Week 100
Mission Log
The rice has been planted. There are rice fields all over the
place. They are right in the city many times. Basically everyone works
on a rice field. It`s not like a regular field. It has a couple
centimeters (things similar to inches) of water on top the field. They
also don`t plant just seeds very often. They plant them as small little
plants that are already half a foot tall. I`m excited to watch them
all grow. By the time you get here, in July, they will all be very tall and
almost ready to harvest. They don`t get tall like corn or anything.
They get up to about your waist height. They look pretty similar to
grass right now. It`s just a couple strands of grass put together in a
clump. Then, one of those clumps every couple of inches all lined up in
a straight row. Most people have told me that when they were younger,
they planted the rice fields by hand, one at a time. Many many older
women are permanently bent over so their hips are bent at a ninety
degree angle and their upper body is parallel to the ground. They can`t
stand up straight. It comes from bending over to plant rice their
whole life and from drinking too much tea (it weakens your bones).
Nowadays, everyone just rides a machine through the field that plants it
all for them. It seems pretty convenient. Along the road that we walk
from the apartment to the train station there are a few rice fields in a
row. The first two just look like normal rice fields with the little
plants in straight lines and a couple inches of water. The third one,
however, has a sign that says "Tamagawa Elementary School's Practice
Learning Field". The rice is not in straight lines at all. They are in
weird clumps. A lot of them have fallen over. There are tons of big
mounds of dirt and footprints everywhere. It`s way funny and way cute.
I`m excited to watch them grow. After they get taller, it`s cool to
watch them wave as the wind blows through them.
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