My specific vegetarian diet

As I was overseas in the past few years, I have developed a specific diet which not everyone can comprehend easily.

My lovely Sweet Basil, not only it is good looking, its fragrance helps to expel mosquitoes, and it is a very delicious salad ingredient.

First of all, I am vegetarian, but I am not a simple vegetarian. From the original philosophy, it is an integrated spiritual diet which infuses Chinese medicine, Indian Ayurveda (A natural therapy which mainly uses herbs, its philosophy is very similar to Chinese medicine), European biological concept and wisdoms from everywhere in the world. I found that I can choose to extract the best from them, they are complementary, but not conflicting.

I believe ‘What you eat is what you are.’ And our body is just like a temple, we have to respect and love it. Will you offer rubbish to the deities in the temp? Of course not! So why would we eat junk food? This is totally unreasonable, so we have to make sure we know what we put in our mouths.

In the perspective of Chinese medicine, my body constitution is cold. So since young, I had quit eating cold food, 99% of the time I don’t drink cold drink and cold sweet soup. Since then, my menstruation pain had lessened. I even tested it when I was a student by drinking a few cans of cold drinks in the month, my pain was increased (of course this is one of the reasons only). I hadn’t eaten watermelon (its property is cold) for ages, but I couldn’t resist eating with other volunteers, after I finished my farm work under the hot sun in Long Vally workcamp. The result was my cycle came 5days earlier!

From the perspective of Ayurveda, my body constitution is air and fire (Vata-Pitta), so I should avoid eating dry, gas-producing, chili and bitter food. In order to balance my body constitution (just like the five-elements concept in Chinese medicine), I have to eat more oily and heavier food. Therefore, I always remember to replenish my oil, like always eating avocados and I generously put a lot of extra virgin olive oil in my salad, to balance my dry body.

From the perspective of European biological food, I have tasted the differences between organic and not organic food, I have also tasted the differences between food with added preservatives and chemicals. There are plenty of fresh, organic and suitable for vegetarians delicacies in the supermarkets or cooperatives in Europe, such as quinoa, couscous, polenta (grains made with maize), spelt and tempeh (fermented food made with soy beans) etc. And the most important point is that they are much cheaper than those in Hong Kong!

From the meditation spiritual perspective, I don’t eat the five strong smell food (like onion, galic and chives etc) and ginger. 2500 years ago, Buddha had already pointed out that these kinds of food will arouse our sentiment and desires (one Italian friend jokingly pointed out that, no wonder they are so passionate, because Italian cuisine is full of onion and garlic.). If the purpose of your meditation is to empty all your emotion and five senses, you wouldn’t want to put double efforts if you could just put half.

Besides, learning bit by bit from different part of the world, I also learnt that not to drink one hour before and after eating, nor during eating. Because liquid can dilute the gastric acid, slow down the digestion. There are reports about drinking a glass of cold drink during meal increases the risk of having heart diseases.

Although I love eating different kinds of cheese when I was in Europe, my body is still not European, just like we don’t have the enzyme that helps to decompose alcohol, so our faces easily turn red and we are drunk easily, my stomach also feel slow when I have eaten cheese and milk products. So I seldom eat them. As I also don’t eat eggs, I am almost a vegan.

I don’t drink because my liver is not so good. I don’t take caffeine, because this is not the essential nutrition for our body, its diuretic nature is also a burden to my dry body (not suitable to Vata-Pitta). Except boosting one’s energy, I really don’t see any other positive functions for our body.

As a result of all the above factors, my specific diet is developed.

Many people asked, ‘If you don’t eat this and don’t eat that, you don’t have anything to eat then?’ If you speak from a Chinese style vegetarian perspective, yes, because the Chinese style just has mixed veggies hot pot, mixed veggies hot pot with red yeast, mock chicken, mock goose, stir fry veggies etc. They are boring and do not provide enough nutrients.

However, the world of vegetarian is very open, wide and colourful, the food is also incredibly delicious. Let me share my secret, for example, we can get everything we need from a bowl of salad.

Let’s look at what I usually put in my salad:

The core food: Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots (full of dietary fibre) and extra virgin olive oil.

