In an age of transitional justice, how do we negotiate a passage through our complex identities? How did martyrs’ shrines, dedicated to those who died for the country, serve to contribute to a homogenous idea of nationhood? In what way can we relate them to modern notions of plural identities?
On Mt. Shibikeng, ten minutes’ drive from downtown Gongliao in New Taipei City, even today there are a number of farmers growing rice. The road into the mountains is very narrow, making access difficult for mechanized harvesters, so the farmers of Shibikeng still harvest their rice the traditional way, by hand. Because this requires a great deal of manpower, they have kept up the tradition of sharing their labor, with ten or more farmers organizing a harvesting team. They all pitch in to bring in each member’s crop by turns, assisting each other so that the mature rice can be cut in a timely manner during the brief harvest season. After the introduction of mechanized farming in Taiwan back in the 1970s, it became rare to see rice being reaped by shared labor. Little do most people know that in the mountains of Gongliao District, this tradition has been preserved by happenstance, due to the lack of access for machinery. It is a reminder of Taiwan’s rural culture in days gone by.
Jian Qiuyang, age 72, farms something over two-tenths of a hectare of wet paddy on Mt. Shibikeng, and the day of harvesting his rice is the most important day of the year for him. Dawn is just breaking and the ears of rice are still covered in dew when Jian, unable to wait, steps into his fields to begin cutting the rice. And he is by no means alone! His two younger brothers, his younger sister and ten other farmers have all gone up the mountain to share their labor and help him out. They begin arriving before six in the morning, before the sun has even crested the mountain peak behind Jian’s home. Some bend their backs to reap the rice, some pass along the sheaves of cut rice with ears full of grain, while others take on the task of hulling the rice. Moreover, in front of Jian’s house a group of elderly women are busy too: besides sun-drying the rice, they also have to prepare “rice harvesting meals” for more than ten people. A hubbub of voices percolates the paddy field, the place where the rice is spread out to dry, and inside and outside Jian’s house, enlivening the normally quiet mountain village.
Reaping rice by hand requires a lot of manpower and is exhausting work, so eating the “rice harvesting meals” is an important part of a day of harvesting. Besides the three main meals of the day, there are two snacks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Only by consuming a lot of food can the harvesters replenish the vast amount of energy expended, which is why there is the tradition of eating five meals a day when harvesting rice. Jian Qiuyang’s younger sister, a very experienced old lady, has already picked a big pile of water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) and sweet potato leaves before heading up the mountain. She and her neighbor, another old lady, use the time before things get busy to sort through the vegetables and clean them ready for cooking. Then Jian’s sister sets to work in the kitchen preparing the snack to be eaten at 10 a.m.: she cooks up stir-fried noodles, pork knuckles with braised egg, boiled chicken, and fish soup made with freshly caught fish. After the meal there is even chilled grass jelly and homegrown watermelon. Jian brings out the finest foods in his house to express his gratitude to the farmers who have come up to help him by offering them excellent rice harvesting meals. The old rural tradition of eating five meals a day when harvesting rice has been preserved thanks to the continuing practice of labor sharing in Gongliao.
The team that is helping Jian Qiuyang includes ten elderly men, three elderly women, and one farmer in his 30s; added together, their ages surpass 1000 years! They begin harvesting before six in the morning, and work straight through to the intense heat of noon before they finish reaping Jian’s two-tenths of a hectare. Down in the plains, a harvester could complete a similar area of rice fields in less than an hour, meaning that Jian and his helpers work seven times as long to do theirs. Even when they begin work early in the morning, they are immediately soaked in dew and sweat over their whole bodies, and under the intense sun they have to endure the pain of continually bending their backs, so the process is extremely arduous. Why go through such hardship? Jian replies without hesitation: “When you buy rice from me, that gives me the motivation to keep on going!”
Farmers helping out with the harvest lay the heads of whole sheaves of rice into the hulling machine. Because the rice is grown in wet paddies, the screen on the hulling machine is covered in water droplets.
Jian Qiuyang carries freshly harvested rice from his fields to the road in front of his house, where it will be dried in the sun.
The farmers harvest rice from before 6 a.m. until just past ten, when they pause to eat. Because reaping rice by hand is grueling work, eating the “rice harvesting meals” is an important part of harvest day.
When they finish work at high noon, the farmers cool off with water from a mountain spring.
