LIFESTYLE OF THE RICE FARMER(1)

Stouchie

1 HOUSE OF BAMBOO

This image was captured in the Mae Hoppa district of Chiangmai Provence, Northern Thailand in July 2007.

Here is depicted a rice farmer’s house that is made entirely from bamboo. Mature poles about six centimeters in circumference support the upper floor that is made from smaller bamboo poles that have been split in two. The thatched roof is made from a mixture of bamboo and rice straw. This house, larger than most bamboo houses, is well constructed and built to last.

Many people in this country still live their traditional lifestyle in such houses. They have no electricity and therefore no television, computers or household appliances that are the expected norm in most of our world today. Bathing and clothes washing is conducted in a local stream. Cooking is mostly by means of sticks collected from the local woods, or occasionally charcoal. Lighting is by use of oil lamps or candles made by hand from beeswax. They sleep on the floor on top of a mat, a pillow for their head and a blanket that is used during cold season.

The land on which their paddy fields stand has been passed down through the family for many generations and little of their lifestyle has changed during that time. Fewer farmers still use the traditional buffalo for farm tasks, now preferring a hand operated, two wheeled, motorized ‘tractor’ to which they can attach different farm implements. It is common to see farmers in the fields pushing these ‘tractors’ like we would push a lawnmower. However, they still sow, transplant and tend their paddy fields by hand.

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