Rice husk

(Baonghean) - Recycled rice is rice that continues to grow from the remaining stubble of the previous crop. Because it does not need to be fertilized, it has few flowers and few grains, and is considered a gift from heaven. Recycled rice is not as delicious as the main crop rice, and the yield is not high, so in the past, villagers did not pay much attention to it even though it did not require much effort or hardship. But now it is different, just adding a little fertilizer can turn recycled rice into food and savings.

In the bitter cold of winter, perhaps the kitchen is the most suitable place for the villagers to sit and enjoy the leisurely farming pleasures. Over a plate of peanuts or crispy roasted corn, people have many things to talk about, confide in, reminisce about the past or play chess and play poetry and wine, but it cannot last forever when the rice granary is full, so people have to carry baskets and trays to the fields to do the old job of threshing rice. That is also the regular work of hired workers, hired hoes to make a living and also because they do not have a piece of land to plant their stakes.

Everything can stop but life cannot. The rice granary is always a concern of the villagers when the year is almost over, the month is ending, so every day they still go to the fields to pick up those grains of rice given by God. "Whoever holds a full bowl of rice, each grain is fragrant and bitter in a thousand ways" is always their motto, not the lullaby that mothers in the countryside often sing. It is very profound, very meaningful...

Every year, my mother usually cooks a pot of new rice to offer to our ancestors first, but it is always broken rice because my family lives by fishing and has no land. I also do not understand why my mother chooses this type of rice instead of seasonal rice, but I am sure she is happy and proud because the rice comes from her sweat and effort.

The new rice has a distinctive aroma, a mixture of the countryside, the fields, the rice and the hard work of the farmers. Previously, the rice was food for the ducks that roamed the fields because the price of rice could not cover the cost of harvesting. Now, machines have replaced people, so the land cannot rest. People have intercropped two rice crops with a color crop instead of leaving the fields bare or letting the rice grow naturally.

My childhood grew up accordingly. Also wearing raincoats, conical hats, sickles, and rice from bamboo shoots going to the fields. Yet I still remember and miss them forever, even though those memories are just the memories of country children, simple and innocent like dew drops sparkling on rice grains.

Each tree has its own flower, each house has its own situation. In my hometown, there are many poor families who are struggling, so the dead rice is still their salvation when the storm and flood season is always waiting to strike. Even dead rice is a pearl, so the people in the countryside cherish and respect it…

The weather is chilly at the end of winter. Sitting warmly within the four walls of the city, I suddenly miss my hometown so much that I feel a pang of longing. I miss the lives of those wearing raincoats and patched hats, swaying precariously on the muddy water to harvest the fragile rice grains carried away by the current. I remember myself back then and my pity is boundless, my eyes sting...

Ly Thi Minh Chau