Written as background for a Grand-daughter's school project.
The word for the rice terraces that we know, in all of Asia, is "Paddy." They are "The Rice Paddies".
This is because the word for rice growing in the fields, in their language is "PADI" and when the first Europeans went there they pointed at the rice and the people replied PADI !
In wet climates the people can grow three crops of rice each year to feed themselves. The ground is very fertile and, as long as there is plenty of water, the rice grows very quickly. It looks almost like wheat with grain standing on the end of long stalks. Usually the rice grows on hills and each farmer has a "terrace" which he makes by building walls around his land on the slope, damming the water in and making a small pond where he plants little rice seedlings, baby rice which he grows from the seed of the last crop. The water flows through each terraced Paddy and then through a pipe or a hole, on down to the next person's land where that person has made his own pond. In this way, one supply of water irrigates many different Paddies before it reaches the bottom of the hill, or mountain. The people who work the land, in this way, have a very hard life because they have to work for many long days, in the heat of the sun and up to their knees in water.
When the rice stalks turn from green to golden colour, it means that the rice is ready for harvest. When the rice has to be cut, the farmers treat it as a living thing and do not use a large knife or scythe which they feel might frighten the living rice. They cut it, at the bottom with a very small knife which they hide in their hands, only a small bit of this knife poking out of their fist. This instrument is called "ani-ani" and they creep up quietly on the rice so as not to frighten it.
When the cut rice stalks are dried, in bunches, they are smacked against a log of wood to separate the grains from the stalks. When the grain has been packed up in sacks for storage, there are still many grains of rice which have dropped off in the process. These grains are not wasted because the farmer brings in his herd of ducks who, while they are eating their fill and getting fat for the farmer's table ( yum yum!), are also eating all the grubs and insects from the soil : the ducks' droppings also help to fertilize the land for the next crop of rice.....and so the cycle continues as it has done for hundreds of years on the same plot of land.
Rice is the main food for a great portion of the people in the world and many legends have grown up about rice through the centuries.
In Bali, it is said, there was a King long, long ago whose people were starving, dying because there was no rain to give water for growing the rice. The King gathered all his people together to pray to The Gods of Bali for rain. The King promised The Gods that he would give them his young son if they would give his people a harvest of rice. The bargain was that, when all the rice was ready for cutting, the King would give his precious son to The Gods. The Gods agreed to this bargain. But this Balinese King was very crafty and didn't really want to give up his son, the Prince. What he did was this. He arranged that not everybody planted rice at the same time so that "all the rice" was never ready to be cut at the same time.
The Balinese never had a "complete " harvest, there was always some more rice growing in a different place, which The Gods could see and were not able to claim the Prince, ever.
This is why, up to the present day in Bali, you can see rice growing in all different shades of green and gold, you never see a complete harvest at the same time. What a crafty old King ! What a lucky young Prince who had a father so crafty !