My secret receipt is to put: Red beetroots (full of iron), Jicamas (help to quench our thirst, full of proteins and vitamin C), quinoa (full of proteins and calcium), avocados (fat, vitamin B and E etc), different nuts like cashew, walnuts and hazelnuts (proteins, carbohydrate, vitamin B, different minerals and calcium), different seeds like sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds (full of proteins, vitamin B and E), different dried fruits (iron, vitamin C and antioxidant), flaxseed powder (only the grounded one release its omega 3 nutrient), brewer’s yeast (full of proteins).

The nutrient which vegans always lack of is vitamin B12, usually people eat vitamin supplements, but I found the oat mix with grains’ essence by Greenmax with fortified vitamin B12. So I usually add this powder instead of milk into my porridge in the morning breakfast.

So you see, only s bowl of salad plus a glass of oat mix drink can supply you with all the nutrients your body needs, so do you still have excuses that eating animals is for your health?

The all-encompassing salad, plus heavy taste pumpkin soup with different vitamins and minerals. They can fill your stomach, but you will feel light and healthy after eating them.

In fact, it is not difficult to be a vegetarian, it all depends if you have the heart, persistency and determination. Be the change you want to see! If you want the world to be better, you should start off from yourself! Let me introduce my favourite vegetarian restaurants next time.

Long Valley Rice Harvesting Workcamp (6)(The end) - The people

Before the workcamp, I was once occupied by the thoughts that how would the volunteers be.  At the end, I just surrendered and let it be.  I know life will bring the best to me.  So to my little surprise, the whole group of volunteers was just in a perfect state of harmony.  It was just like a bowl of very well-mixed salad, there were different ingredients from all over the world and they were all distinct in taste.  But once the ingredients were mixed, the overall taste was enhanced and there was no conflict between different tastes.  On the contrary, each ingredient helped to bring out the best taste of the other ingredients.

We had a beautiful experience in Long Valley.

The following introduction follows alphabetical order.

Audia，Rice

A devoted Indonesian Muslim whose appearance is more like a Hong Kong guy than Ben.  I really respect Audia, who is only 20, can diligently observe the rule of Ramadan that he could only eat after sunset everyday.  Especially in this workcamp, where delicacies from all over the world and different food in every meal were provided.  Moreover he was also unmoved when listening to our eating sound.  Later I knew that he started fasting 30 days in Ramadan when he was 6, no wonder he had such a high standard of determination.

His action did inspired me to pick up my fasting practice again.  If he could do it in such an adverse workcamp condition, how could I have any excuses not to do it?

If he could experience the hungry of the poor during Ramadan every year, I believe there was nothing could worry him, so I always saw he was smiling and laughing whole-heartedly.  Although I really didn’t know what he was laughing sometimes, the atmosphere around was indeed brightened up by him.

On the cultural exchange night, in addition of bringing over two pieces of traditional Indonesian musical instruments, Angklung, he also taught us to dance two pieces of traditional dance.

Rice was teaching all volunteers Indonesia traditional dance.

Ben，Uncle Ben

Why he was called Uncle Ben?  Except the fact that he looked more mature than his real age which was 21, it was also because he had a specific diet which resembled that of Hong Kong uncles, eg, eating meat every meal, not used to eat oatmeal as breakfast, not used to western cuisine like raw salad, pesto bread and lasagna etc.

However, he should be praised for his excellent skill in cutting and chopping food.  So when his skill was discovered, he was then turned into the official cutter of our workcamp, whatever it was watermelon, carrots, bread or apples, they were all under his ‘jurisdiction’.   Besides, as he was planning to apply to be a fireman, his muscle and labour did lessen much of our workloads!

In order to introduce the concept of reducing our carbon consumption, there was the Tanabata campaign in the last day of the workcamp and every one had to make a promise about how to help lowering the carbon on earth.  Unlike the most common promise like eating more vegetarian food, after a long and serious thinking, he did make a big step forward, ‘I promise I will not eat beef…in the morning.’

Ben, who could not live without meat, was buying chicken wings.

Candy，Watermelon

Candy is like her name, sweet and love eating candies very much.  That’s why she had chosen to use watermelon as her nickname in the workcamp, because watermelon is sweet but also has a hard shell to protect herself.

