Every Picture Tells A Story

The cliche, "Every Picture Tells A Story", has been used widely as well as often.


I would like to use it today to provide my interpretation of a few photographs from the recent rice harvest here in Isaan.

I had written about the rice thresher that had been used to thresh the family rice last Saturday. I described how it was old, had no doors, and was most likely held together by the many coats of paint on it. Today while editing photos from my other camera of the threshing process I came upon some photos of the thresher. One of the difficulties of maintaining a blog and taking so many photographs is that there is often not sufficient time to review and edit all photos before posting a relevant blog entry in a timely fashion. My preference is to post blogs in a timely fashion because it better connects this world with the readers world(s) in real time. I want to share the life of real people in real time with others to enhance the experience for all. This often requires a compromise with writing the blog and perhaps using all the optimum photos.

When I worked on the photos of the threshing machine today I remembered the cliche and it occurred to me that every picture tells a story but what story does it tell? It is like a picture of a 12 oz glass with 6 oz of water in it. Is the story concerning a half empty glass or a half full glass. We all know that the story is based upon one's perspective, experience, and personal agenda. So it is with these photos.

One story about these pictures could be centered around the negatives and the things that the thresher, machine and man, do not have. There are no doors, there are not adequate lighting, there is no air conditioning, there are no safety belts, there are no ..., he doesn't have much money, he doesn't take care of his equipment well, he doesn't look after his safety very well, he doesn't ... , he isn't ... This is the story of pessimism.

The story that I want to share is a story of optimism. I see a piece of equipment that is fit for purpose and gets the job done. In more developed countries or areas, a threshing machine could cost $100,000 USD or more - well beyond the ability of Isaan farmers to purchase or to support. This threshing machine, in its current state and condition, serves the needs of the local community of subsistence farmers. The owner besides being able to provide a needed service to his community as well as to support his family.

On a typical day of the month long harvest season, he will be paid about 8 bags of rice for a total of 240 bags for the season. One bag will feed his family for two months so he will acquire more than enough bags of rice during the harvest to feed his family. He will be able to sell the surplus rice to dealers and agents for about 500 Baht ($15.11 USD for 110 pounds of rice) a bag to pay for diesel fuel, and other operating expenses as well as to support his family.

In a one month harvest season, he will earn 117,000 baht or the equivalent of 9,750 baht a month for the year. This is no where nearly as good as the crab fishermen on television's "Deadliest Catch" but pretty good for a Thai farmer.

This story of optimism is also a testament to the freedom that many people here in Southeast Asia to make a living as best they can and anyway that they can. There are not many government regulations, permits, reports or applications necessary to start up a small business. The people are free to exercise their initiative and entrepreneurial skills to make a living no matter their economic status. They focus on what they can do rather than finding or wallowing in the excuses for all the things and reasons that they can not.

Although there is not a Thanksgiving holiday here in Isaan, I am sure that the Lao Loum people are thankful to be able to earn a living, with minimal governmental interference and involvement, even with equipment that is only just fit for purpose - a blessing that we should all enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

A Good Harvest

Saturday, 21 November, was the completion of the family rice harvest.


Cutting the ripe rice had taken three days of many family members in the heat and under the glaring sun. Four rhai, 1.58 acres of rice had been completely cut using only sickles. After laying in the sun for three days to further dry out, the cut stalks were bundled into sheaves using stalks to bind the sheaf together. Many of the sheaves had been gathered the previous day and transported to a central location of the paddy to create a large mound atop a fine mesh blue plastic mat. The mat captures for storage any rice kernels that fall off the stalks due to handling of the sheaves. It is surprising how much rice separates from the straw just through manual handling. The family are subsistence farmers so there is a great deal of motivation to minimize waste. The harvested crop will feed the family for the next year. Although there was a large mound awaiting the arrival of the threshing machine, there remained many sheaves scattered about the paddies.

The first task of the day, was to gather up the scattered sheaves and transport them to the large mound. Workers gathered up the dried sheaves from the field and tossed them up to another worker who stacked them up in the back of the farm truck. Once the farm truck was filled it brought the sheaves to the big mound where they were off loaded by hand.




The family uses the services of a local man who owns a rice thresher. The man is from Tahsang Village which was fortunate. The family field could be accessed using dirt roads through the sugar cane and rice fields rather than on the public highway. The threshing machine was mounted on the back of a pick up truck frame. It appeared to me that the vehicle could have been a 1957 Chevy. The vehicle was handed painted blue and I would not be surprised to determine that the paint was largely holding it together. There were no doors on the truck and the interior was completely gutted with wires, and remnants of fabric. I did not see any registration plates on the truck, or an inspection sticker on the windshield.


