#rice without rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

How can someone this lovely, be so unhappy?

Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

Can you taste justice? Can you smell equity? What do all your fancy words mean? I can't live my life for things that I can't taste, or smell, or hold in my hands. Soil after the rain, it has such a rich, sweet smell. And tamarind shoots leave a golden taste on your tongue. These things are real. These things I can live for.

Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

I have done so little yet. I have no right to be tired.

Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

Maybe he's wrong... maybe he's headstrong and foolish to fight for words that most of us don't even understand. But he's young and brave, and maybe he'll actually win.

Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

Then why do people keep calling you that? ... Only a lit cigar gives off smoke

Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

Was the anger really just a shield against a deeper sorrow?

Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain

[memoryarchaeologist]

I just finished Rice Without Rain. Such a simple and easy read but it’s probably the first time I’m reading about issues like poverty and communism etc. Got me so intrigued about these real world issues and I’m so blessed to be living in a developed and civilized nation (although it’s probably made me really ignorant about real world stuff). I know this novel is fiction but in a sense it was very real too if you know what I mean.

It’s also probably more than a decade since I last read a novel in a Southeast Asian setting. I really enjoyed it :)))

[memoryarchaeologist]

“Maybe someday it’ll change, but ...”

“Someday! Someday will never come unless we fight for it”

— Minfong Ho, Rice Without Rain