Reciprocal Ethics; K'ung Tzu's Version

In the post just previous to this one I mentioned that K'ung Tzu (Confucius) taught reciprocal ethics: that one should never impose upon another what one would not wish imposed upon one's-self. It sounds good, doesn't it?

K'ung Tzu, however, also advocated a return to the classic feudal values of the Zhou Dynasty. Lets look into what this means.

We have to understand that it was a long time ago; K'ung Tzu, in China, died roughly ten years before Socrates, in Greece, was born. It was the Bronze Age. The Zhou social order which had stood firm for a very long time was fragmenting into conflicting factions. K'ung Tzu taught that a return to the customs and values of an earlier period when things had been going relatively smoothly would restore order to Chinese society.

Confucian reciprocal ethics, in consequence, should be understood in the context of classical Zhou culture, complete with its rather rigid social hierarchy featuring a powerful warrior aristocracy, an agricultural/artisan peasantry, and slavery.

Part of what K'ung Tzu promoted was meticulous adherence to classical ritual. This included blood sacrifice of both animals and humans.

This interesting National Geographic article talks about archaeological finds which reveal human sacrifice in Ancient China in K'ung Tzu's time. The article states that Confucius opposed human sacrifice all his life. I haven't been able to find any information which supports this assertion but if he really did oppose human sacrifice, it is very much to his credit. It would seem, however, to be a deviation from his consistent persuasive advocacy of classical Zhou cultural norms.

The image on the right is one of the better depictions of social hierarchy in ancient China because it shows slaves at the bottom. I didn't see any other images that revealed the existence of slavery at all.
Educators seem eager to show how peasant farmers were held in relatively high esteem (because they actually produced something) while merchants were lower in status (because they didn't) and that's fine as far as it goes.

But didn't slaves produce anything? How about the top three levels of the hierarchy, what did they produce?

Evidently, the function of the Emperor/King was to retain the "Mandate of Heaven" by correctly performing the sacrificial rites and other rituals that were needed to please the ancestors and the gods. It was believed that the favor of these heavenly entities would influence events on earth so that harmony and prosperity would prevail in the land, and disasters such as earthquakes and floods would be averted.

People of the scholar class offered expert guidance in administrating a great variety of practical and religious activities. They took care of oracle divination, feng shui, record keeping, drafting of decrees, and so on. Later they contributed excellent cultural value in the form of philosophy, poetry, calligraphy, paintings and other arts.

The Nobles were a warrior aristocracy who would fight in support of their ruler, defending the realm against external threats and enforcing rule within. Loyal warriors were rewarded with estates complete with the peasants who worked the land.

We know from the Shih Chi (Historical Records) that plenty of battling was going on. Of course conscripts from the peasantry did much of the actual fighting and dying under the leadership of the aristocratic warriors and the professional soldiers.

The peasants labored to produce the basic requirements of life; the food, the domestic animals, the fibers for fabric and cordage, the construction materials and the implements. They provided labor (with the slaves) for the construction of canals, roads, palaces and other public works.

K'ung Tzu came from an aristocratic family which, due to political turmoil of the time, had fallen to a lower socio-economic level. Nonetheless, K'ung Tzu was able to get a good education, probably from members of his extended family. He attained a position as an official in the government of Lu but this would not make him a member of the class second only to the Emperor and his household. K'ung Tzu served under the noble house of the Ducal ruler of Lu. Clearly, the 6 level pyramid depicted in the diagram above is much too simple.

K'ung Tzu's version of reciprocal ethics, was nothing like the "Golden Rule" as it is commonly understood today; individuals treating each other as they would like to be treated. Relationships between people in ancient China were always dictated by consideration of rank so that: inferiors should serve superiors in the way they would like to be served if the roles were to be reversed. Masters should treat lower people as they would wish to be treated were they in the subordinate position.

Everybody, regardless of rank, needs to eat, to be sheltered and clothed. To provide the community with all these much needed and desired goods takes work.

A farming family with a suitable parcel of arable land might, through their knowledge and diligent labor, sustain themselves on their home ground quite comfortably. If, however, the socio-economic power structure under which they live forces them to produce far more than they need for their own sustenance, the bulk of which they must surrender to the benefit of unproductive people, their burden becomes a great deal heavier.

