1. What does rice symbolize?

It symbolizes the traditional values.

1) Rice is still used nowadays to symbolize the tradition of agricultural society or countries. Thus, from the title of Rice, we know that it is a story of tradition and rice in the story is associated with traditional values. The status of rice also represents the status of tradition, it is cherished by those who value tradition but, meanwhile, ignored or despised by those who prefer modern or Western value. And most of the people around the author, including her father, mother and grandmother, are all the former ones. Her mother teaches the protagonist how to cook rice in details as it was an important ritual when she is only ten years old. She sticks to the tradition and cherishes the conventions.

2) An important traditional value rice transfers is that male is supposed to earn money for the living of his family while female is supposed to take care of the house and her family. When the father and the mother in Rice quarrel, the man thinks his wife should remain silent and be obedient when she is financially dependent on him. And his wife answering back is considered an insult to the authoritative status of a man in his family. Though being hurt deeply by her husband’s unmerciful words, she still remembered to return home to cook rice for him. Even since then, the mother puts more effort into making sure that her husband does not go hungry without rice. She would serve him rice before she goes out or she would hurry back home to serve him rice in time. Here, we can see how gender is stereotyped in the mind of the older generation and how people accept it without questioning.

3) Besides, rice also reveals the superstitious element of traditional society and the attitude towards inheriting it of the old generation. As rice is considered very important in agricultural society, the older generation makes up myth or superstitious stuff to scare their children so that the children dare not waste the precious rice. It is said that every single grain left would appear as ugly marks on the face of the eventual Intended. Thus, being scared about their future husband, the children faithfully clean out plates for not wanting to marry any man with a scarred or marred complexion. They even generate guilty feeling when they date with men with chronic acne as that may be retribution for that one plate of rice they have not finished. Parents try every method to pass their tradition value to their children. They even scare their children so that the tradition value is forced into their mind. Therefore, we can see so far that the younger generation is impacted with the traditional value of their parents since they are still very young. Their parents think that by stuffing tradition into their children’s mind, the children will immediately accept the tradition and are willing to pass on the tradition.

2. The main characters of the author

1) unconventional

The unconventional spirits of the author reflects on not only the eating habits but also behaviors and ideas. First, in terms of food, She loves pasta, cheese, bread and salad. Her love for Western food indicates that she has contact with Western society and gradually adopted the Western eating habit. In this way, she is even rejecting the tradition of her society. In addition to food, education also makes one think more about tradition. As mentioned above, parents like to use superstition to scare their children in order to pass their traditional value.

2) curious

The protagonist is comfortable with the superstitious belief until she goes to university and does philosophy. She is inspired to think about the validity of this scary belief and the logic of this underwent severe examination. The protagonist is able to challenge the non-scientific belief with the help of Western philosophy. She even questions why this rule never applies to men.

4) courageous

Although the protagonist is heavily influenced by Western value, the author’s marriage can be seen as a combination of tradition and Westernization. The marriage of the protagonist and an Englishman is seen as a conflict from her father’s traditional point of view. Her father thinks that Westerners are all kwei-lo and that they behave badly. Therefore, he rejects her choice angrily. But his daughter is determined to marry who she love despite races differences.

5) tolerant

In the author’s wedding, rice is sprinkled instead of confetti. She does not criticize this practice; she is comfortable with it. She understands that the sprinkling of rice is symbolic of fertility. She also talks about the ritual in Singapore the couple has to drive around with a pair of chickens, on male and one female. When one of the poor chicken dies because of the heat, she even hopes that is not a bad omen. The protagonist’s attitude towards tradition has changed. She no longer dismisses it as old fashion and outdated. She is now able to accept some of the traditional value after she has more contact with the Western ones.