Rice has a place in Chinese hearts, whether we eat it or not
The importance of rice is reflected in our language and assumptions. As abundance becomes the norm, will we forget what hunger taught us?
Years ago, I was invited to speak in Bali about the significance of rice to the Chinese. At first, I wondered whether there was enough to say about something so ordinary. Once I began writing, however, the words poured out like water from a broken dam. The talk, delivered in a pavilion overlooking emerald rice paddies, turned out to be my most engaging.
There was far more to rice than I had imagined. In China, it occupies a special place in the national imagination, somewhere between food and faith.
Nai, my beloved grandmother, treated every grain with reverence. Whenever my siblings and I left a few grains in our bowls, she would urge us to finish them. Every grain, she reminded us, represented countless hours of labour in the fields. Sometimes she resorted to a more colourful warning. “Finish your rice,” she would say, “or you’ll end up marrying someone with a pockmarked face.”