Rice


It’s a beautiful fall day here in Japan. Like most of the northern hemisphere there is a crispness in the air, and in Japan, there also always seems to be a faint hint of smoke as the rice farmers clean up their now barren fields and burn the chaff and brush left over from harvest. It’s amazing to me the transformation of the rice fields: in the spring the fields are flooded with maybe an inch of water and special tractors with long, slender wheels till the mud smooth and even. (Above: In the spring right after planting... if you look closely you can see the baby rice) These same machines are then loaded with flats of two inch tall baby rice and can plant a whole rice field in half and hour. The rice is so small that you can’t really see it until you’re up close, so the flooded fields look like huge rectangular mirrors organized about the whole of Japan. If you squint just a bit and imagine the dikes as the frames, the land might look as if it is covered with massive old-fashioned windows, and maybe, just maybe you can look into them and peer into the earth itself. By late summer the fields are a vibrant green and the rice is 3 feet tall and becoming heavy with grain. The reflective pools disappeared maybe two months ago back when the rice was six inches tall or so, and now it looks like you could walk through the fields as if they were wheat. If indeed you tried this, after your first step you would find yourself suddenly pausing for two reasons: one is because, previously unknown to you, an amazing number of creatures, (mostly frogs, and therefore, snakes) are living in the field and your first step startled these creatures and caused a flurry of movement and sound, and you are now a bit worried about what other unknown (maybe dangerous?) things may be lurking underfoot. (Above: They said I learned quickly, and I thought so, too! Must be from gardening back home) The second reason is that you notice an odd, cooling sensation at your foot and you quickly discover that your leg has sunk six inches into mud…yes, the fields are still flooded with water. By late September the rice has turned a golden-green, and sometimes, on windy days, the rice is so heavy that spots in the field become flattened as if attempts at crop circles made my mentally impaired aliens. Soon, the rice begins to disappear! When I first arrived, I was startled at how quickly this happened! I would drive by fields of tall rice in the morning, but in the afternoon that same rice was gone! Cut as if shaved with a razor and the only thing remaining is stubble. Where were all the people? I thought this part was done by hand? Ahh me; the gaijin fool. Of course the harvesting was automated, too. (Above: Learning how to stack the rice in columns to dry) Another type of tractor comes and indeed literally shaves the fields. As it moves along, it ties the rice into bunches and spits them out the side. The final step is to gather the bunches of rice and dry them on long poles of wood stuck into the mud. Drying time depends on the weather but usually takes around two or three weeks. At some point these are all loaded up and taken to the local processing plant where the rice is husked, washed (from brown rice, to white rice), dried again and packaged. Yes, these days the whole process of planting and harvesting rice could be done by one person. Mostly, however, I see a man driving the machine, and a woman, often fairly old, walking behind and managing the harvested bundles; the women are always assisting the men in Japan. It’s such a simple, efficient process that it is difficult for me to imagine the days when it was all done by hand and the whole town needed to pitch in. (Above: Proud of our work) Many scholars say this “wet-rice farming” is how the famous Japanese efficiency and group mentality was established in the first place. (Also, I read that the fields were often fertilized with human waste, a.k.a. night soil, and it really smelled bad in the heat of summer.) What happened to all those workers with the arrival of automation and machines? The same thing happened in the US and in other developing countries, as well, but now that I see it firsthand here it really makes me wonder about it. When I arrived in Japan one of the things I really wanted to do was plant and harvest rice by hand and this year I got my wish. At school we have Agriculture Day and the 2nd years can choose to take a field trip to rice, tomato, or “other” produce farms. I was allowed to participate and obviously and eagerly chose rice. The staff was impressed J I had a blast walking barefoot in the mud in the spring, and harvesting in the fall. It is very labor intensive, that’s why only 15 or so students chose the rice option, but it was a wonderful experience and one of my best memories of Japan to date. The field is near my house and I would drive by and check on the rice every so often after we had planted it. (Above: finished and shaved) It has now dried for around 3 weeks and has been wrapped into 2 huge cylinders and last I saw was sitting in the field like unprocessed food J I’m sure by now it has been picked up and is at the processing plant. The teachers said we will soon get to eat that very rice, but it seems un-Japanese for them to keep our rice aside separately just for us. We’ll see. It would be great if they did. Miyagi is supposed to have some of the most delicious rice in all of Japan. If they give us some of our rice dried, I plan to take it home to my family at Christmas and I’ll add a bit of Miyagi flavor to our Christmas feast. I know I will savor every bite knowing it was planted and harvested by my very own hand.