For Indonesian people, rice is the most important thing to survive their lives because rice is the staple food for them. Although it has a significant role, many people don’t realize that there’s a real lachrymose story behind a plate of rice which they eat every mealtime. Most of them only know how to get it, how much it is, how to cook and eat it, without knowing the fact behind it. It is the reason why many people don’t appreciate what they eat, especially rice.
The fact that rice, as the most important thing, is not appraised as it should be. This is based on my research that every time I have my meal time in canteen or in restaurant, I get much evidence which shows that it really happens around us. For about 6 of 10 persons do not eat up their meal. They left the rest of the rice in the plate without realizing something, that there are many complicated steps which become a long story that will change the mindsets of those who just waste it away.
Due to the fact that my parents are farmers who have a rice-paddy sector in my village, I know the process of producing the rice well enough since it was still in the form of seed, until it grows and bears the grains and deserve to be harvested. I’m the lucky one because I don’t need to do such hard work in the rice field because there are many labors who will handle it. We just need to pay them with rice every harvesttime. If I counted their energy, it would not be proportionate with what they get. After suffering in the sun all day in order to produce the best quality of rice, they are only paid with small amount of rice. They do all of that works to help us so that we can eat the best rice ever. However, we don’t appreciate what they have done, and just waste their masterpiece away.
For those, whose lives are difficult, it’s not easy to buy rice. Rice is luxurious food which could only be obtained after laboring over. They struggle under difficulties by working very hard but they are only paid cheaply which is not enough to pay for their living, even to buy the food only for one meal time. Sometimes they have to find some food for dinner in the garbage. If they are lucky, they can get the leftovers which we have wasted before. Of course it’s very inhuman, while we can eat all kind of foods that we want easily and just waste it offhandedly, they only eat the leftovers of our foods in the garbage. Furthermore, there are another unlucky persons who are starving to death because they can’t get any food to eat.
Finally, I want to emphasize one thing, that we have to appreciate of everything around us, even the simplest thing. It is because not every simple thing is a simple thing for them who have worked by the sweat of his brow to deliver a thing that we consider as the simplest thing. At last, we have to realize that for other people, rice is a the most important thing that determine someone’s life and death.
