Cultural Downfall of Rice in Thailand

Sometimes, when something is such a crucial part of our society people lose touch with how it got to be and still is so. Such is the case in Thailand with rice, and especially with the most popular, Jasmine rice. A staple food in most diets around the world, Jasmine rice has become more than that to the people of Thailand. Jasmine rice has gone from the foundation of their agricultural way of life and ceremonial practices to the foundation of their economy and their labor force. As such discourses show, with the help of texts like The Help, connections between cultural roots and the exploitation of them for gain of power or economic benefits become clear. The cultivation of rice in Thailand has turned from a spiritual practice into a big business that demands cheap labor and has allowed other countries from around the world to create their own cultural ties to the food.

The history of rice in Thailand is quite rich. Rice farming in cultivated fields has been done on the land that is now Thailand for at least five thousand years, around one thousand years earlier than in India and China. It takes up over half of their fertile land and is one of the main sources of nutrition for Thais. Rice farming continues to be the primary farming activity nationwide. I mean, the word for farmer in Thailand, chaona, literally translates to “rice field person”. All of the discursive political and social impacts associated with this one food is packed into the very word.

The fact that Thailand exports such a culturally rich icon so heavily is full of possible literary interpretations alone. Thailand has led the world as the largest rice exporter for decades, much due to jasmine rice. This can be seen as an attempt for the global spread of their beliefs and practices, or it could be taken as a loss of cultural roots.

Rice is part of something larger for the people of Thailand. The word, the food, and everything that it is been through amount to much more than simply exporting. It represents their religion and how agriculture has always been an important sector of it. Rice is always present in some form at religious gatherings and is thought to be blessed in every stage of life, parallel to the human cycle. It isn’t just about their religion, though, “rice is in music, particularly folk songs. It is in various forms of the arts – from poems to paintings to sculptures. It is in tradition, folklore, ritual and even language” (Gomez 1). All of Thailand’s culture is packed into each grain of rice that gets shipped all around the world. Whether we as Americans think about that or not, we’re still eating it.

Rice is very much a political topic in Thailand and the active involvement of the government in the promotion of Thai rice exporting has placed jasmine rice on a global scale. But not without disrupting the country’s cultural roots. Within the last few years and partly to appease angry farmers, “the government put in place a price guarantee system that has hurt competitiveness, leading to stockpiles of unsold rice” (Fuller). This is typical behavior from a government who oversees a large cash crop. Rather than keep the local economy stimulated, they took rice and guaranteed it on a world scale, taking money away from local farmers and putting into the pockets of big businesses. Similar things have taken place here in the U.S. with corn, which has tainted the image of the American farmer similar, but not as extremely as the long-gone image of the Thai farmer.

Unfortunately, the image of the farmer in Thailand is not what it is in many other countries, including America. A Thai farmer is typically considered to be ‘poor, stupid and unhealthy”, whereas a farmer in America is usually thought to be noble, hard-working and having “nostalgia for the countryside” (Fuller). It’s not that all American farmers are wealthy, smart and healthy. It’s more a matter of representation. There are large surges of “agrarian nostalgia” sprouting up all over more-developed countries like America, which greatly differs from a country like Thailand where industrialization and urbanization in recent years has driven the youth out of the countryside and into the cities. They aren’t to blame either, considering that the average rice farmer’s “monthly income does not exceed the poverty line of $200 per capita” (Lianchamroon).

The Help, a film mainly about racism, portrays similar representations and themes of labor injustice. Aibileen and Minny, the two maids in the film, also worked jobs that were viewed by society as for the poor and stupid. While in some cultures, taking care of others would have been considered noble, that was not the case with the two black maids. Also, in the scene where Minny tells Hilly to “eat my shit” both figuratively and literally, a connection is to be made regarding Hilly’s consumption of black discourse and people around the world today revolving their diets around a Thai discourse that is so rich in culture and labor injustice.

There have been many dishes created around rice, including this Coconut Curry dish, from different countries other than Thailand. All of these cultural adaptations of rice show how much Thai culture is still relevant around the world, despite a shift to more urbanized practices in recent years. It’s still up for debate as to whether the downfall of Thai rice farming culture is the fault of spreading the grains too thinly by exporting them around the world or if the harsh labor conditions and poor pay have led the youth to seek out other opportunities. Regardless, looking at rice in a literary sense has unveiled that big businesses now basically own it and that other countries adding it to their cultures have taken away from the once spiritual and ceremonial aspect of rice farming in Thailand.

Works Cited

Fuller, Thomas. “Thai Youth Seek A Fortune Away From the Farm.” The New York Times 4         June 2012: n. pag. Print

Gomez, Dr. Kwanchai A. “Rice, The Grain of Culture.” (2001): n. pag. The Siam Society   Lecture Series, 20 Sept. 2001. Web.

Lianchamroon, Witoon, and Piengporn Panutampon. “Jasmine Rice of         Thailand.”Synthesis/Regeneration- A Magazine of Green Social Thought 1998: n. pag.             Web. <http://www.greens.org/s-r/17/17-20.html>.

Manpati, Tipakson. “Organic Rice in Northeastern Thailand: Improving Farmers’ Livelihoods        and the Environment.” Mekong Commons. N.p., 18 Mar. 2016. Web. 14 May 2017.

The Help. Dir. Tate Taylor. Perf. Emma Stone and Viola Davis. Dreamworks, 2011. Web.