For K'ung Tzu, as a member of the unproductive "Scholar" class, this arrangement was just as it should be. He was not prepared to work on the land to sustain himself with food, shelter, clothing and everything else he needed. He was content to impose this work on the peasants who were "inferior" to him in the hierarchical social order that he upheld. He represented "brain" while his peasant inferiors were merely "brawn".

Clearly, from a more modern point of view, K'ung Tzu did impose upon others labor which he did not wish imposed upon himself.

In the next post I will talk about a much more modern thinker whose understanding of reciprocal ethics was very different from that of the ancient Chinese philosopher, K'ung Tzu.

Agrarian Philosophy in China

If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the work of their hands
and don't waste time inventing
labor-saving machines.

Since they dearly love their homes,
they aren't interested in travel.
There may be a few wagons and boats,
but these don't go anywhere.
There may be a storehouse of weapons,
but nobody ever uses them.

People enjoy their food,
take pleasure in being with their families,
spend weekends working in their gardens,
delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close
that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.

Lao Tzu (c.604 - 531 B.C.)



Chinese Civilization, from its very ancient beginnings, has been deeply rooted in an agrarian way of life. The vast majority of the people have spent their lives in rural villages, cultivating crops and raising domestic livestock to provide the means of life for themselves and for the non-farmers as well. Farming people were respected and valued highly. They were seen to be simple people, humble and sturdy, living close to the land in harmony with the perpetual cycles of nature.

In Chinese tradition, the primary social unit is the family. An individual derives identity from his/her position in the extended family of the present, and the ancestral family connecting back through the generations to times long past.
An individual's loyalty and personal responsibilities are first to the family, then to the friends and neighbours of the local community, then to the greater society at large.

The well-known philosopher, K'ung Tzu (Confucius, 551-479 BCE) was an outstanding scholar of immense learning. He organized and interpreted the ancient classics, urging return to the traditional values of earlier times.

He advocated self-cultivation, by acquiring knowledge, developing sincerity, ethical propriety, persevering in what is right without regard for self-interest or even the likelihood of success.
As Master K'ung wandered from one feudal state to the next, teaching his principles, he hoped to influence rulers toward creating a more peaceful, unified and stable Chinese society.

He taught reciprocal ethics; never imposing on others what one would not like imposed on ones-self. Out of this practice would arise "human-heartedness"; empathy and understanding of others and their needs.
He taught that when relationships between parents and children, husband and wife, between elder and younger siblings, between friends and between subject and sovereign were as they should be, order and wellbeing would prevail in the world.

A sovereign? We modern westernized people may not feel very comfortable with the idea of an individual ruling over us. Personally, though, if there must be a single sovereign ruler over the society in which I live, I would nominate the legendary Emperor Shen Nong.

Shen Nong was one of the three mythical rulers of China's primordial past.

He saw the miserably primitive conditions under which the people were suffering and he felt sympathy for them. He taught the early Chinese people how to till the land and grow useful crops and he invented implements for them to use.

He is often depicted chewing on a leafy twig to show how he systematically tested plants to discover their medicinal qualities. He is renowned as the first to understand the excellent qualities of tea!

Shen Nong was held in particular reverence by followers of the Agriculturalist or Agrarian School of philosophy in China who did much to embellish his legend.

They praised the worth of agriculture and of farmers as the best foundation on which to build a prosperous and stable society.  They proposed a style of governance based on the mythical benevolent ruler Shen Nong, who traveled the land, personally helping the people, working side-by-side with them in the fields, sleeping on the ground and cooking his own food.

The radical ideas put forth by the agrarian philosophers included that the virtuous ruler, with his wife and family, should work together in their field and garden to get their living, rather than by exploiting the productive work of the people. They discouraged the division of labor, advocating a socio-economic structure of egalitarian self-sufficiency.

To me, the ideas/values of agrarian philosophy appear sound and eminently worth exploring.


As a note to bring this entry to an end:

Franklin Hiram King was an American agronomist who, in the first decade of the 20th century, toured China, Korea and Japan observing and recording the traditional farming techniques in use there. His Book, "Farmers of Forty Centuries" details how Asian agriculturalists have been able to sustain high yields over very long periods of time (sometimes up to 4,000 years of continuous productivity) without depleting their soils. He documented an agricultural system that was far from primitive. It was an elegantly multi-faceted, labor-intensive, organic system of soil fertility maintenance, water management, crop rotation, interplanting and optimal adjustment of ecological relationships among microbes, plants, animals and people.

