Rice: Cultural and Social significance - Essay Example

? Rice: Cultural and Social significance College Rice has been studied as a cereal grain which is widely consumed as a staple food for people in a large part of the world more especially in Asia and West Indies. According to the data, rice is the second highest production in the world after corn. Rice is in most areas grown for human consumption and studied to be good for human nutrition and for the intake of calories. Rice produces at least a fifth of the total calories consumed by human species in the whole world. There have been the preferences for softer and stickier varieties of rice in the way rice varies in different regions. It has some cultural importance in the way it is used as a staple food for many people across the world1. Rice is on the other side directly associated with fertility and prosperity. Therefore, in many regions, there has been the custom during wedding occasions that people throw rice. This depicts the social and cultural functions of rice other than for its use as food. Although rice can be grown as an annual plant, it can also survive as a returning and can as well produce a permanent crop for thirty years in the tropical areas. When we look at the history of rice in certain countries like the northern China, we feature the Chinese myth which holds that rice was in the ancient times sold as gifts to the gods. There are believes that when the lands in china were flooded, living plants were all destroyed and thus making animals scarce. On a certain day, a dog is said to have come from across a field and was noticed to have yellow seed which covered its fur. The Chinese people took the seeds and planted them without knowing what they would produce. Rice is said to have grown from these seeds which is up to date considered as a precious substance of life in China2. The agricultural way of life is seen to have played an important part of life in various regions of the world. It has formed several cultural perspectives in the way rice growing and consumption is done in many countries. For thousands of years in China, there has been diligent cultivation by the Chinese people on their land where sweat, blood and tears have been shade for the pursuit of some favourable harvests. The need for more production of rice in China has developed a great attention for the embrace of technology which would improve cultivation. The agricultural ways of life have therefore had great influence on the Chinese social life cantered on rice. Many developments in the country became apparent. The growth of rice is therefore the influence from hunting where people had left put some seed in the forest. The growth of the seeds to a consumable product changed the lives of the people of China from hunting to doing much on cultivation3. Mostly in the Asian cultures, women and fertility are greatly associated with rice. Rice is also associated religious ceremonies which have been conducted for the assurance of rice, the human species propagation and for the productiveness of domestic animals. Other cultural believes on the harvest of rice can be depicted from the way farmers in the southeast part of Asia harvest rice using small finger knifes. This is done mainly for the reason of not upsetting the rice goddess. Women in these areas use some delicate small knifes for carefully selecting the seed rice for harvests in future. Many cultures of the Southeast Asia have believes in the female rice god and they still make offerings today and have practices of rituals for her honour. Rice plays a significant role in the social lives of people. Rice is not only importance in its nourishment of the body but is treated as n aspect of the daily life that does not only satisfy the soul but also the unbounded areas of the human mind. Rice is seen to be responsible for the growth of human population in the Southeast of Asia where a great number of people are supported by agriculture. Rice is growing in small farms with the mobilization of family labour for its operations. This has been another significance of rice in the social lives of individuals. Great bulks of rice are seen to have been produced by small farmers and the local consumption. In the agricultural export value, rice comes out as the second important to sugar while the rice industry is also the second largest manager of labour in many countries. The rice industry is therefore considered to have much social significance due to its organization on the basis of small farms rather than large, foreign-owned plantations.4 The importance of rice in the lives of people in the southeast is depicted by studying the socio-cultural practices and ways of the people through the traditions and without what has been passed from generation to generation. Much emphasis on religion and rice has been put by the people of these countries which have in that case imparted their lives upon like blessings from heaven. Rice has on the same way influenced the systems of lives in certain countries. Growing of rice in these countries would influence the profession of many people due to its promising attitude in their economy. Many studies on rice consider rice as food while the growth of rice by large or small scale farmers is considered as occupation5. Rice has been cultivated in several countries across the world since the ancient times. In some nations, the words for rice culture and agriculture are similar and synonymous, an indication that rice was still the staple crop during the times when languages were taking their forms. Many ceremonial occasions have been established with connection to rice planting and harvest. Rice cultivation has been carried out in many countries across the world with many countries using it as their staple food. Rice has been an important substance not only on its satisfaction for human consumption as food but on the social-cultural lives of people. It has formed bases of many religious faiths where it is considered as blessings from the heavens6. The social lives of individuals have been imparted in the way rices can be locally grown in small farms. The rice industry is found to have greatly employed labour hence boosting the social lives of people. Rice is therefore seen to serve a multi purpose function which covers the areas of religion as a social aspect, the economic and the cultural aspects in the human species7. Bibliography Carney, Judith A. Black rice: the African origins of rice cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press, 2001. Eyferth, Jan Jacob Karl. Eating rice from bamboo roots: the social history of a community of handicraft papermakers in rural Sichuan, 1920-2000. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. Mintz, Sidney Wilfred.. Sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1986. Nu?tzenadel, Alexander, and Frank Trentmann. Food and globalization: consumption, markets and politics in the modern world. Oxford: Berg, 2008. Om Prakash. Cultural history of India. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Limited, Publishers, 2005. Smith, Andrew F. Popped culture: a social history of popcorn in America. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1999. Stanley, Robinson. The years of rice and salt. New York: Bantam: Random House Publishing Group, 2003. Wilk, Richard R., and Li?via Barbosa. Rice and beans: a unique dish in a hundred places. London: Berg Publishers, 2012. Read More