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Rice Stories

@ricestoryteller.bsky.social
12 followers 6 following 34 posts

Asian American scholars storying complex entanglements with a sacred, life-giving grain. Rice is life 🌾 🍚🙏

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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Oil painting by Ferdinando Amorsolo in 1921 depicting farmers planting rice in wet rice field in the Philippines.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
"The highly sensualized depictions of women farmers also change Amorsolo’s narration of the rice #planting scene from a depiction of agrarian economic production to a more nuanced association of agriculture with female #fertility and reproductive sexuality." #philippines #arthistory #rice #images
epa.culturalcenter.gov.ph
CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art | CCP Encylopedia of Philippine Art
CCP Encylopedia of Philippine Art
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
He, R., Köksal, S., Cockayne, H., & Elliot, D. L. (2024). It’s more than just food: the role of food among Chinese international students’ acculturation experiences in the UK and USA. *Food, Culture & Society*, 1-19. doi.org/10.1080/1552...
doi.org
It’s more than just food: the role of food among Chinese international students’ acculturation experiences in the UK and USA
Food is an indispensable element in every culture. However, it is often regarded as trivial, mundane, and inconspicuous in daily life and, in turn, its role has often been overlooked in intercultur...
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
We stand with U.S. international students currently experiencing increased fear, uncertainty, and discrimination. We're reminded of rice's role in many sojourner student lives and how rice and other home foods can present opportunities for learning across cultures *and* invoke negative stereotypes.
"Similarly, his peer in the UK (Yang_F_UK_Case1) also experienced such stereotypes and discrimination when she overheard her new roommates ridiculing their Asian classmates' habits of cooking rice for daily meals. She said sadly:

It feels very bad, that is discrimination, which really has a great impact on my psychological well-being. At that time, I really felt that I was the marginalized group. Why did I come to this place?

As previously discussed, although food could provide creative and meaningful learning and interaction opportunities among Chinese international students and their peers from host or other international cultures; seemingly, it also delivered unfriendly messages derived from stereotypes and discrimination. This could result in student sojourners experiencing poor mental health and well-being, which could hinder their attempts to engage in and interacting with the host society and different cultures" (He et al., 2024, p. 319)

