Rice, Rice, baby.

Before coming to Thailand, I assumed that I knew the importance of rice. My mother was raised in Japan and thus rice has always been a staple of my diet. Leaving the U.S., I felt more than confident in my knowledge of rice. What a freshman mistake.

As part of my Thai Studies program, I spent last week in the small rural village of Baan Yang Looang. More than anything else, the experience taught me that my assumptions about rice were painfully superficial. At the village, breakfast was rice. Lunch was rice. Dinner was rice. The “kanom” (snacks) were rice. We had sticky rice, we had fried rice; we had rice in bowl, we had rice on a plate. We had rice in soup, rice in bamboo, rice in banana leaves. Rice inside, rice outside. In the village, rice was the scenery. Rice was the Buddhist ceremony. Rice was the income. Rice was the life of every village member.

To use a term coined by Marcel Mauss, rice in Thailand is a total social phenomenon. Mary Douglas, in her introduction to the 1990 translation of The Gift by W. D. Halls, defines a total social phenomenon as something in which “all kinds of institutions are given expression at one and the same time.” In Thailand, rice is essential to everything, from religion to hierarchy, gender divisions to property rights, substience to familal relations. Rice is not just a food. Rice is the Thai way of life.

One of the best illustrations of this is the phrase: “Geen kaow mai?” This can be literally translated as “Would you like to eat rice?” It is generally used to mean “Would you like to eat food?”  However, the phrase is much more than a question. It can be loosely translated as: “Hello/How are you?/I care about you/Can I do something to make you more comfortable/Has your day been good?/Are you hungry?/How’s your uncle doing?/Do you need an invitation to talk?/I always have enough to share/Funny weather we’ve been having lately/etc., etc., etc.” The phrase is simultaneously a greeting and a reaffirmation of social ties.

I am learning that rice is the social fabric of Thailand. Rice isn’t merely important. Rice is the reason anything is important.

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