. One of her sons worked as a driver and the other son worked in a factory. Very much representative of a household trying to spread out risk through job diversification. One interesting thing I saw while in the village was several women at the temple who had black teeth and bright red lips. Irene was telling me that this is an older fashioned beauty practice.

Overall I had a great time rice harvesting. However I'm sure I would feel differently if it was my main occupation. I am still waiting to see just how little money my labour would have earned me... I'm suspecting not enough to compensate for the damage it does to your back and your skin. Probably not enough to really cover much other then food.