He, R., Köksal, S., Cockayne, H., & Elliot, D. L. (2024). It’s more than just food: the role of food among Chinese international students’ acculturation experiences in the UK and USA. *Food, Culture & Society*, 1-19. [https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2330180](https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2024.2330180)
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Over time, what was once a #marker of #modernity and #class distinction has become deeply embedded in #everyday life. #Domestic technologies are never neutral; it is a site of #negotiation among state-drive forces, consumer’s choices and #gendered social scripts.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
However, technological adoption was never just a top-down process. #Consumers played a decisive role in determining which models succeeded, shaping design decisions around taste and affordability, illustrating #consumptionjunction (Cowan, 2012)—consumer’s active role in technology’s success.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
In postwar Korea, as #Japan introduced the electric rice cooker as a modern domestic appliance in the 1950s, the #Korean government pushed local manufacturers to "#catch up", embedding rice cooker development into #nationalist #industrial policies.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
doi.org/10.1080/0734...
doi.org
Before localization: the story of the electric rice cooker in South Korea
The commonplace way to tell the global history of the electric rice cooker is to begin with its invention in Japan, then trace its adaptation and localization as it spread through the Asian region....
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
The electric #rice cooker, now an essential fixture in many Asian households, was not always the seamless, taken-for-granted #technology it is today. Its development and adoption were shaped by a complex interplay of #manufacturers, elite #researchers, #political leaders, and #consumers (Choi, 2022)
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Spry, T. (2021). The matter of performative autoethnography. In T. E. Adams, S. Holman Jones, & C. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of autoethnography (2nd ed.), (pp. 167-178). Routledge.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
"Rice is life" is a common phrase among rice-eating peoples of the world. Like the #performative #autoethnographic #stories we share here, this saying is more than mere metaphor. Rather, these illustrate rice as #matterphor, "which offers materiality and metaphor as inseparable" (Spry, 2021, p. 171)
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Like #congee and #arrozcaldo, but simpler, this basic #lugaw recipe can be dressed up many ways, using different proteins, boiled egg, saffron or turmeric, milk, local fruits, and even chocolate! Many cultures worldwide have savory & sweet variations of rice porridge using different kinds of rice.
panlasangpinoy.com
Lugaw Recipe
Lugaw or plain congee is the most basic congee recipe that only requires rice, water, and salt. This is an upgraded version
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
The cold spell had me making #lugaw, a Filipino #comfortfood #rice #porridge often fed to babies, elderly, and sick people. You need 6-8 times as much water as rice. I used ginger, fish sauce, pepper, green onion, salt. Came out a bit thick, but good compliment to chicken. There are many variations!
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
The reality is that as a #glutensensitive person with #digestive problems, nothing is more #neutral and #soothing to my body than plain white #rice. Cultural relationship to rice makes me view it as a natural companion to an infinite number of dishes. I desire rice every day. I am more rice-eater.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
A #warm #bowl of white rice will always be the most #neutral #comfortfood my body can eat. I dread traveling to events where I know rice will probably not be served. At a recent conference, a colleague recalled how excited I had been at a previous conference to go to a restaurant that served rice.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
My sisters and I experienced a bit of #cultureshock at encountering the food habits of other families in the USA. My in-laws occasionally ate yellow rice made the Southern way, very moist and buttery. My sister's spouse complained that she served #rice almost every day. Rice was not neutral staple.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
While growing up in the USA, we cooked and ate rice almost every day. Except for nights when my half-Italian father made spaghetti, we ate rice for the dinner meal. So, #rice was the main #staple in our house. Rice has nourished my body almost every day of my life, since even before I was born.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
#Rice sustains the #bodies of much of the world's population and many eat rice for every meal. I never felt so American as when, visiting family in the Philippines, I had my usual oatmeal or #pandesal for breakfast while most of the family ate rice. I felt shame at being called #bread-eater. #staple
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
"'Rice-eating Asians vs. bread-eating Europeans' is a familiar expression of difference between the Asians and the Europeans. ... Roughly one third of the world population in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa rely on rice as exclusive staple food" (Ohnuki-Tierney 2004, p. 4).
asianstudies.org
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
While a way to cook rice, many of Asian heritage, ourselves included, see your method as quite an American technique that would not produce the firmer texture our family members like and expect rice to have in most of our cultural dishes. We share the traditional ways passed down from our mothers.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
#Washing rice on the request of my #workingmom who balanced running a small shop and her duties of mothering was more than just #chores. They were my #contributions to our family, weaving together #duty and #affection. For a six-year-old, this act of #responsibility was a form of #care for her mom.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Despite the convenience of modern #ricecookers that speak human language (s/o to #Cuckoo) I find it hard to forsake this step for mere #measuring cup. Funny thing is my partner, who had been adhered to #recipes and #measuring cup for the ‘perfect’ amount of water now follows this step. (2/3).
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Speaking of hands in rice, it reminds me of how my mom taught me the #tactile way of knowing the right amount of water for silky textured #rice. Long ago: she showed me to place my #hand in the pot, and when the water reaches beyond my knuckles, it was just right. 🧵 (1/3)
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
While I have never experienced #handplanting rice in wet paddies the way my ancestor #ricefarmers did with the help of #carabao, hands, rice, and water meet in #washing and preparing for #cooking. The index finger method, adding water from the top of the rice to the first knuckle never fails! #magic
Picture of an index finger measuring the amount of water in a pot full of rice
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
As a child, my white grandmother shamed me for eating #Filipino #adobo with #rice in traditional #kamayan style. For this offense, she compared me to Tupperware and my obedient utensil-using sisters, ironically, to "fine china." Eating with hands is NOT #uncivilized. Her #ethnocentrism cut deep.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Eating with hands, or #kamayan, is a #traditional, #precolonial Filipino custom. Considered #savage by some, eating #pagkakamay happens throughout #southAsia, embodying #sensual relation to food, #practicality, and #sharing. Just press the rice and dish onto fingers and use thumb to push into mouth!
en.wikipedia.org
Kamayan - Wikipedia
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
We were moved to write about #rice after noticing it’s been there for our whole life. This #affective #resonance was crystallized after visitng a #communitygarden that turned all the junks to an #art just by re-positioning them. From neglected to notable, margin to a center rice’s been there with us
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
While having this feeling shaking my core, my instant gratification was #koreankimbap — my car was heading to #hmart with all my minds getting messed up. #Rice is easy quick #nudge that reconnects me with #home— as Michelle Zauner beautifully described in her book www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...
newyorker.com
Crying in H Mart
Sobbing near the dry goods, I ask myself, “Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?”
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
With one of us soon hosting a wedding, I'm thinking about the #tradition of #rice being thrown to symbolize #fertility and #prosperity. Thankfully, as @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social shares, the material presence of this raw grain is not harmful to wildlife. Birds easily digest uncooked rice!
allaboutbirds.org
I’m getting married. Is it true that rice causes birds’ stomachs to explode?
Nope! This myth has been making the rounds on and off, sometimes based on “true” stories that even in this day and age never seem to have any video or photographic support. A great many birds, from w...
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
My mind is busy but my body cannot move. What would be the next? Chains of thoughts marked by emotional outrage turn into wildly pulsating heart. I cannot hear anything but my ears keep drumming. Are we reliving those days? I keep asking. What do I feed into my #dream and #hope now? I keep hearing.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Another kind of rice bowl my (Shannon’s) mother created to protect from potentially harmful spirits in my old house. This is one form of #rice #charm I grew up with. Beyond bodily nourishment, these charms use rice for #spiritual #protection and represent another form of #intergenerational #care.
A protective bowl of rice with garlic, bay leaves, and red cloth assembled by Shannon’s mother upon moving into her 125-year old house. Another protective rice charm Shannon’s mother made to hang inside the front door of her old house. Materials: a square of red cloth, uncooked rice, garlic, bay leaves.
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
A bowl of #rice embodies the journey of #life: #seeds planted, crops harvested, grains processed, recipes crafted, meals shared. It reflects #nature, #culture and #multiplicity of life’s connections. A humble yet profound expression of our being #ricestory
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Descendant of Filipino rice farmers, I marvel at 2,000 year old rice terraces built by generations of indigenous Ifugao in Luzon's northern cordilleras. This technology of communal cultural practice enacts embodied and sustainable harmonious being with/in environment. whc.unesco.org/en/list/722/
whc.unesco.org
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Rice Stories @ricestoryteller.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Hunching my back to repot the indoor plants my PI and I brought in STEM space for a sense of difference reminds me of my #grandma, whose frame shortened from years of tending her crops, plants, and children. #Care requires attunement—a bodily movement staying in touch with the ground and connected.
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