Secret (Rice) Society | Broken Rice Atlas

Secret (Rice) Society

飯醉集團 Secret (Rice) Society

飯醉集團 Secret (Rice) Society is a rice seed exchange network centred around the distribution of native rice seeds, which tracks the peer-to-peer exchange and distribution processes. Prior to the formation of nation states, kingdoms had exchanged agricultural knowledge and seeds for centuries. The well documented introduction of the early-ripening Champa rice to Song-dynasty China in the eleventh century through diplomacy¹ is perhaps the most prominent documentation ever recorded. However, in the current post-colonial modern state paradigm, most agricultural or biodiversity laws forbid the import and export of seeds (without declaration) in fear of unforeseen ecological repercussions.

The name 飯醉集團 Secret (Rice) Society shares the same pronunciation as 'criminal gang' (fàn zuì jí tuán) in Mandarin—a wordplay that overlaps the illegal and guerrilla nature activities of the rice seeds exchange network. Through the ~~guerrilla~~ act of native rice seeds mail exchange, 飯醉集團 Secret (Rice) Society circumvent the illegality of ~~undeclared~~ native rice seeds import/export within state-controlled systems. Ironically, these same systems approve the planting of hybrid or genetically modified seeds on lands that have since eliminated native rice varieties. This informal native rice seeds exchange network challenges and questions the dichotomy of legal and illegal introduction of native/non-native seeds in the wider discussions of rice seed sovereignty.

This project is an extended version of the Mail Art conceived under The Against the Dragon Light (ADL) by Curators Moon-seok Yi and Eugene Hannah Park.

Despatch#	Tracking#	From	To	Posting - Received Date	Quantity	Content	Status	Courier	Notes