Because she was always natural high and full of energy, bringing us lots of joy and laughter, that was how we survived in those typhoon days as we were trapped indoor all the time.

When we were leaving Cheung Chau and heading back to Long Valley, the still sleepy Candy slipped a flight of stairs!  She got bruised in her arms and legs, her hips were shocked and almost hurt her old injury on her back.  However, she was so tough that she didn’t cry and even smiled after the slip.  A loss may turn out to be a gain, because of this, she could go back home rest comfortably in air-conditioning and ate lots of her favourite candies and snacks.  After resting for a few days, though she could not move freely, she still helped in the farm and cleaning the house, I really respect a 19 years old young girl like her has such a strong mind and toughness.

Candy, who was always energetic.

Dima，Forest

Except being called, ‘Forest’, he was also called, ‘Russian Bear’ and ‘Russian Power’, mainly due to his powerful muscle and never tiring body.  Everytime when we were half dead after work, he was always still full of energy.  Because of his presence, our workloads were much lighter, even though we didn’t request, he always actively seeking areas to help, like moving the heaviest stuff and responsible for the toughest working procedure.

On the contrary to most of us, he ate very slowly.  He ate so slow that he didn’t even mind us eating like wild beasts and continue on his food bite by bit.  Therefore, it was always me who worried that he didn’t have enough and put the food on his plate before it would be eaten by us.

When there was the last piece of food on the plates, we always asked if he would like to have them.  Although it was very obvious that he did want them, he was often very polite and gave them to others.  After one week, he asked me, ‘Pink, weren’t you say that we could draw a new angel’s quality after one week? (When the workcamp started, I asked them to draw a specific angel’s quality to learn from, eg compassionate, caring, patient and selfless etc).  At that moment, I got a blink and I finally understood that why was he always so polite in eating, because his angel’s quality was humble!  After I realized that, he smirked.  Afterwards in every meal, he was happily grabbing the last piece of food because his new quality was joyful!

The hard-working Dima.

Estelle， Get (means Green Eiffel Tower)

A Parisian who started to join workcamp since she was 15, so she had joined seven workcamps until then.  Because of this, her mental age was the most mature despite the fact that she was only 21.  However, she still had the innocence of a young girl, eg, one day she was bugged by a bee and she accidentally knocked down two jars of water.  Another example is that she loves spiders, she even has a spider tattoo on her left foot.  But when she saw a palm-sized spider on her mosquito net, she was freaked out and at the end, a man had to help and caught the spider.  She loves frogs also, so when she went for the night safari, she crazily 200 photos of frogs.

Although coming from a metropolitan like Paris, and is studying costume design, she is a very tough girl.  Her only weakness is unbearable of heat, so she was always full of energy when we started working at 6am, and she could harvest tons of rice.  Once the sun came up, she would be like under spells, not moving much and her facing expression was really dull.  Only until sunset, she would become alive again, making lots of jokes and kept calling Uncle Ben as her ‘wife’.

The little bit boylish Get.

Hyorin，Tree

The one who most afraid to get tanned, she always had double hats and covered her face 90% with a mask when she went to work in the farm.  I believe people who bypassed always wondered who this mysterious person on the field was.  Although she was a typical girl who loved beauty, eg she needed to put make up before going out to the city and loved using iphone to take photos, she was a very tough girl.  She always worked in the farm whole-heartedly and silently, you would never hear her complain, on the opposite, you need to remind her to take a rest.

She was not very good in spoken English, at first I thought it would be difficult to communicate with her about matters like working instructions and house rules etc, but then I found out she understood most of the messages I delivered.  She was only too shy and lack of English practices.  In the later stage of the workcamp, she had already come out from her shyness, not only regularly asked other volunteers ‘Why’ in a funny tone, but also admitted that she was hungry all the time.

Thanks for her teaching in lyrics and motions, after almost the whole period of training, the volunteers were finally filmed singing and dancing the Korean children song, the three bears, which was sung by Korean actress Song Hye Kyo in the drama series, the Full house.

Tree was teaching how to dance the Three Bears.

