The End of Rice

Thailand has many superstitions. One concerns rice. Never joke while eating or else a ghost will steal your rice. The ghosts will have to wait, for this is the beginning of the rainy season and throughout the Kingdom aging farmers are planting rice. The current price for jasmine rice per tonne from the wholesalers is between 15,000-20,000 baht, which has been guaranteed by the government since last year. Mothers and fathers are calling their children for help with the crop, but fewer and fewer Thai young are working in the fields. Manual labor is beneath them. As one old farmer said, "The only thing my son knows how to carry is a mobile phone." I've tried to plant rice. My legs were knee deep in muddy water. Old stalks poked at my tender soles. My technique of stick the rice shoots into the field were met with harsh criticism from the old farmer in Ban Nok. "A pig shit rice better than you." Den was joking, but only half-joking about my effort. He was 65 and his fatless body resembled the starving Buddha. "I never work rice." "I see you never work rice." Den was planting twenty times faster than me and my daughter laughed from dry ground as did several the the Burmese migrants whom he had hired to assist with the crop. They got paid about $5 a day with a meal. I was getting nothing. "Farang no work rice." I had picked apples as a young boy on the South Shore, but couldn't recall working on a farm since then. Only ten minutes had passed and I was ready for a break. I put down my bucket and headed for my daughter, who was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt to protect her skin from the sun. Angie had cold beer in the cooler. "You stop work?" Den nodded with satisfaction. He had bet his wife that I wouldn't last more than fifteen minutes. "Yes, I stop work." I sat on the dirt and drank a Leo beer in one go. "You same all farangs." "Same all Thais too. Where young Thai?" I waved my hand across the fields. "Your daughter lazy." "Not lazy. Not stupid same kwaii." Angie disrespectfully muttered under her breath and stormed back to the rice shack in the shade of a copse. "I last Thai. After me no Thai grow rice. Then they eat air." Den shouted after me. "Thailand old now. Not young. No one have baby. Only farang." He was right, for Thais have been abandoning the rice fields for work in hotels, factories, and bars. Thai families have been shrinking too. Once Den's generation is gone, the communal rice tradition of long kek will disappear into the abandoned paddies. Back at the shack I asked Angie, "If I am old and have no money, will you work rice so I can eat?" "Mai." Her refusal was quick. "Growing rice for stupid people." "Farmers aren't stupid." "Then why they not rich?" "Money isn't everything." Most rice farmers are hopelessly in debt to the banks. No one is Asia worked harder. "You want work rice?" "No." "Same me." She sat on my lap and hugged me. Like father, like daughter. My beer was very cold.