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.