Mr Kan

Last but not least, there is still Mr Kan, who fought with us in the front line.  His presence brought out a deeper essence of just a simple workcamp for us, he reminded us the way of living in harmony with nature.  I respect his hard work very much, whenever I saw him totally absorbed working in the field, I could feel his love towards this piece of land and nature.

The most astonishing thing is about his physical strength and efficiency.  I believe the work that seven of us had done in these two weeks, he could have easily finished within the same period of time.  If you have ever seen this superman working in the farm, you will know that I am not joking!

Thank you very much, Mr. Kan.

Mr Kan is ‘The man behind the curtain’ in our workcamp.

Long Valley Rice Harvesting Workcamp (5) - Free days

Just before the typhoon Vicente came on Sunday, it was the free days for all the campers.  I invited the six of them to have a holiday in my house on Cheung Chau island.  It was already typhoon signal number 3 in the afternoon, but as the wind was not so strong, the weather was still not bad with only little rainfall, so we went straight away to have fun on the beach. 

Holiday!

A cloudy day was really a good day on the beach, we didn’t even need to use sun block cream.  After we rented a volleyball from the shop, we started to play the once popular game when I was in secondary school—the number ball game.  Though this game was really simple, it bought us so much joy and laughter.  The best time was watching the shows of those who lost the game, starting from dancing performance from Russia, Korea and France, and last but not least, the Hong Kong sexy dance.  Finally, as Get from France who had lost so many rounds, she even needed to use Cantonese to ask a Hong Kong guy his name in front of his girlfriend, as well as to borrow the cap from a Hong Kong guy who was watching our game all the time.

Punishment!  Get became a mermaid!

Punishment again!  Get was asked to borrow the cap from a local guy.

When we were buying souvenirs on the way to the ferry pier the following day, the staff of CA, Jin Pan called me that typhoon signal number eight would be hoisted in the evening, so instead of going up to the peak to see the skyline of Hong Kong, we went for a hike on Cheung Chau under the rain.  As you know, we were all wild beasts, so the most important thing for us to do in these two days was eating!  I brought them to local tea restaurant, outdoor food stall, Shanghai restaurant, Chiuchow noodles and the most local sweet soup shop.  We even visited the same sweet shop three times in two days, even the young staff in the shop was amazed by our frequencies of eating sweet soup.

Though my house is small, it could still fit 7 of us.

In fact, because we taught the Korean volunteer, Tree to say ‘Leng zai’ (means handsome guy) to please the staff there, it also became the highlight of their days.  They even took a peek in her iphone to see her Facebook’s username.

Tree loved the local Hong Kong sweet soup very much.

In fact, because we taught the Korean volunteer, Tree to say ‘Leng zai’ (means handsome guy) to please the staff there, it also became the highlight of their days.  They even took a peek in her iphone to see her Facebook’s username.

Many friends who had visited my place, often asked the same question when they were standing on the balcony, looking at the 180 degree seaview, ‘How would that be if it would be typhoon signal number eight?’  The fact is that we didn’t even know that it was signal number 10 as it was too quiet outside!  Why was it so?  Since my house was facing north west, and the typhoon was coming from north east this time, and there was a hill behind protecting us from the wind, so even though the wind speed had reached 200KM per hour on that night, we were sleeping like pigs!  Only until the next day, then we knew it was typhoon signal number 10!

When we walked out of the house, we finally saw the destructions of this super typhoon that there was a railing on the rooftop of a house was bent because of a falling tree, a canvas rooftop was blown on the pedestrian way and many trees were uprooted.  I was feeling so grateful when I heard that the canvas rooftop on our little house in Long Valley was blown off, leading to water leakage in the house.  We were so lucky that we could stay in a safe place during this typhoon.

The destruction after the typhoon signal no. 10.

The destruction after the typhoon signal no. 10.

As a result, we again stayed in Cheung Chau for an extra night.  Since we were trapped indoor by the rainy weather, this group of volunteers was so hard-working that they turned this workcamp into a language exchange camp, from Indonesian, Russian, Korean, French to even Cantonese.  Hearing them bla bla bla for the whole day just like parrots, thanks for them, I know if I would be cast away in Indonesia one day, I would still know how to show my love and even propose to an Indonesian man!