These are principles that modern people such as ourselves, who aspire to an agrarian way of life, would do well to study and to emulate.

Why the Drama?

Thai Traditional Drama;  "Ramakien"

Po Dao

My father-in-law, Po Dao, is an interesting man. He worked as a police officer most of his life, preferring to be stationed in an out-of-the-way forest district rather than in a city where chances of career advancement might have been greater. One of his duties was to make contact and negotiate peaceful reconciliation with communist insurgents deep in the forest. He succeeded in doing that.

In the simple setting of a small village he found he could raise his family free from the pressures and distractions of urban life.

Now that he's retired, he likes to use his knowledge of natural health in making traditional herbal remedies for his friends. It seems he's having notable success helping people who suffer from chronic illness.

To give a little illustration of his personality; he once observed the family gathered around the TV set watching one of the typical Thai melodramas. The story, as usual, showed jealous and avaricious characters clashing quite violently over control of property, desirable mates, social prestige and so on.

Dad said that if he was to write TV shows, they would portray healthy, happy, honest people contented with their lives, faithfully in love with their respective mates, glad to have a simple comfortable home and a sufficient livelihood. His characters would interact together in kindly, harmonious ways. Nothing would go wrong, nobody would be angry, envious or plotting to dominate others.

As the story goes, his suggestion was greeted with hoots of laughter. Of course everyone found Dad's idea ridiculous because if a show so lacking in drama were ever to be produced, nobody would watch it. It just wouldn't be interesting.

I remember my English literature teacher back in high school telling us about the basics of drama. The protagonist is a character we identify with who has some motivation such as romantic love or ambition or just the need to survive and who then encounters a challenging conflict, often in the person of an antagonist. Eventually after a lot of dramatic tension and suspense the conflict builds to a decisive climax out of which should come some sort of resolution satisfying to the audience.

Here's a quote from someone who teaches screenplay writing:

“All drama IS conflict. It goes to the very heart and essence of storytelling. Conflict is the very nature of drama, and without it, there simply is no story. Nothing's happening”. (Jeff Bollow writer/director)

Even in comedy, conflict is necessary.
When Mr. Bean buys way too much furniture to carry home in his mini-car, the dramatic  tension, comes from the conflict between his absurd attempt to solve the problem and the everyday reality of London traffic. The ensuing action is hilarious!

Conflict seems to be natural in this world. When a fox thinks he'd like to catch and eat a rabbit it's highly probable that the rabbit won't be in favor of this idea. If the fox succeeds it's his gain and a catastrophic loss of life for the rabbit. If the rabbit manages to escape, she wins while the fox loses the contest and goes hungry.

Tribes, kingdoms and nations have always come into conflict over dominance of territory and resources. History is about little else, it seems. World conflict in recent times has been over oil. Next, it will be about water, we are told.

In our life, the dramatic tension is relatively mild. Will we make it to the garden land and home again without accident? Given the local traffic conditions, this concern is not as overblown as it may sound. Can we keep our trees and plants alive through the coming hot season? This is a challenge for sure but there is no real danger for us in it. Will we be able to sell our house and build a new one at the garden? Can we eventually live out our remaining years happily and peacefully with nature?

We don't know. The outcome, in this world of drama is always uncertain. That's what makes life interesting, I suppose. Might as well embrace it.

Still, a life that would offer steady contentment with a minimum of conflict and drama sounds very good and highly interesting to me.




I hope we can now begin the work of developing a simpler and more peaceful way to live, a "new story" more along the lines of the one my father-in-law, Dao, imagined.

The Rancher

Several years ago, when I was still living in Canada, I had occasion to do some renovation work for a rancher in Alberta.  As I remember it, the job of adding a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom in his basement took a little more than two weeks.  During that time I stayed at his place, got to know him fairly well, had some wide ranging discussions with him and also helped him with some of his work with the cattle.

It was calving season; not the prettiest time of year around there.  Mud and manure and old hard snowbanks made for a bleak environment.  I don't think there was any green showing yet.

