South East Asia: A Rice Ingrained Culture…

Rice paddies at an angle
For backpackers in South East Asia rice forms part of a cheap meal. No doubt you’ll encounter it in various forms during your travels; fried rice, boiled rice, sticky rice, steamed rice, rice noodles, rice soup, rice cakes, rice porridge, you may even come across rice popcorn! There’s a good possibility that you’ve drank it too. If you’ve ever been offered some suspicious cloudy liquid by locals chances are it’s ‘rice wine’ or ‘rice whiskey.’ From Thailand to Indonesia, most backpackers will eat rice every day of their travels without fully understanding the significance of it’s role in the survival of billions. To the people of Asia, especially for the very poorest, rice is not just a food. Rice equals life. In fact, nearly 7 out of 10 people, or two thirds of the world’s population depend on it for sustenance. For thousands of years this tiny grain has shaped the cultures, economies and environments of many countries and regions in this part of the world. Entire lifestyles are focused upon the growth and protection of this staple food. Rice Terraces Sapa Vietnam

(Hmong Hill Tribe Woman in the rice fields of her home, Sapa, Vietnam)

More than 90% of the world’s rice is produced by Asian farmers, Vietnam and Thailand being amongst the highest exporters of rice in the world. Just looking around us we can see how the growth of rice has shaped the landscape in many areas. Cultivated, neat rice terraces clinging to steep hillsides, shining a dazzling bright green are striking images of South East Asia that can be seen in Sapa, Vietnam, Bali, Indonesia among other places. One of the most famous rice plantations in Asia can be found in Luzon in the Philippines, with the Banaue and Ifuago Rice Terraces claiming status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Skillfully carved out of the mountain more than 2,000 years ago using only primitive tools and an ingenius irrigation system, these rice terraces are a fascinating example of living architecture.We begin to grasp an idea of just how inherent rice is within South East Asian culture when we look at the languages. In many countries, the word ‘rice’ is synonymous with the word ‘to eat.’ For example the expression ‘Kin Khao’ in Thailand, where Khao means rice, in Burmese “Htamin Sar” means ‘to eat a meal’, and ‘to eat rice’ and in Vietnamese ‘an com’ is used the same way. There are many other metaphors within Asian languages which demonstrate the significance of rice in Asian culture. Deeply embedded within the spiritual heritage of the people who tend to it, rice has become sacred and revered. Many countries in South East Asia still worship rice in the form of a Goddess (nearly always female ie. a mother figure) – whose existence predates today’s major religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. In Indonesia, the Rice Goddess, Dewi Sri is worshipped widely in many parts of Java and Bali as a symbol of life and fertility. Dewi Sri is regarded as a kind of ‘Mother Nature’ with control over this blessed ‘food of life’. Through her influence over the harvests, she harnesses the power to grant health, wealth and prosperity or bestow hunger and famine. Offerings are given every year at the ‘Rice Harvest Festival’ as agricultural workers say thank you for an abundant harvest and all year in the rice fields you will see small shrines dedicated to the Dewi Sri called ‘Karangtengah.’ You will also see Balinese people wet their foreheads or chests and stick grains of rice to their skin in an attempt to soak up Dewi Sri’s powerful life force. In Thailand, Mae Po Sop, the Siamese Rice Goddess is worshipped by farmers as part of an ancient custom. Offerings known as Cha laew are bestowed to Mae Po Sop at each stage of rice production to ensure that she provides all of the village with a plentiful harvest and enough rice to eat for the coming year. The annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony takes place in Bangkok in front of the Grand Palace to launch ‘rice-growing season’ in May. Seeds are scattered by the “Lord of the Festival” and afterwards audience members rush to gather the grains to take home to mix with their own seeds for prosperous harvest. Similarly, in Cambodia, Po Ino Nogar is the Rice Goddess. In rural villages you will see food offerings in rice paddies as a prayer from farmers for protection from the benevolent spirit. So what for the future of traditional rice production? Like the descendants of the rice growers of Luzon, many young people in South East Asia prefer to work in the cities and the tourist industry rather than to cultivate rice as their ancestors have done for thousands of years. Traditional ways are being eroded by modern technology and rice production as a culture and way of life and it’s associated rituals are uncertain. Traditional Rice Production in Nepal