When it was raining after the typhoon had gone, we visited the local farmer, Mr Lam and his wife, we cooked and had lunch with them.  Although they were already over 80 years old and owned a big family with four generations, they were still so strong and healthy.  Whenever we saw them bending their waist and working under the hot sun, and  we looked at ourselves—half-lying under the tent, almost dying after the work, we were always feeling a profound respect to them.  I think the quote from Dima’s grandmother best described the situation, ‘We started working in the field when we were very young and we are still very healthy today, we can walk and we can even run.  But look at the young people nowadays, why are they feeling pain everywhere in their bodies?’

We were like the grand children of Mr Lam!

Long Valley Rice Harvesting Workcamp (4)—Food

I believe that eating is the biggest hobby of all of us during the workcamp.  Starting from morning till the night, we were always eating.  Especially everyday only after working for one hour in the morning, Tree  from Korea would tell us that she was hungry.  Though others didn’t say anything, if you see how fast and how much quantity of food that we ate in every meal, you would know that how hungry was this group of wild beasts.

Dinner time!

A characteristic of workcamp is that volunteers are always responsible for all the meals, so everyone can always enjoy the delicacies from all over the world.  Our food varieties were so wide and broad, from the Russian mixed veggie soup, the French crepe, the Korean bibimbop, the Indonesia baby food porridge and the Hong Kong fried eggs with tomatoes and tofu mixed veggie soup.  Eating, was definitely our biggest enjoyment after a day of hard work.

Tree from Korea was preparing the dinner.

A unique or challenging characteristic of this workcamp was that, I was the camp leader and I had a very specific diet.  Those who know me well know that I am almost a vegan, I don’t eat fish, meat and eggs, and almost no dairy products (except the Indian Ghee which is clarified butter).  For the benefits of meditation, I also don’t eat five kinds of strong smelling vegetables (eg garlic and onion).  I don’t take any drinks which have caffeine and I don’t take alcohol.  In order to help in digestion, I don’t drink right before, during and after meals.  And, I am allergic to mango.

We always went to the Sheung Shu wet market to buy food together.

Beside me, Rice from Indonesia is a devoted Muslim, so he doesn’t eat pork and doesn’t take alcohol as well.  And this workcamp just coincided with the once a year Ramadan, so he would only eat and drink before sunrise and after sunset.

Rice from Indonesia drank his first sip after a whole day of fasting.

On the contrary, there was a ‘carnivore’ among our volunteers--Ben from Hong Kong.  He said he didn’t eat any vegetables except broccoli, and he ate meat in every meal.

So you can imagine, there would be so many jokes coming out among us in this period.

The most classical one was that on the first dinner after a day of work, it was Ben and Rice responsible for the meal.  As I knew Ben well, so I kept reminding him to cook something for me while we were buying the food and even during he was cooking.  Unfortunately, as there was a miscommunication between him and Rice, so the only vegetable dish on the disk was cooked with garlic!

Thanks Get for making vegan crepe for me.

Then the next day, it was Candy from Hong Kong and Dima from Russia responsible for the cooking.  As Candy kept reminding herself that what I didn’t eat, so she finally forgot that Rice didn’t eat pork!  Luckily, Rice didn’t mind to eat the vegetarian dish with me.

Except cooking team, others were in the cleaning team, responsible for washing dishes and cleaning the floor.

On the first day when Rice observed Ramadan, the weather was super hot and sunny.  We had worked under the sun for half of the day, I found that Rice was very slow and tired, I thought that he must be very hungry.  Only until when I reminded him to drink plenty of water in the afternoon, then I was shocked to know that he couldn’t even drink any water during the fasting period!  My negligence was all because I was used to the fasting way of Hindu, which allowed drinking water.  Oh my god!  Luckily, he also thought that it was a very dangerous way of fasting, so he decided to postpone the fasting days.

Finally on the last day of workcamp, Rice still put chicken powder into the tofu mixed veggie soup carelessly…And when we were eating out in the Sheung Shui cooked food center, I forgot that there was pork in the dishes of omelette rice, Singapore style fried rice, sweet and sour pork and barbecue pork!

Lunch time!  There were only six people, because Rice was fast, so he would hide himself inside the house whenever it was the meal time.