To me, though, the young calves were truly beautiful.  They were born soaking wet, spindly legged and trembling in sub-zero weather but it wasn't long before they were frolicking around seemingly with the pure joy of being alive.  Their mothers took such good care of their babies, lowering their heads threateningly when we approached; always concerned for and protective of their young.

The rancher, too, seemed to feel genuine affection for his cattle.

A question arose in my mind as to how a basically decent person who truly cared for and even admired his animals dealt with the fact that he would inevitably send them off to slaughter as the means of making  his own living.

Now, please don't get me wrong, it's not my purpose here to discuss whether  ranchers or the meat industry is good or bad, right or wrong. I eat meat and I've hunted as well so I'm in no position to cast aspersions on those who make their living by raising animals for meat.

I just thought that I myself, would become so attached to my animals that I would have a serious problem when it came time to load them off to the feedlot. So I asked him how he felt about this issue.
I found his answer impressively well thought-out and interesting.

He confirmed that he did feel a lot of love for his cattle and so he felt some conflict in exploiting them for his own benefit.
But he said that these particular animals simply wouldn't have any life at all if it weren't for him and his ranch. Through his breeding efforts he had brought them into existence in the first place and he worked to provide feed and shelter for them throughout their lives, as well as any medical care they might need. Under his management, their lives were reasonably free from stress and pain.  He could argue that his role in their existence was entirely positive (perhaps, I thought, like a benevolent Lord).

It's interesting to look at the history of ranching and the proprietary relationship ranchers maintain with their animals.

Plants capture energy directly from solar radiation but animals must eat plants (or other animals) to harvest this vital energy.  Ruminants, such as the ancestors of cattle, sheep, camels, etc. co-evolved with certain microbes which gave them the ability to digest the cellulose in grasses thus harvesting the energy captured by the grass plants. Humans, lacking the rumen with its microbe population, are unable to digest grass to access that energy. 
Some groups of early humans, however, learned to harvest that energy by hunting the animals of the grasslands. As they followed the herds, they eventually found ways to control and manage them. Hunters thus became herders as a practical strategy to increase the security of their food supply.

Ranching is a further improvement on the herding strategy. By enclosing range territory and cultivating grasses as feed for the domestic herd, the rancher takes full control over the lives of his animals.  The rancher and his herd have a symbiotic relationship; each gaining benefit from the other. Without human intervention, the population of cattle in the world would be far less than it is and this applies to virtually all species of domesticated animals and plants world wide. If it can be said that the evolutionary "intention" of any species is to survive, to reproduce and to increase in population, then becoming domesticated by humans has been a successful strategy.

Subsequently, the idea occurred to me that there may be people in this world today who look upon the general population in this sort of "benevolent rancher" way.  After all, human domestication of other humans, i.e. dominant individuals and groups exploiting the energies of weaker people for their own benefit, goes back a long way.
As far back into the mists of history as we care to go we can see that "civilized" societies were characterized by a pyramidal hierarchy structure with a small number of "Lords" in power at the top while the vast majority of people were commoners doing menial labor at the bottom.
I wondered whether the top people felt a sense of proprietorship over the population; the sense that common people existed only to serve the interests of their masters and should be grateful to them for having any life at all.

These days we live in conditions of such tangled dependency on corporations that, I think in many ways we resemble the serfs of feudal times or even the rancher's cattle.

The corporate "Lords" provide us not only with employment, food, shelter and the other necessities of life, but also with the actual system of money/credit that makes the wheels of industry and commerce turn.
Are we viewed as "domestic livestock" by those who, by virtue of their control over corporations, governments and social institutions, believe themselves to be the proprietors of this planet?

We have voluntarily submitted to being provided for and organized by these proprietors because we unconsciously hope our chances of surviving and reproducing will thus be enhanced.  So far, this has proven to be a successful evolutionary choice.  What this choice has meant, though, in terms of  freedom, self-actualization and quality of life is another question entirely.

What would it be like to jump the fence and live wild like the deer?  Well, Herefords can grow thick coats and forage quite well through tough times but, most of us?  We're not Herefords.... we're more like Holstein milkers... without the cozy, well-stocked dairy barn and milking parlor, it seems to me we would never make it.