The man with the threshing machine does not get paid in cash for his services. He charges 4% for threshing a crop. For every 100 50 KG bags of rice product, he receives 4 bags of rice in payment. This may explain the dilapidated condition of his transport vehicle. The actual threshing machine was in better condition so once the machine got to the field, there were no problems or concerns. The Thresher goes from paddy to paddy, by appointment, each day threshing the rice of his neighbors. At the end of each day he returns home in his rig with his bags of rice payment stacked around his machine. On a typical day, he earns 8 bags in payment. Each bag is 110 pounds, 50 kilos, of rice and is sufficient to feed an Isaan family of four for two months.

The thresher eventually showed up at the paddy and was set up on top of the blue mat next to the large mat. The thresher is set over the mat to capture any spillage of rice from the process. Family workers took their work stations and the process was ready to commence. The owner of the threshing machine took his place on a small seat that protruded from the side of the thresher. In front of his station was a flat shelf that served to feed the sheaves into the thresher. With his hands the owner ensured a smooth and constant flow of material into the thresher. Workers atop the sheave mound threw sheaves down to other workers who through a combination of tossing and placing got a constant stream of sheaves on to the feed shelf. A chute located on the opposite side of the threshing drum forcibly ejected the waste straw, dust, and dirt off to the side to create a large pile of straw that will be used for animal feed. The afternoon winds blew the debris everywhere. To get the sun at my back to ensure better photographs I was often in the vicinity of the debris stream. When I changed locations for different perspectives, I was surrounded by straw cast about by the winds. The workers were also in the predicament - just a part of the job. Immediately upon returning home, I was banished to the shower to wash away the dust and straw that I had accumulated over 4 hours of watching and photographing the threshing operations.

At the end of the threshing drum, a screw conveyor ejected the rice. Other workers manned this station to fill the grain bags. Local hardware stores sell the bags for 6 baht each $0.18 USD each. Many of the bags have advertising on them for fertilizer as well as grains. These bags are apparently surplus, rejects, or recycled from others. Little is allowed to be wasted here in Isaan. The heavy flow of rice from the thresher filled the bags rather quickly and constantly. There was a choreography of motion to ensure that the bags were completely filled, removed from the discharge chute, and a new empty bag put into position to be filled without wasting rice as the machine continually shot out rice.

Several workers shuttled back and forth from the threshing machine to an area where the filled bags were being stored and sealed. One worker ensured that the filled bags were placed neatly and vertically in neat rows. He twisted the tops of the bags closed and tied them off with bamboo strips. The bamboo straps for tying the bags had been cut and shaved from local groves.

As the sun came close to setting, the threshing was completed. For the 4 rhai (1.58 acres) of land that had been planted in July, 38 bags of rice had been produced. The yield ended up being 2,645 pounds per acre - well below the United States average yield of 7,039 pounds per acre - a testament to the poor soil in Isaan as well as the lack of applying fertilizers. When the rice seed was first sowed, fertilizer was hand broadcast lightly - the first and only time that fertilizer was used. I have tried four times to grow some vegetables and herbs at our home - I have failed every time. The closest to any degree of success was squash which did at least sprout!

The thresher was paid one bag for his services. Thirty six bags were transported back to Tahsang Village to be stored in the raised rice shed at Duang's parent's house. Two bags will be reserved for seed to be used next July. The remaining 35 bags will be milled in about two months and used to feed the family and others over the next year.

The family will have plenty of rice for morning, noon, and night for the next year, so despite the low productivity when compared to United States standards, this year's harvest was a good harvest.

Threshing Rice Outside Tahsang Village

On Friday morning we drove out to Tahsang Village for a couple of reasons. Duang's daughter and her husband were still busy with harvesting the rice from the family paddy so we had the chance to care for Peelawat. Secondly, some of Duang's 93 cousins were going to be threshing their harvested rice just outside of Tahsang Village so there would be photography opportunities for me to take advantage of.

On our extended visits to Tahsang Village, I bring my camera gear as well as my laptop computer. While Peelawat sleeps I use the computer to organize and edit photographs. Lately I have been waiting until around 2:00 P.M. to go out to the fields to commence photographing. I find the lower light of the late afternoon more conducive to photographing the workers and harvested rice. The late afternoon sun gives an overall golden hue to the scenery.