Long Valley Rice Harvesting Workcamp (3) — Accommodation

One of the characteristics of this workcamp was to promote low carbon’s life, so even though the simple tin house we stayed in was as hot as Sahara Desert in the midday, there was no air-conditioner.  However, we did have three big strong fans and a windy balcony.  When it was unbearable hot in the afternoon, we liked to take the fans to the balcony and slept on the chairs.  In fact, once you get used to the temperature of nature, living without air-conditioners is far more comfortable than always entering and exiting air-conditioned rooms.

The simple little hut that accommodated all volunteers.

Naping on a chair with a strong fan amid the boiling hot weather.

From this experience, I was deeply impressed by the traditional wisdom.   The house we stayed in was also called, ‘Long leg house’ because it was elevated a few feet by several long legs.  The extra area under the house was used to store things and its heat-dissipating function did impress me.  There were several nights that I felt so cold that I needed to turn off the fan and covered myself.  The room temperature inside was indeed much lower than outside, just like we had turned on the natural air-conditioner.

The long legs help to elevate the house, dissipating the heat.

Another characteristic of this workcamp was that we were not served with high beds and soft mattresses, so we had to sleep on our own yoga mat and heat-dissipating bamboo mat.  The thing I loved most was the big mosquito net which was provided by CA, this net made me feel like a princess, in addition to prevent the attack from insects, that transparent space did give us a sense of privacy.

Everyone had their own privacy inside these princess-felt mosquito nets.

As we just stayed beside the farms, all the detergents we used were biodegradable and natural so as to reduce our harm to the fragile environment around us.  For example, we used tea seed powder liquid to wash dishes, soap nut liquid for shower and laundry and citronella oil as insect repellent.  Only until I did the research about natural detergent online before the workcamp, then I knew nature had long provided everything we needed around us.  In fact, it is so easy to stay in harmony with nature, it all depends if you have the heart to discover the way.

This small nut is called Soap nut, its shell easily get bubbles when you rub them, it is the most natural detergent on earth.

This kind of simple life is not unfamiliar with me, because I had lived in villages close to farmlands, tin house without long legs (the boiling hot feeling inside the house was still unforgettable) and I was also used to the simple life in the ashram in India.  However, the biggest challenge was bitten by unknown insects while I was sleeping and annoyed by the rat who kept grounding his teeth while we were on bed.  Actually I didn’t’ mind to be strung by mosquitoes and those smaller than sesame blood-suckers ‘aat zai’, because at least I could see them.  Until now, I still don’t know what kind of insects who stung my feet at night and made me feeling crazily itchy, some said they were fleas, some said mites, some even said spiders.

My piggy foot after stung by red ants and unknown insects.

In fact, why do human beings are dying to kill snakes which they encounter?  If you didn’t hurt them at the first place, they would rather ignore you; why do human beings have to catch bullfrogs to eat?  They are indeed helping us to eat lots of mosquitoes; why do human beings are desperate to attack those ugly flying insects?  They are just lost and fly into your home accidentally.  Therefore, I didn’t hate those insects who stung me because I understood very well that it was me who invaded their habitat, but not they invaded my mosquito net.

We were living with different kinds of insects in Long Vally, eg, very often, we found this beautiful Rhinoceros beetle.

This little long leg house not only provided us a shelter, but also acted as a bridge between nature and us.  My favourite moment was just before dawn, when the eggplants and water spinach were in deep sleep in the farms in front of the house.  Then when the first ray of sun showered on the leaves, the just condensed dew water would reflect the golden rays of the sunrise, the sprinkling colour from the farms was just like saying good morning to me.

At night after the twilight, looking out from the house, it was the dark farms with a row of rectangular shining objects on the top left corner, their light scattering through the sky, that is the civilization of the Sheung Shui town center.  But if you shifted your look to the right, you would only see the darkness, some branches dancing under the breeze and hear the frogs were contending among each other, that is the motherly tenderness of Long Valley.

From the quiet darkness of Long Valley, watching the dazzling city.

How long can such peaceful moments last for?  The Hong Kong government has already planned to develop the surrounding area of Long Valley into residential area.  Can the future residents keep the harmony with the wildlife here?