Bamboo

More than a thousand species of bamboo make up the tribe of Bambuseae within the family of the true grasses. These are the tropical clumping bamboos, some of them very large, that have been an endlessly versatile natural resource for people since deep in our pre-human past.
Bamboo has been used for shelter, for food and for all sorts of implements and currently, new ways to use it, from flooring to fabrics to bicycles, are being developed.

Increasingly, the ecological value of bamboo is gaining recognition. It is extremely vigorous fast-growing plant that nearly always propagates by sending up shoots directly from the rhizome. Bamboo absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, quickly creating biomass and releasing about a third more oxygen than would a comparably sized stand of trees over a given period of time.
Bamboo holds the soil on slopes and reduces rainwater run-off. It offers some habitat for insects birds and animals.

We have some large old clumps of bamboo under which the soil is black and rich with organic matter. They provide nice shade and a solid windbreak for us as well as useful long poles and, of course, food.

Each of the many different kinds of bamboo shows a different set of characteristics. Those kinds which are suitable for use as building materials may be very long, perhaps very thick at the base. Most are hollow but some kinds are solid. The best bamboo can exhibit impressive structural qualities, displaying excellent strength under both compression and tension with a strength to weight ratio roughly comparable to steel.

Traditionally, the high tensile strength of bamboo fiber was relied upon for cables supporting suspension bridges in China and in other parts of the world.



 

 Of course, the young bamboo shoots are the part we eat. When the shoots are in season the wonderful aroma of simmering bamboo often fills the house. Delicious "gang nor mai",  bamboo curry spiced with  galangal, lemongrass and a touch of chili, is a favorite of ours. People in Thailand and in other tropical regions have known for thousands of years how to prepare bamboo shoots as food.
The raw vegetable contains  taxiphyllin, a toxic cyanogenic glycosoide. When ingested, poisonous hydrogen cyanide starts to form. Cooking in salted boiling water to remove bitter taste, however, easily degrades the toxic glycosoides. We drain out the first water and cook again in fresh to render the shoots safely edible and tasty.

   

 

Bamboo shoots, raw,
Nutrition value per 100 g. 
ORAC value 2150
 (Source: USDA data base) Principle Nutrient Value  %RDA

Energy        27 Kcal      1.4%
Carbohydrates  5.2 g       4%
Protein       2.60 g       5%
Total Fat      0.3 g       1%
Cholesterol      0 mg      0%
Dietary Fiber  2.2 g       6%

Vitamins
Folates              7 µg  2%
Niacin           0.600 mg  4%
Pantothenic acid 0.161 mg  3%
Pyridoxine       0.240 mg 18%
Riboflavin       0.070 mg  5%
Thiamin          0.150 mg 12%
Vitamin C            4 mg  7%
Vitamin A           20 IU <1% 
Vitamin E            1 mg  7%
Vitamin K            0 µg  0%

Electrolytes
Sodium               4 mg <1%
Potassium          533 mg 11%
            
Minerals
Calcium             13 mg 1.5%
Copper           0.190 mg  21%
Iron              0.50 mg   6%
Magnesium            3 mg  <1%
Manganese        0.262 mg  11%
Phosphorus          59 mg   8%
Selenium           0.8 µg 1.5%
Zinc              1.10 mg  10%
Phyto-nutrients
Carotene-ß          12 µg 
Carotene-a           0 µg 
Lutein-zeaxanthin     0 µ



  

Bamboo is the main material used in traditional Asian flutes such as the Japanese shakuhachi or the bansuri of India.

Here we see an Isaan man in a village far to the east of here, near Laos, playing a bamboo wind instrument of a different kind. It's a traditional Lao-Thai reed instrument called a "Kaen". It's made of many bamboo pipes bundled together connecting to an air chamber. The notes can be sounded both on the inbreath and outbreath like a harmonica. 

Living in the Hills


Alone, at peace, I close the door.

Shut out the sky’s evening flame.

Cranes settle in the pines.

No one comes to try my gate.

Bamboo tender with new growth.

Red lotus shedding its old sleeves.

A light glows down by the ford.