On Friday afternoon when we was going out to photograph the threshing operation nearby, Peelawat was awake so we decided to take him with us. It was a bright and hot afternoon so we attempted to shield him with a large hat. Peelawat would not cooperate and kept brushing the hat off of his head. Fortunately near where the work was going on there was a typical rest platform. Rest platforms are scattered about the fields and provide some protection for the workers from the sun. The platforms have either a thatched or corrugated (usually rusty) metal roof. Workers eat their meals underneath the roofs and sometimes take a nap in the middle of the day to deal with the heat of the day. This was a good place for Duang and Peelawat to sit while I went about the field. Peelawat watched me the entire time.

The rice in the paddy had been cut and bundled into sheaves previously. A very large mound of rice sheaves had been created in one corner of the complex of paddies. The mound had been built up upon a very large blue mat of very fine mesh plastic netting. The netting captures the rice kernels that fall from the stalks due to handling. The threshing machine is also set up to ensure that the loss of product is minimized. There were also many sheaves of rice stalks scatter throughout the paddies. The first task of the day was to gather up, transport the scattered sheaves, and add them to the large mound. The workers set about gathering the sheaves and piling them into a wagon pulled by an "iron buffalo". The workers were in fine spirits, singing to the Mahlam Lao music that blared across the paddies from a portable radio that they had placed on the ground - UNTIL - until one of the cousins backed up the rice laden wagon over the top of the radio. The last song abruptly terminated with a large scrunching sound.

After awhile the threshing machine arrived. It was the same machine and operator that I had photographed a year ago at another cousin's field.

The machine was set up on the blue netting and the crew began feeding the sheaves into the middle of the machine. Dust and straw was forcibly ejected from a chute at the other side of the threshing drum. Additional debris was ejected from a screw conveyor beneath the drum at the same side as the straw ejection chute. Rice kernels left the machine at the back end in a heavy stream.. The rice was collected into 50 kilogram bags. As the bags were quickly filled, they were carried away to a storage area where their tops were closed and tied off with thin strips of bamboo.


We spent about an hour and one-half there before returning Peelawat back to his home. The little guy had done well on his first photo shoot in the field.

22 November 2008 - Threshing Rice

Threshing Rice
Saturday 22 November 2008

After Friday night's excitement at the hospital, we got a late start to Tahsang Village on Saturday morning. Rather than me driving Duang out to the village, her son and his girlfriend decided to join us.

We made our customary stop in Kumphawapi to pick up some leaves and twigs (Lao food), and some prepared foods for lunch. Food for 8 to 10 people cost less than $10 USD.

As we approached Tahsang Village we passed one of Duang's cousin's farm. There was a huge pile on rice sheaves stacked on a blue plastic net. At least 8 cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends were busy feeding the sheaves into a truck mounted threshing machine. It was a great scene - brillant blue sky, golden stalks of rice, colorful clothes - with chaff flying everywhere.

Duang realized immediately that I wanted to photograph the ongoing work. She was hungry, and since I am not especially fond of Kao Lao (Lao Food) I was not keen on eating lunch with the gang. She said that after she got out to eat with her family in Tahsang, I could take the truck back to photograph the workers. It was such a lovely day that I decided to walk the short ways back to work site.

I returned to the sight alone and started taking the first of what ended being a total of 547 photographs for the day. Although it was not a hot day, by the end of our visit, both Duang and I were tired. When we are out in the field shooting, there is a great deal of physical activity - squatting, bending, stooping, and walking, as well as mental concentration. Duang at her insistence carries my camera backpack - about 20 pounds (10 KG). From our many shoots, she has developed a very good sense for what I want to do next. Between the two of us changing lenses or adding a flash is accomplished quickly and effortlessly.

Today some of her relatives were threshing the rice. Duang remembers in the past she and others would separate the rice kernels from the stalks by beating them on the ground. That portion of rice processing has gotten easier but not necessarily easy. After the rice stalks have been cut by hand using sickles, the cut stalks lay in the sun to dry for three days. After three days the stalks are gathered by hand and made into sheaves using some longer stalks to bind the bundles together. The sheaves are loaded by hand into the back of the tuk-tuk farm truck and driven to the point where the machine threshing will take place. At the appointed place, a large fine meshed blue net is staked to the ground. The tuk tuk truck loads of sheaves are unloaded by hand on to the net. A huge pile of sheaves is created with the net covered with rice kernels that have separated due to the transportation and handling of the sheaves to create the piles. The fine mesh of the net allows these kernels to be recovered and not wasted.