Long Valley Rice Harvesting Workcamp (2) — Work

CA does not only reintroduce cultivating rice in Long Valley, but also reintroduces the most traditional way of rice harvesting.  Different from using a lot of machines, this kind of rice harvesting method needs lots of manpower, and that’s why I understand Chinese used to have such a big family with 10 brothers and sisters.

First of all, we had to bend down or squat down and used the sickle to cut away the rice plant.  Before working here, I always thought that it would be very easy and quick to harvest all the rice, we wouldn’t need two weeks for that.  Only until I started to work, then I realized that ‘rice harvesting’ was not only about cutting away the rice.

All volunteers were working very hard.

Second, we utilized the manual stepping husking machine which was made by the students of De La Salle Secondary School in Sheung Shui to husk all the golden rice, then we also needed to put the husked rice plants aside on the path.

Some were responsible for husking, some helped in picking up the husked rice plants.

I thought it was the end, but in fact after husking, the CA staff Mr Kan who was instructing us for the rice harvesting work then took out a big fan and he hanged a big bamboo sieve on a bamboo tripod.  We then poured all the husked rice onto the bamboo sieve, so the fan would blow away the empty husk and straw away from the rice.  At the same time, we would be sitting on two side of the tripod, picking away the mud, little snails and beetles from the pile of rice.

Blowing away the empty husks and picking away the impurities.

I thought it was the end again, surprisingly I saw Mr Kan took out a few pieces of big canvas and he spread them out on the rice field.  In fact, we were going to dry the filtered rice under the sun, we even needed to turn around the rice after half an hour.

Drying the rice.

It was still not the end, but as there was no rice grounding machine in Long Valley, so CA would then take the dry rice to Nam Chung to ground them.  After packaging, the rice would then be transported to the organic greenshop in Wan Chai for sale.

Once we cut the rice, they had to dry them immediately, otherwise they would turn rotted because of the humidity.  As a result, every time when we started working, we had to calculate how much rice needed to be cut and it all depended on the weather and man power, otherwise, we would lose more than what we would have cut.

On the first day of work, as I didn’t know the habits of all the local and overseas volunteers, and I also considered that for those who had just arrived Hong Kong might have jet lag, so I suggested that we would start our work at 8.30am, and it would be at 7.30am on the following days so as to stay away from the hot sun.  It was surprising for me that after working under the hot sun on the first day, the volunteers suggested that they would rather start the work at 6am.  I was really happy for this suggestion because I was used to get up early to do meditation, yoga and Taichi.  Later, it proved that this was the most effective and comfortable way to work in the field.  For example, the weather was extremely hot and stuffy before the typhoon came, but as we started to work at 6am, and we finished our work before 10am, which was quite hot already, so actually our productivity of that day was the highest--we had harvested 7 bags of rice in that morning.

Not long after sunrise, we set off for work.

While I was harvesting the rice, an old poem kept popping into my mind, which was, ‘Hoeing the field in the midday, sweating on the rice field, who would ever know that every grain in the meal counts.’  I was not kidding, only by working here for half day, I had already experienced the meaning behind this poem.  Although I never like wasting food, this volunteer project really reminded me to respect our mother earth and all the superman farmers!

Unfortunately, this rice harvesting period had coincided with the super strong typhoon Vicente, it was already 13 years ago that Hong Kong had hoisted typhoon signal number 10.  All the rice was kind of destroyed by the strong wind, if not, they were also started sprouting because of the heavy rain afterwards.   Therefore, we needed to cut away all the rice in the muddy field and threw them away as rubbish.  It was believed that the produce this year would only be one fourth of last year!

Seeing such kind of natural disasters, human beings are totally impotent.  What we can do is just to accept and understand the importance of living with the flow of nature.

As we had plenty of rain this year, rice harvesting period actually had started much earlier, and we could then also help to transplant the rice seedlings, which was a nice surprise.  In fact, the farmers had planted the rice seedlings on the edge of the rice fields, our work was to uproot the rice seedlings, stepped in the knee-height ‘swamp’ and then transplanted the rice seedlings one by one.

Everyone was ready to transplant the rice seedlings.