008	-	Phitsanulok, Thailand	Singapore	24/07/2022	18 X Rice seeds packet	มันปู Mạnpū / crab oil (red grain rice),ดอกข่า Dawk Kha,บุญคง Boon Khong,ดอแดง Door Dang (Red rice that can grow in dry land and short time to harvest),ดออุบล Door Ubon (Upland dry land rice from Ubon Ratchathani Province),ดอกพยม Dawk Pha Yorm (Upland aroma rice),น้ำผึ้ง N̂ảmp̄hụ̂ng Honeybee rice,บูกิ Beou Ki (Ethnic group in Tak Province, northern in west Thailand, upland non-sticky white rice) ,บิว จู แล Beau Ju Lae (Paka Kayor Ethnic group),หอมนางฟ้า Hom Nang Pha / Angle rice (non-glutinous white grain rice [4-5months),หอมใบเตย Hom Bai Toey (non-glutinous white grain rice),หอมพานทอง Hom Phan Thong (Aroma rice with golden variety),มาลี 80 Mali 80 (80 years of [in commemoration of] King Bhumipol [in 2007], non-photo sensitive non-glutinous rice),มาลีลืมผัว Mali Lum Phaw / Mali Forget Husband (Ethnic group in Tak Province, northern in west Thailand [4-5months], sticky rice) ,Basmati (India Rice - new breed from native variety/photo insensitive variety), ดอกลำดวน Dawk Lam Duan [Thai name] (Cambodia aroma native variety rice) ดอกมะขาม, Dawk Ma Kham / Cambodian Tamarind flower rice [Thai name], มาลี อังกอร์ Malee Angkor Country of origin: Thailand	Delivered	Handcarried	Planted on 21/12/22 Growing
007	-	SF Sukabumi West Java Indonesia	Singapore	28/10/2021 - 04/11/2021	4 X Rice seeds packet 4 X Rice Varieties 2 X Rice Soap 2 X Gendar rice snack	Hea (Mid-term [~6 months] paddy), Cere (Long-term [>6 months] paddy, red rice), CN (Mid-term [~6 months] paddy), IR64 (Hybrid Rice) Country of origin: West Java, Indonesia ×	Delivered	TLX Indonesia	Harvested
006	RC765574679SG	Singapore	Sukabumi Farm (SF), Sukabumi West Java Indonesia	16/10/2021 - 29/10/2021	12 X rice seeds 1 X rice vermicelli 7 X rice crackers	각시나 Gakshina (Early maturing glutinous rice), 대관도 Daegwando (Late maturing glutinous rice), 가투리찰 Ggaturichal (Late maturing glutinous rice) Country of origin: South Korea Harvested in Singapore (2021) ဆင်းသုခ Sin Thuka (Early maturing rough rice), ဗခမ်း Bakam (Early maturing rough rice), ဗခမ်းရွှေဝါ Bakam Shwe Wah (High-yield rough rice), မနော်ဟာရီ Manaw Hari (Early maturing rough rice), ကရင်မ Kayin Ma (Early maturing rough rice), ကောက်ကြီးဘေးကြား Kyaut Gyi Bar Kyar [Kyaut with side stripes] (Late maturing local variety), ကောက်ကြီး Kyaut Gyi with wings (Late maturing local variety) Country of origin: Myanmar × "Gakshina (Early maturing glutinous rice), Daegwando (Late maturing glutinous rice), Ggaturichal (Late maturing glutinous rice)"	Delivered	Singapore Post
005	04578	KO Yangon, Myanmar	Singapore	28/09/2021 - 03/10/2021	7 X rice seeds, 1 X blessed rice plants (ဆန်မန်San Mann) 1 X rice vermicelli 1 X Myanmar Tamarind Snack 1 X Shal Traditional Rice Cracker	× ဆင်းသုခ Sin Thuka (Early maturing rough rice), ဗခမ်း Bakam (Early maturing rough rice), ဗခမ်းရွှေဝါ Bakam Shwe Wah (High-yield rough rice), မနော်ဟာရီ Manaw Hari (Early maturing rough rice), ကရင်မ Kayin Ma (Early maturing rough rice), ကောက်ကြီးဘေးကြား Kyaut Gyi Bar Kyar [Kyaut with side stripes] (Late maturing local variety), ကောက်ကြီး Kyaut Gyi with wings (Late maturing local variety) Country of origin: Myanmar × 각시나 Gakshina (Early maturing glutinous rice), 대관도 Daegwando (Late maturing glutinous rice), 가투리찰 Ggaturichal (Late maturing glutinous rice). Harvested by Chu Hao Pei (2021), Courtesy of Rice Brewing Sisters Club (2020).	Delivered	YSY Delivery, Logistics & Trading	Harvested Rice seeds eaten by wild birds
004	0075	Kokkoya Organics (KO) Yangon, Myanmar	Singapore	28/09/2021 - 01/10/2021	6 X rice seeds (in teabags & ziplocks) 1 X blessed rice plants (ဆန်မန်San Mann) 2 X Traditional Myanmar Rice crackers	× ဆင်းသုခ Sin Thuka (Early maturing rough rice), ဗခမ်း Bakam (Early maturing rough rice), ဗခမ်းရွှေဝါ Bakam Shwe Wah (High-yield rough rice), မနော်ဟာရီ Manaw Hari (Early maturing rough rice), ကရင်မ Kayin Ma (Early maturing rough rice), ကောက်ကြီးဘေးကြား Kyaut Gyi Bar Kyar [Kyaut with side stripes] (Late maturing local variety), ကောက်ကြီး Kyaut Gyi with wings (Late maturing local variety) Country of origin: Myanmar ×	Delivered	Wai Hin Trading & Logistics Co. Ltd	Harvested Rice seeds eaten by wild birds
003	RT175365400SG	Singapore	RBSC Seoul South Korea	29/04/2021 - 14/05/2021	1 X 20ml Rice field scent fragrance oil 2 X microscopic rice (SAT-15H) photos	*Rice Field scent 20ml fragrance oil & microscopic picture of SAT-15H* rice seed**	Delivered	Singapore Post	No rice seeds
002	ES271918701KR	RBSC Seoul South Korea	Singapore	15/02/2021 - 19/02/2021	3 X rice seeds 1 X incense 1 X set stickers 1 X sweet rice puffs 1 x medium maturing variety, non-glutinous rice 1 X unpolished black rice	× × × × × × × × × 각시나 Gakshina (Early maturing glutinous rice), 대관도 Daegwando (Late maturing glutinous rice), 가투리찰 Ggaturichal (Late maturing glutinous rice) Country of origin: South Korea ×	Delivered	Korea Post	Harvested 1st batch harvested, mailed to Indonesia (Despatch #006)
001	-	Singapore	Rice Brewing Sisters Club (RBSC),Seoul, South Korea	09/02/2021 - 20/02/2021	1 X rice seeds 1 X Letter	SAT-15H Hybrid Rice. Courtesy of The Little Rice Company Country of origin: Singapore × ×	Delivered	Singapore Post	Growing unsuccessful

To be part of 飯醉集團Secret (Rice) Society network, you can indicate your interest by emailing the following to secretricesociety@gmail.com

1. Name of native rice seeds
2. Type of native rice seeds (i.e. glutinous/non-glutinous, short-term/long-term)
3. Origin of native rice seeds
4. Estimated quantity
5. (Deliver) From
6. (Deliver) To

We will be in touch with you shortly upon receiving your email. Thank you.

References

Barker, R. The Origin and Spread of Early-Ripening Champa Rice: It’s Impact on Song Dynasty China. Rice 4, 184–186 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12284-011-9079-6

The Against the Dragon Light project seeks to research Socially Engaged Artists who resist the cultural ecology from above in the cultural practices that take place in the NIEs (Newly Industrialising Economies: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan), and interact with them. Dragon Light is the name of a searchlight for police work and the metaphor of Four Asian Dragons. This project aims to identify the major cases about how (South) East Asian societies have dealt with ‘culture’ after the rapid growth and understand the topography of socially engaged art in (South) East Asian countries through the exchange and research about the cultural movements against the Dragon Light.