Lessons from farmers
I live in a village in NE Thailand. My wife owns land there. We grow rice and raise fish in two rainfed ponds. This is a true story:
It took me years to figure out who was family. In the early days of our relationship, whenever Pim and I would visit the village we would stay at her parent’s house. Her older brother, his wife and their three kids were also living there. One of Pim’s younger sisters lived next door with her husband and two kids. Sounds simple enough but in any Thai village household there is a steady stream of visiting relatives, friends and neighbors who may be there for a short chat or an extended stay. And everybody is "older brother" and "younger sister" and auntie and uncle so it’s always a bit difficult to figure out who is really related to who.
Regardless of who was there I was always given the first class treatment. That was OK the first few times but after a while I didn’t want the first class treatment. I wanted to be involved. I would go out to the fields with the lads and ask dumb questions and get in the way and break hoe handles and they would all laugh and it was generally a good time for all. Regardless of how many hoe handles I broke or fishing nets I tore I kept looking for ways to be useful.
One day Pim’s sister and her husband were sawing sections off a log they had dragged back to their yard. The log was about a meter and half in length and maybe 30 cm at the thick end. They were sawing off sections about 15 cm in length then splitting these up into what looked to me liked kindling. They would bundle together about a dozen of resinous sticks with a thin bamboo twist tie and throw the bundle in a bag. Apparently this was a good little money spinner but I’m never sure I’m getting the full story.
To cut the sections the sister and husband were using a big buck saw. The blade was about a meter long with inch and a half teeth and held in a bamboo frame. It took two hands to hold one end of this thing. After about an hour of sawing and splitting and bundling, the husband got called away for some reason. The sister recruited Kitti, her oldest boy, who was only about 10 years old at the time. Kitti did his best but this saw was just too big for him and they abandoned the project. Here was my opportunity to be useful and, at the same time, show what a clever farang I was.
This was a two person saw no doubt about it but I had an idea. It was the old bicycle inner that gave me the idea. Damned useful stuff old inner tubes. I always keep at least one around. I cut the tube so I had a length instead of a tube. I tied one end around the handle of the saw and the other end around a fence post at a height equal to the thickness of the log. I shifted the log under the saw between me and the fence post. The fence post was my other person and the inner tube applied just the right amount of tension to pull the saw back after my draw. It was a great little labor saving invention and it worked a treat. I was quite pleased with myself as I sat there on the ground merrily sawing away.
Within minutes the crowd started gathering. Fist family members then people from nearby houses. They obviously thought this was the most hilarious thing they had seen since Uncle Dick had fallen into his cesspool. They were just honking with laughter. I was offended. Here I had gone to the trouble of taking up some obviously important income generating work and had, in the process, invented a labor saving device that required only one unit of labor instead of two and they thought it was funny.
It took a few years but I finally figured out the joke. First, why would anybody like me, an affluent farang, who didn’t have to work, actually go out of his way to get all hot and sweaty. And second, why would anybody in their right mind possibly want to work alone. To this day I’m sure they thought the whole episode was a pantomime I arranged expressly for their amusement. And I think they might have been right.
Lessons from farmers
I live in a village in NE Thailand. My wife owns land there. We grow rice and raise fish in two rainfed ponds. This is a true story:
It took me years to figure out who was family. In the early days of our relationship, whenever Pim and I would visit the village we would stay at her parent’s house. Her older brother, his wife and their three kids were also living there. One of Pim’s younger sisters lived next door with her husband and two kids. Sounds simple enough but in any Thai village household there is a steady stream of visiting relatives, friends and neighbors who may be there for a short chat or an extended stay. And everybody is "older brother" and "younger sister" and auntie and uncle so it’s always a bit difficult to figure out who is really related to who.
Regardless of who was there I was always given the first class treatment. That was OK the first few times but after a while I didn’t want the first class treatment. I wanted to be involved. I would go out to the fields with the lads and ask dumb questions and get in the way and break hoe handles and they would all laugh and it was generally a good time for all. Regardless of how many hoe handles I broke or fishing nets I tore I kept looking for ways to be useful.
One day Pim’s sister and her husband were sawing sections off a log they had dragged back to their yard. The log was about a meter and half in length and maybe 30 cm at the thick end. They were sawing off sections about 15 cm in length then splitting these up into what looked to me liked kindling. They would bundle together about a dozen of resinous sticks with a thin bamboo twist tie and throw the bundle in a bag. Apparently this was a good little money spinner but I’m never sure I’m getting the full story.
To cut the sections the sister and husband were using a big buck saw. The blade was about a meter long with inch and a half teeth and held in a bamboo frame. It took two hands to hold one end of this thing. After about an hour of sawing and splitting and bundling, the husband got called away for some reason. The sister recruited Kitti, her oldest boy, who was only about 10 years old at the time. Kitti did his best but this saw was just too big for him and they abandoned the project. Here was my opportunity to be useful and, at the same time, show what a clever farang I was.
This was a two person saw no doubt about it but I had an idea. It was the old bicycle inner that gave me the idea. Damned useful stuff old inner tubes. I always keep at least one around. I cut the tube so I had a length instead of a tube. I tied one end around the handle of the saw and the other end around a fence post at a height equal to the thickness of the log. I shifted the log under the saw between me and the fence post. The fence post was my other person and the inner tube applied just the right amount of tension to pull the saw back after my draw. It was a great little labor saving invention and it worked a treat. I was quite pleased with myself as I sat there on the ground merrily sawing away.
Within minutes the crowd started gathering. Fist family members then people from nearby houses. They obviously thought this was the most hilarious thing they had seen since Uncle Dick had fallen into his cesspool. They were just honking with laughter. I was offended. Here I had gone to the trouble of taking up some obviously important income generating work and had, in the process, invented a labor saving device that required only one unit of labor instead of two and they thought it was funny.
It took a few years but I finally figured out the joke. First, why would anybody like me, an affluent farang, who didn’t have to work, actually go out of his way to get all hot and sweaty. And second, why would anybody in their right mind possibly want to work alone. To this day I’m sure they thought the whole episode was a pantomime I arranged expressly for their amusement. And I think they might have been right.