Transplanting rice seedlings was not as sweaty and tough as rice harvesting, but it really tested the strength of our waist, our eyes and our patience.  And I realized that it was very difficult to transplant the rice seedlings in a straight line!  And we even transplanted them too densely that there were not enough rice seedlings for the other rice fields!

The side effect of transplanting rice seedlings was that I could still feel like my legs were soaking in the mud even after a few hours!

Our French volunteer, Get, used mud from the rice farm to put on her legs as sun block.

Besides, when it was raining for a few days after the typhoon had gone, we helped to remove the old paint from the house we stayed, repaint it with a new colour and helped to remove the lotus seeds from their husks.  Although they were indoor works, very relaxed and we didn’t need to be under the sun or rain, I would rather sweat on the golden rice field under the hot sun, frightened by the bamboo snake in the field, attacked by the red ants which were living inside the rice field or even fell into the muddy field when it was raining.

Unconsciously, I have developed a deep connection with this piece of land, the feeling is just like falling into love.  When I was looking at it quietly, there would be the blossoming of smile and love from my heart;  When I was stepping on it firmly, I felt totally alive and full of joy;  When I was running across the fields, I felt like I was flying over the clouds.  Although I was bitten by red ants, making me scratching crazily for the whole nights and my foot was swollen like that of a pig, I felt totally grounded and safe, I even thought, ‘Now I know it was like this to be bitten by red ants.’  This is the balanced feeling of living in harmony with nature.  Not resisting, accepting everything life gives you and you will be rewarded with its unlimited love and bliss.

The unifying scenery of the sky and water in Long Valley.

Long Valley Rice Harvesting Workcamp (1) — Background

Long Valley is the largest agricultural freshwater wetland (the total area is 150 hectares) with over 500 years of agricultural history.  Many years ago, it was in the spotlight because the Hong Kong government was planning to build a train line across this piece of wetland.  Finally, environmental groups in Hong Kong won the lawsuit and Long Valley has then been preserved for conservative purposes.

 The greenery in Long Valley.

Hong Kong is famous for its concrete forest and being a financial centre, no one can ever imagine that there is such a big piece of agricultural land.  In fact, every inch of land is so precious in Hong Kong, and it is much cheaper to import vegetables and rice, who knows that there is still rice planting in Hong Kong?  It is all because of our environmental organization, Conservancy Association (CA), which reintroduces rice planting in Long Valley, so different species of frogs and birds can have their habitats here.  At the same time, local people can also contribute by volunteering and gain knowledge about Hong Kong agricultural history, ecology and they can also educate the young generation that rice is not coming from supermarkets.

 The golden rice field waiting to be harvested.

In June every year, it is the rice harvesting period.  Rice harvesting can only be done on sunny day, because the wet rice can easily become moldy if it gets wet.  Local volunteers can only come on Saturday, Sunday and holidays, if it rains on these days, the rice harvesting activity has to be cancelled.  As a result, CA cooperates with Hong Kong volunteering organization Voltra, recruits local and overseas volunteers to stay in Long Valley for two weeks, so as to speed up rice harvesting work.

Local farmer, the lovely childlike 82 years old Mr Lam!

This is the second year that CA and Voltra hold such a rice harvesting workcamp.  As I just came back Hong Kong and have plenty of free time, also I love nature and would like to learn about rice cultivation, so I became the camp leader of this workcamp.

During the period of 18^th to 31^st July, 2012, together with Estelle (whose nickname is Get—pronounced as Jet) from France, Dima (Forest) from Russia, Hyorin (Tree) from Korea, Audia (Rice) from Indonesia, Candy (Watermelon) and Ben (Mountain or Uncle Ben) from Hong Kong, we experienced a very tough work (totally not exaggerated) in rice harvesting, the adventurous typhoon no. 10, battles with the cunning rat, mosquitoes and red ants.  However, we are like wild beasts that we enjoyed the process so much that we sang and danced every day and we did eat like wild pigs, swallowing tons of food in every meal.

The crazy wild beasts.

I realized that I love this kind of farmer’s life very much, rising up with the sun and finishing the day along with the sunset.

Life, can be really really simple, but sweet.

(To be continued…)