[Hlennisal]

Being Thai (both natural and adopted Thai, such as dear Delawang, host of this forum here) means having a close identity with rice. Despite living half across the world, far away from the source of this staple, we tend to casually accept the fact that our local rice (Kao Hom Mali) is being sold in markets all around the world. When we stand in the aisle of our modern supermarkets, picking up that nicely packed sack of rice, we rarely question the wonder of how this came to be, maybe assuming that like any other commodity, it just naturally comes with marketing. More often than not we suffer a slight amnesia concerning the huge debt we owe to the hardworking, simple, generations of rice farmers we forever see bending their backs, knee-deep in muddy water-logged paddy fields in the country-side of our beloved homeland. Their story about how they have been the backbone of our modern economy is buried deep beneath more recent, sensational stories about globalization, tourist destinations, pop culture, political agendas, and depressing news about war. I'd like to invite you to pause a while in our fast-paced electronic conversations and try to remember these peoples' stories. Here's a picture to help recall some memories:

The above rice sailling boat was photographed near Ayutthaya in 1921. (Source of picture:www.bygonepics.com) I hope it may invoke those non-photographed images of more ancient boats that probably looked quite similar to the above that sailed on that same river some 300 years ago and maybe wonder a bit about how that spot must have looked like as the millions grains of rice flowed through those hundreds of years. Isn't it quite a marvel?