Gathering water-chestnuts. They come home.
                 Wang Wei  699-759
  

The Namesake Tree of Our Village

I took this photo yesterday morning as I stood at our fence-line and looked out over the neighboring fields. These trees are the persistent remnant of the largely Dipterocarp forests which used to cover the land. On the left, several medium size Sebang trees are to be seen. Our land is on the edge of a village called Baan Chaat; "baan" meaning house, houses or village, and "chaat" referring to the Chaat tree, Dipterocarpus obtusifolius. At first we thought these were Chaat trees but it turns out they are a similar species, Dipterocarpus intricatus.

Sebang seed

The name "Dipterocarpus" means two-winged seed.
The fruit/seed of Dipterocarp species is dispersed aerodynamically by means of these wings which cause them to spin like little helicopters as they drift to the earth. The seed on the right is from the Sebang tree. They are a beautiful bright red when hanging in clusters on the tree.

These are seeds of the Chaat tree, larger, more simple and plain than Sebang. I'm sure experts can tell the two trees apart by differences in over-all shape and foliage, but until we saw the seeds, they seemed identical to us.

Here is a little seedling growing at the bottom of our small pond. It is either Chaat or, more probably, Sebang. This year there is very little water but the soil is soft and muddy so when the seed landed here it found good conditions for growth. If we ever get a good rainy season in future this little fellow will be drowned!

I dug it out and planted it in a large pot.  I'll put it in a nice location on the land later.

Here we see cows grazing on rice stubble last winter with the Sebang trees behind them.

There was one large tree of this kind, perhaps Chaat, on the land shortly before we bought it. Unfortunately, somebody cut it down and sawed it into boards. The stump is still there and now a strong new tree is growing up from the old root.

The wood is strong and useful but not as resistant to weathering as Teak. It goes by several commercial names: Keruing, Gurjan, and locally it is Mai Hiang. It's quite probable that many of the older houses in the village are built at least partly from this wood.

Grandmother Tamarind

By far the largest and oldest tree on our garden land is this Sour Tamarind (Tamarindus Indica). Tamarinds are slow growing trees and judging by the size of this specimen, we think it may be around 100 years old. The species is thought to have originated in Africa but it was brought to South Asia so long ago that it might be considered indigenous throughout tropical Asia.

The farmers who originally cleared the forests to create rice paddies here in Isaan sometimes preferred to save useful trees rather than cutting them. They would leave the trees standing on a hummock of undisturbed higher ground called a "pone". That's where this lovely old lady is located, on the highest point of our land.

The sour variety of Tamarind, Makam Bpiao in Lao-Thai, is valued by people for its fruit pulp which makes a tangy and nutritious base for spicy condiments among other uses.

It is a leguminous tree so its presence contributes nitrogen to the soil.  It provides wonderful shade and habitat for birds and insects.

At the base of this tree we can see an old nest of tiny black stingless bees; probably  Tetragonula laeviceps .

They've built long wax tubes as entrances to the nest which is deep in the tree.

We have planted a few sweet Tamarind trees on the land but they are still very small; taking a long time to establish themselves.

We can only hope that they will prove tough enough to survive through the coming dry months.

Here is an example of commercially available sweet tamarind. The hard dry shells are not difficult to break. Inside, the pulp is visible with some stringy fiber which should be removed. We eat the fruit just like that, being careful to avoid biting down on the hard seeds and spitting them out as they are felt.

The pulp texture is soft and sticky rather than juicy. The flavor is tangy-sweet. The zing is provided by tartaric acid which is thought to be a powerful anti-oxidant.

There is plenty of fiber in tamarind fruit. It is certainly a reliable laxative.

Here is some nutritional information:

Tamarind Pulp Nutritional Value per 100 grams             (Source:USDA nutritional database)

