{"id":9,"date":"2009-03-13T18:32:12","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T01:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.waterdropfilms.com\/filmblog09\/?p=9"},"modified":"2016-04-08T18:32:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:32:39","slug":"corn-under-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"Corn, under the sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cool and sunny, the air was crisp after a windy night.<\/p>\n<p>The sister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family was not there yet when I showed up in the  morning. The musician was playing with a crossbow in the yard, a newer  one he just made needed more tuning. He walked me up to the fire to have  tea and boiled egg. It thundered here on the mountain the day before.  They prayed before every meal. Their son, showed up briefly, said hardly  a word, and disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>After morning meal, we walked the narrow path to their plot of land  on the hill. On our way, he cut off a few sticks by the road, I was  curious to know what they were for.<\/p>\n<p>Their patch of land is not that far away, with gorgeous view of the  Nu River down below. Right before he started, the musician, AhChe Heng,  prayed again by the field. Too bad he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t facing me and I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mic  him.<\/p>\n<p>He pulled out some strings, and used the sticks to make lines for the  corn rows. How obvious. Using an axe, he loosened the soil, leveled it a  bit, and continued down. Who can guess a piece of land on the hill can  feed a family this way?<\/p>\n<p>After a couple of rows, the sister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showed up. She joined the  digging crew while the doctor boyfriend planted seeds. When I took a  break from filming, I asked for some corn kernels too to help out. Four  in one hole.<\/p>\n<p>Rows after rows, they went up and down the hill. The sun climbed  higher, the cool breeze of the morning turned to simply heat. Even  following them filming was tiring, I could only guess what it felt like  swinging an axe hours after hours. I paid special attention to his hands  again. They must be really rough, but they are capable of creating  great music. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not rushing for him to play yet.<\/p>\n<p>People had a short break with steam buns brought by the sister and  some soft drink, not for long though, still had a lot to work on. The  sister and her boyfriend switched role. Ah-Che never stopped. He is  nearing 60, quite amazing what these mountain people are capable of.<\/p>\n<p>We eneded the day with all the corn kernels ran out, but they kept on going until all the field had been dug properly.<\/p>\n<p>The house was filled with smoke when dinner started cooking. The fire  in the middle of the room, the center of a house. It looks so nice and  romantic, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure it has it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health problem. I do remember a talk  given by a MIT researcher on low-tech method they invented to help  replace these open fire-pit with stoves. Would that be something that  this place needs?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cool and sunny, the air was crisp after a windy night. The sister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family was not there yet when I showed up in the morning. The musician was playing with a crossbow in the yard, a newer one he just made needed more tuning. He walked me up to the fire to have tea and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/?p=9\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Corn, under the sun&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waterdropfilms.com\/lisublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}