A tuk-tuk farm truck with a mechanical thresher mounted on the back bed drives up onto one side of the blue net. The truck is situated between the stack of sheaves and the location where the pile of straw will be created. Today the pile of straw was created right next to the roofed crib where the straw is stored for feeding the cattle. Little effort will be required to relocate the new straw to under the protection of the roofed crib.

The threshing machine is powered by a separate small diesel engine. An operator sits on an elevated seat that cantilevers off of the side of the machine. Off to the operator's right side is a shelf that feeds the sheaves into the threshing drum. Most of the workers occupy themselves with feeding the belching thresher. They gather the sheaves and throw them up to another worker who is standing on a pile of sheaves to better access the feeding of the threshing machine. The sheaves go into one end of the drum. Straw is shot high into the air out of a duct at the far end of the machine. A screw feeder ejects the rice kernels out of a nozzle at the end of the drum below the shelf where the sheaves were fed into the machine.

Young boys were busy filling sacks with the rice that was ejected by the machine. The sacks held about 65 pounds (30 KG) of rice. Older and stronger men would carry the filled sacks to a storage area where another worker would close and tie the sacks. The machine owner's son kept busy by periodically filling the engine's small fuel tank with fuel from a plastic 2 liter jug - sort of like the large plastic bottles of orange juice from Costco or some other warehouse outlet in America.

When in operation the process was quite the sight to see and hear. There was no muffler on the thresher. The air was punctuated with the ebb and flow of the engine reacting to the loads of straw. The straw was shot high into the air, arcing, and fell into an ever growing pile except for the straw that was picked up in mid-air and blown around. From underneath the shade a tree at the edge of the work sight, two young toddlers filled the air with the sounds of their playing. Their grandmother watched over them and guarded the ice water and soft drinks for the workers. From the rice paddy located about 10 feet lower than the threshing sight, cowbells jingled as four head of cattle intently grazed on the straw remaining from a previously harvested rice paddy.

Past the grazing cattle, Duang's sister and four other people were harvesting rice. To their left another group of 5 people were harvesting rice from adjacent paddy. This scene was repeated all over the countryside - threshing and harvesting the current rice crop all around Isaan.
Duang and I walked down the hillside from the threshing area to visit and photograph her sister and brother-in-law harvesting their rice. The walk was rather difficult and presented challenges as well as risks. The rice paddies are bounded by narrow raised clay dikes. The dikes are used to impound water on the planted rice. In addition the dikes are used to control the water level in and amongst the paddies. The levels are controlled by cutting slots into the dikes.

Now that the fields have been growing since July, the dikes are overgrown with vegetation. The control slots as well as other types of ankle twisting hazards are hidden beneath a heavy mat of grasses and shrubs. Travelling across the rice paddies presents even more tripping hazards beneath the matted flat stalks. All this required a focus and careful selection of where to place your feet to avoid twisting an ankle or falling down. This was tiring.

We visited both groups of harvesters and returned back to the threshing sight - just as operations were wrapping up.

After all the sheaves had been threshed, the owner of the machine collected his payment. In this case it was four sacks of rice. The discharge duct was dismantled and the unit drove off to the next place where their services were needed.

The remaining filled sacks of rice were again loaded by hand on to the tuk-tuk farm truck. Once the truck was filled, several workers climbed up and sat on top of the stacked bags. With two people in front and 3 to 6 atop the load, the tuk-tuk farm trucks set out putt putting down the country road towards home. Upon arriving at home, the rice sacks were offloaded by hand into the rice barn. Rice barns are small heavy constructed elevated wood structures set atop concrete piles. The rice barns are about 10 foot by 10 foot by 8 foot. They are about 6 to 8 feet off of the ground with corrugated metal roof. The rice is stored in the barn for seven months prior to milling where the husk is removed from the kernel to create the rice that we are familiar in purchasing at the supermarket.

Duang surprised me by driving the truck from Tahsang Village to the work sight. She has been learning to drive and the farm roads are lightly travelled so there was minimum risk - to her as well as others.

With Saturday's photos, I now have the cycle of rice cultivation completed from planting to storage in the rice barn. A portion of the life cycle and rhythm of Isaan life in photographs. I am pleased but then again I am usually pleased.