Principle            Nutrient Value      Percentage of RDA

Energy                 239 Kcal            12%

Carbohydrates          62.50 g             40%

Protein                 2.80 g              5%

Total Fat               0.60 g              3%

Cholesterol               0 mg              0%

Dietary Fiber           5.1 g              13%

Vitamins

Folates                  14 µg              3.5%

Niacin                   1.938 mg          12%

Pantothenic acid         0.143 mg           3%

Pyridoxine               0.066 mg           5%

Thiamin                  0.428 mg          36%

Vitamin A                   30 IU           1%

Vitamin C                  3.5 mg           6%

Vitamin E                 0.10 mg          <1%

Vitamin K                  2.8 µg           2%

Electrolytes

Sodium                      28 mg           2%

Potassium                  628 mg          13%

Minerals

Calcium                     74 mg           7%

Copper 0.86 mg 9.5%

Iron                      2.80 mg          35%

Magnesium                   92 mg          23%

Phosphorus                 113 mg          16%

Selenium                   1.3 µg           2%

Zinc                      0.10 mg           1%

Phyto-nutrients

Carotene-ß                  18 µg --

Crypto-xanthin-ß             0 µg --

Lutein-zeaxanthin            0 µg --

Vagaries of Fortune

There is no discernible justice, nothing really fair in the way life distributes advantages and disadvantages so randomly among us, without regard to who deserves what.

I grew up in unusually fortunate circumstances of time, place, gender and so-called "race" which I didn't fully realize or appreciate until later.

After the second world war, as the British Empire was waning and American dominance was taking hold, a blue-eyed Caucasian male familiar with "western" culture, whose first language was English had major advantages over most other people in the world. Doors would open to someone with these characteristics, doors that might remain firmly closed to others.

Few would dispute the fact that males in virtually every society are awarded freedoms, privileges and opportunities from which women are largely excluded. Perhaps the one disadvantage that men encounter is the cultural role of "warrior".

My father had to go off to fight in WWII and his father, my grandfather, had to fight in WWI.  If I had been born just 150 km. to the south, on the U.S. side of the border I would have been drafted to fight in Vietnam. As a Canadian, though I didn't have that to worry about.

Life was easy, Canada was a peaceful and prosperous nation with relatively high standards of education, democratic justice and health care. It was a good place to begin life.

It was also advantageous for me that I was fairly tall, healthy, able to walk and run, work and play freely.  At the time, it didn't really sink in that this is not the case for everyone.

I remember in the early to mid 1950's there was a terrible scare about the polio virus.  At that time, I was a little boy of five or six.  I heard my mother anxiously discussing this threat with other moms in the  neighborhood.  Vaguely, I can recall that public swimming pools were considered especially hazardous in spreading infection.

Grim reports in the newspaper  showed kids encased in "iron lungs"; large mechanical cylinders that helped them to breathe and kept them alive. It was frightening. When I started school I did see a few kids with leg-braces and crutches or in wheelchairs due to polio.

I remember lining up nervously with my first-grade classmates to receive the newly developed Salk vaccine. I was lucky enough to escape the polio virus but many others were not.

Thailand, in 1963, didn't have a fully developed public health care system in place.  Ael was nearly a year old when a health care worker arrived at her village to inoculate the children against polio. For some reason several of the children became ill immediately after receiving these injections. Ael was one of those kids.

When the initial sickness and fever subsided, she couldn't move her legs. Suddenly, through no fault of her own, Ael faced a lifetime of major disability. Needless to say, this was a severe disadvantage for a small Asian woman living in an essentially third-world environment.

Ael's father used traditional herbal medicine and massage to help her and eventually she learned to walk in a very limited way. All her life she has had to struggle just to get around. Rough ground and stairs are especially challenging for her but she had never used even a cane, let alone crutches or a wheelchair until I came along.

As a child she had difficulty keeping up physically with the other kids but mentally she was usually far ahead of them. She has the kind of warm, lively personality that makes her a valuable friend.

In traditional societies the world over, there are strong cultural expectations on young women to marry and to bear children. Thailand is no exception to this and Ael would have made a fine wife and mother but it was just not to be. Because of her disability she was not considered marriageable.

So she put her intelligence and formidable perseverance to work at university and was able to get a degree.
Eventually she got an office job with a small engineering firm. When the office acquired a computer nobody there knew how to use it. Ael was assigned the task of learning about it. She tackled that with her usual determination and became an essential member of the staff.
Unfortunately, the Asian economic crash in 1997 put an end to that job.

When Ael and I first met, she was making a sparse but independent living as a fortune-teller and counselor.
Her technique, she says, was a blend of intuition, psychology and Buddhist wisdom.

No kids, but our amazing cat keeps us busy enough.

Ael with a friend's baby and the baby's great-grandmother.

Until recently we were teaching conversational English in our home.

Although English is officially the second language in Thailand and it is taught in school from the early grades on, few Thai people speak English well.

