I have ploughed, planted, cut harvests, pickled tea leaves and chopped wood in the isolated but beautiful countryside of Kuanhsi in Taiwan. But of all the chores that are a farmer’s lot here, crawling in a paddy field to rid it of weeds is, in my experience, the task that trains one best to develop a Spartan spirit.
Nowadays, of course, the farmer need only use chemicals to kill weeds. It was not so when I was a boy some three decades ago. From the age of eight or so, I had to contribute my share of labour along with my father and two elder brothers, Yuh-hsien and Yuh-tang.
Our family was too poor to afford paid labourers. Kneeling in a paddy field with a hat, a shirt and a pair of shorts my only protection, I was up to my thighs in mud. It splashed all over me, wet, sticky and dirty. When mud splashed into my eyes and on to my lip, I’d stand up, find the kettle of fresh water and try to wash it away; but it was always a long struggle before I could get it completely out of my eyes and off my lips.
The first weeding of the year occurred just before spring, and the second in midsummer. Then the blistering sun beat upon my arched back, making me feel like hot bread stuck to the side of a pan. The evaporating water from the paddy field steamed up my nostrils and face.
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