Realistic+-+The+Rice+Flag

=The Rice Flag =  A farmer was resting in the shade of a tree in the middle of his rice field. It was mid-day, about 12pm; the farmer took out his sickle and got up. At this rate, he would have to work into the night to finish harvesting his field. Farmer is one of the many farmers in Burma. He picked up his pace but he soon got tired. By the time the sun started to disappear behind the horizon only a little more than half of the rice field had been harvested if he didn’t harvest the rest of the field all that rice would be wasted. He groggily worked well into the night. If he didn’t harvest the whole field he wouldn’t have enough rice to eat.

By the time he finished harvesting his field, his back was swollen and his ankles were sore from his skin rubbing against the rice stalks as he walked through the rice field. It was New Years Day the first day of 1974, but he couldn’t celebrate like the people living in the city, he had to work his crops. He lies atop his bed, worn out, and fell asleep from exhaustion and fatigue. Burma is one of the five biggest rice producers in the world. The entire population is dependent on rice. Almost a third of the land area in Burma is irrigated land.

The next day, after the rice farmer woke up at 6:00, the farmer went outside to get his news paper. In the paper, the announcements it said that the person who made the best flag for Burma would be awarded with a pick-up truck full of rice. The sight of the news made the farmer ecstatic. He ran back into his hut and started thinking of a new flag for this country. After 5 hours he was finally done with his flag. Now, he didn’t have enough time to harvest his all of his rice but if his flag won, it wouldn’t matter a truck full of rice was a lot of rice.

For the rest of the day, he prayed that his flag would win, until the god of rice showed up in his doorway. The god asked him why he wasn’t harvesting the beautiful rice that he had grown for him. He told the god that he was going to pray for the prize of the flag contest for the rest of the day. The god told him that if he harvested his whole crop before sunset the god would make his flag win. The farmer wasted no time. He dashed to his sickle and began to harvest his field. By noon, he was tired, even with his new motivation he was strong and fast enough to finish but he kept pushing on. By 4:00PM, he was only done with half of the field. He tried to pick up his pace knowing that he was behind. After another hour of hard work, he was extremely worn out. There was only a small amount of field left to harvest but he was very exhausted.

It was 5:55PM in the afternoon; only a touch o field was left. He hurriedly harvested the rice he only had a few minutes before he was out of time. 4 minutes left, 3 minutes… his arms were aching b ut he ignored the pain and kept on harvesting. There were 2 minutes left …. 1 minute, 30 seconds. He failed. Only a small patch of rice stalks was left but it didn’t matter, it was too late. Sorrowfully, he walked back to his hut and went to sleep.

The next day, he eagerly got out of bed to check his mail to see if he had won. He was shocked, his flag had won. He was that he didn’t notice that the rice god was standing behind him. The god tapped the farmer on the shoulder. The farmer turned around and immediately bowed down when saw the god and asked him why he let him win the contest. The god replied “It didn’t matter that you didn’t finish harvesting the field, the only thing that matters is that you did your best.” he stared at the picture of his flag, with a rice stalk at the top left-hand corner. 