RICE or
WHEAT ?
The choice
may be more than a matter of taste. It could even determine personality that
might have been influenced by kinds of crops our ancestors used to grow.
Several hypothesis have been put forward to explain differences in behavior and
culture of people of Western countries and East asian countries, and here we
are going to discuss from agriculture perspective.
Many
research pointed more or less in the direction- dhaan walah, people from rice
growing areas since ages are more interdependent, can be shy around strangers
and have holistic cognitive style whereas gahuwalah give no baal to preserve
social harmony, are more independent and more ghumante, straightforward and
individualistic. If people are asked to name two related items among “train,
bus, track”, it is highly that western gahuwalah might pick bus and train
because they are both vehicles. A holistic thinker, east asian dhaanwale in
constract, would say train and track since they focusing on the functional
relationship between the two- one items is essential for the other’s job.
It makes
perfect sense in our life as well. See, many among us do not know much about
wheat farming (practically) but we plan hilo ma khelne karyakram a week before
Ashare pandra during rice transplanting season. We can see the cooperation
among farmers during the whole process and we ourselves involve in puddling,
transplanting and capturing our chataks to post later on facebook. In other
words, we can say that growing rice tends to foster cultures of cooperation and
socialization. But no one gives any baal to wheat farming. This might be one of
the reason that we Nepali are more social and collectivist than Amerikane.
Similarly,
people of North and South China, regions being divided by Yangtez river, shows
the similar psychological differences where south china has grown rice for
thousands of years whereas north has grown wheat. Various tests conducted and
the data supports South China’s history of rice farming could have fostered interdependent
and holistic culture than northern gahuwale. People in North are more
aggressive and independent. Researcher Thomas Talhelm calls it “Rice theory”.
It can be attributed to different climates- warmer in south and colder in the
north, which certainly affects agriculture but according to Talhelm it appears
to be more related to what Chinese have been growing for thousands of years. It
mirrors the differences between East Asian countries and West. It suggests legacies
of farming are still continuing to affect people of modern world. One doesn’t
need to farm rice oneself to inherit rice culture.
The
differences in culture of people from rice growing East Asian and wheat growing
Western can be explained this way. Before modern technology was developed,
farming rice needed much cooperation than farming wheat. Rice is labour
intensive. Most rice is grown in irrigated land, requiring the sharing of water
and building dikes and canals that constantly require maintenance. Rice farmers
must work together to develop and maintain infrastructure upon which all
depend. This has led to interdependent with other people. Cooperation among
villagers is compulsion for rice farming and if any one mess things up other
chimekis may be pissed off. Wheat farming, by contrast, takes about half the
amount of work as that of rice farming and depends on rainfall rather than
irrigation. So, farmers do not need to collaborate with chimekis and can focus
on their own crop- leading to more independent mindset.
One may
argue that the West is more developed than east asian countries and people from
developed societies tend to be individualistic. It is true to some extent that
the development shifts people to be more independent and individualistic. But
the rice theory still holds true as people from developed wealthy economies in
Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Hongkong tends to display strong collectivist
and holistic cultural traditions. In USA, people say squaky wheel gets the
grease while in Japan, people say the nail that stands up gets hammered down. Also,
divorse rate is high in West than East Asian nations.
Of course,
rice and wheat farming may not explain everything but neither do other
hypothesis. But the rice theory provides some insight to why rice growing
regions of East Asia are less individualistic or more collectivist than the
Western world, even with their wealth and modernization.
Finally, we
can say we are what we eat or, rather, what we GROW to eat !
By Santosh K Bhattarai
BSc Agriculture
AFU, Chitwan
Twitter : @SKBtweet
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