The two languages are very different and few teachers have mastered enough English to teach it well. Ael managed to improve her English on her own, practicing with anyone who would talk with her until she became comfortably conversant in this useful second language.

Ael with her grandfather shortly before he died.


Nearly everyone who knows Ael is surprised by what she has been able to accomplish in her life so far. In a society where disabled people generally stay housebound, doing what they can to help out around the home and shop, she has exceeded everyone's expectations by going out and striving to develop her potential abilities and succeeding against all odds.

She has become a highly respected person to whom people turn for good advice.

And the best is yet to come.

Coping With Drought

Cool foggy mornings and shorter days indicate the end of the monsoon season and the beginning of winter.  Ordinarily, we would look forward to this time of year as it brings some relief from the heat, but this year we foresee difficult times ahead.

Drought

The rains have been disappointing again for the the second year in succession and we can't expect significant rainfall during the next eight months.  We are in the grip of a serious and worsening drought which will bring some hardship to nearly everyone.




Just over two years ago, Ael and I were able to acquire a small piece of marginal farmland out in the quiet Isaan countryside. It had a pond and some trees but it was largely dedicated to rice paddy; the soil depleted by decades of mono-cropping. We enlarged and deepened the existing pond and dug a second one as well, filling in some of the rice paddy to create space for trees.

So far we have planted over 400 trees and large plants. We have fruit plants such as Mango, Jackfruit, Pomelo, Papaya and Banana. We have nut trees: Coconut, Cashew, Macadamia. We have Breadfruit, Banyan, Bo and Baobab.  We have Rosewood, Ebony, Mahogany and Teak as well as a variety of native forest trees. 

Tending the young trees

Although many of these trees will produce fruit or nuts and most of the rest are valuable timber species, we are not interested in their commercial value.  Actually, we are cultivating these trees for subsistence purposes and to restore forest cover, improve soil fertility, save heirloom/rare/endangered plant varieties and to do what we can to enhance biodiversity on our little patch.

We plan to move to the land in the near future and eventually support our lives increasingly by foraging food, fiber, shelter, and fuel from our cultivated forest.  
We love the trees and we've managed well, I think, to keep them alive and growing to this point. However, these young plants require water and we are not sure that we can provide enough for them in the coming months.

Water jars for irrigation

Our most recent effort is to place large concrete jars around the land with pipes to provide drip irrigation to the plants. It's a good idea but where will the water come from to fill the jars?

Drip Irrigation 

Now, after such meager rains, only tall grass and weeds grow in our rice paddy. One pond is nearly dry and the water level in the other is no higher now than it was in May.  When we open a faucet, very little water trickles from the tap.  Even our newly drilled well can't give us nearly as much water flow as it did at first.

Is this an an example of "Anthropogenic Climate Disruption"?  I would suggest that it is, but I'm not sure how much the burning of carbon fuels has to do with it. I think that removing vast areas of forest from the earth's surface is the more obvious impactor of climate stability in this part of the world.

Over the last century or two, extensive uncontrolled deforestation has taken place in Thailand. This was done to exploit the high value of the exquisite tropical hardwoods on the world market and to clear land for cash crop agriculture, chiefly of rice.


In a monsoon climate, most of the precipitation comes during a 4 month season and there is little or no rain for the remainder of the year. Forests and wetlands naturally hold and recycle the usually abundant water that comes in the rain season. Humans have worked diligently over centuries to alter the landscape, stripping off the forest cover and filling the marshes to create rice farms. This has disturbed the hydrological cycle making both times of drought and times of flooding more severe.

                                                            Modern governments have built dams, reservoirs and irrigation canals

Greenpeace photo: low reservoir 2005

to hold the water and distribute it as needed but right now the water levels are at an all-time low. Many villages around us cannot deliver water to the houses. On TV news they show parched fields, cracked earth and worried farmers. Many of them have mortgaged their land and will lose it to the banks if they can't produce a crop.

As I understand it, these periods of drought come in a cyclical pattern probably influenced by El Nino events.  It's up to people to conserve and use water wisely so that a terrible shortage crisis may be avoided.
Unfortunately, with a growing population making ever-increasing demands on the water supply for agriculture and industry, the situation is unlikely to improve.

Perhaps the rest of the world will watch and learn

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