(Traditional Rice Production in the Nepal, Northern Asia)

And we shouldn’t just worry for the rice field itself. The rice field is a living entity – home to many animals such as fish, eels, prawn, frogs – then, there’s the insects that they eat and the animals higher in the food chain that eat them. It’s part of a delicate eco-system that many creatures depend on for survival. With modernisation it is becoming more important to develop more and faster producing grain. The use of pesticides and modern machinery threaten to tamper with the delicate balance. As rice is frequently grown more as a commercial product rather than subsistence farming – people need to make sure that we don’t lose this precious system in the larger system modernisation and profit. As the ancient Chinese proverb states…

“precious things are not pearls and jade but the five grains, of which rice is the finest.”

Nikki Scott - Founder South East Asia Backpacker
Nikki Scott | Founder & Editor

Nikki is the founding editor of South East Asia Backpacker and The Backpacker Network. In her early twenties, she left her home in the North of England on a solo backpacking adventure and never returned! After six months on the road, she founded a print magazine that became legendary on the Banana Pancake Trail. The rest is history.

Find me: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

3 thoughts on “South East Asia: A Rice Ingrained Culture…”

  1. Nikki Backpacker

    Hi Greg,

    Thanks very much for your comment and the information given here.

    First of all, we are very sorry for the misinformation about Mandarin language that was written in this article. As you can see, we have removed this sentence from the piece as we don’t want to give out false information. As a Mandarin speaker, we appreciate you telling us this, so thank you!

    Our magazine is actually written by backpackers here in South East Asia which means that occasionally someone will get something wrong and we do apologise for this. I hope you can forgive this small mistake and see the article for what it is – a ‘celebration’ of rice within Asian culture rather than anything derogatory.

    Nowhere in the article does it say that Asian people only eat, bleed and speak rice. The article is simply about rice as an important part of Asian culture, which I think everyone would agree. And as you rightly say, one of the reasons is because rice is cheap and readily available here – as mentioned in the article. It is true that rice a staple food in Asia and an integral part of many dishes.

    We’re sorry that you feel that the article is offensive, but I hope you can see that it was not intended this way. If you would like to write an article for us or have any comments about your own travels, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us! Our magazine is written by backpackers of all ages and backgrounds that have many different viewpoints.

    Thanks very much and I hope you will continue to read article on our website in the future. I’ve also sent you an email to explain all of this too – but the email is not working, if you could send me your email that’d be great!

    Thanks!

    Nikki

  2. Gregory Ling

    As a Chinese-American traveling through Asia, I find it highly offensive that you naturally infer that Asia is all about the rice. That we are Rice People. And that we are so enamoured with rice, that it has bled into our language to the point where we only speak rice.

    I can’t comment on the other ‘facts’ established in this article. But as a person who actually speaks Mandarin, the phrase “Ni Chi Le Ma”, has absolutely nothing to do with rice. And it’s not used to ask ‘how’s it going’. It literally means ‘have you eaten’. And it is often asked around the typical time when people have meals. Because it’s common courtesy, that’s found throughout the world, not just in Asia.

    We are not Rice people, who only eat rice, bleed rice, and speak rice. We are human beings who happen to eat a lot of rice because it’s cheap and available.

  3. Hey Nikki, great article!

    I once read that for Issan people (in the North-East of Thailand), who usually eat sticky rice (kao neow) instead of the jasmine rice (kao suay) of the rest of Thailand, the body itself is made of rice — to eat rice is to renew the body in its most basic essence. I thought this was really beautiful.

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