The Pleasure of Rice - Part 2: More than Rice

My sister is on holiday travelling in South China. She is posting her pictures of her journey with WeChat, a social media similar to WhatsApp, but with more functions: you can share moments with your friends, and they can “like” them or make comments. I was so amazed by the views! Green mountains, clear rivers, terraced rice fields, farmers with buffalo working in them... 

It somehow makes me feel nostalgic. The pictures show the agricultural side of China, that is, what is already very old fashioned for many people who are living in metropolitan cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong.

These beautiful sceneries are like those in typical postcards from China. Timeless, ancient and very harmonic between heaven and earth. A question arises in my mind, how many farmers do we still have in China, if we consider the total population of China with almost 1.4 billion people? I did some research. In 1949, when the new China was founded, 82.6% of the entire population were farmers, according to the Chinese Population Statistics Yearbook. In 2013 the official percentage for the population of cities and towns is 52.6%, which means the farmers of China are currently about 47.4% of the whole nation. The rapid decline in the number of farmers shows indirectly how fast urbanization is happening in China. So the next thought that pops up is: how much land is disappearing, or rather, how much farmland is being opened up to urban planning approaches? Is there enough rice to feed the whole nation?

While I'm lost in thought, my iPhone beeps. I just got a message from my sister. Since I liked her WeChat Moment, she has joyfully replied that she is enjoying her rice noodles and very anxious to discover more of nature’s beauty. She must know that I, as an overseas Chinese person and noodle lover, am probably very jealous of her, after being away from home too long. There is so much of China that I haven’t see. And there are so many delicacies that I miss! Sooner or later I will return and be a real tourist in the country I’m originally from.