Day 16: Have You Eaten Today?

This is the 16^th day of 21 Days for World Hunger, and I continue on my virtual journal to explore hunger in Asia.  Yesterday, I discussed Vandana Shiva and the International Monetary Fund along with the World Bank’s influence on hunger; today it is rice and North Korea.  I’m counting down in anticipation for the conclusion of this journey – in five days.

I think, at this point, I’m more affected by sleep deprivation than food deprivation.  I hit a wall, hence the short(er) post.  The hunger issues in Asia and the Pacific are heart-wrenchingly vast.  Overwhelming. How can I possibly cover this area housing (or not, given all the homeless) 642 million people living in hunger in just a couple of days?  What was I thinking?! This has been an exhausting project and I have had moments in which I’ve wanted to bail – just drop the whole thing.  Several of those moments came today.  I’m pushed to carry on…by 1.02 billion hungry people in the world.

I made a quick trip to the grocery store again today.  Going to the store is much easier now than it was two weeks ago.  I didn’t find myself looking longingly at foodstuff like before.  There was a little she-devil in my brain who kept poking at me and asking, Don’t you want to look at the pastries? Don’t you want to check out the cookie aisle?  Wouldn’t it be fun to take a peek in the deli and see if they have that yummy vegan-pesto-pasta that you love so much?

Nope. No interest…how odd.

Groceries I purchased:

• Two Organic Coconut Milk Cans $3.98
• Bok Choy $1.56
• Buckwheat noodles (okay, these were super expensive, but I wanted to get the authentic ones):  $7.39
• Brown Thai Jasmine Rice $4.89
• Broccoli $3.83
• Asparagus $3.79
• Potatoes $4.05
• Spinach $2.76

Total = $32.25

I’ve learned over the last two weeks, the staples for Asia are generally buckwheat, corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes; rice being the main staple. Of course there are variations from one region to the next.  For Oceania, in places like Papua New Guinea, staples are taro roots, bananas, sweet potatoes and sago (palm).  A variety of leafy vegetables are available in the different regions.

Foodportraits shows a lovely photograph of rice and states:  Rice is a staple food of more than 50 percent of the world’s population. Particularly in Asia, that would be closer to 100 percent. Rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There is a saying in China; A meal without rice is like a beautiful girl with only one eye.

Rice has been grown for thousands of years.  According to British Council LearnEnglish Central, in parts of Africa and Asia, many poorer urban families get over half their daily calories from rice. The site continues with explaining how rice is closely connected to the culture of many societies.  Hindu and Buddhist religions use rice as a religious offering.  Burmese folklore uses rice as a central part of their creation story: the gods gave the first people of Burma rice seeds and directed them to Burma, where the rice would grow well. A Chinese proverb says that ‘precious things are not pearls and jade but the five grains, of which rice is the finest.’

Dinner tonight was a make-shift combination of foods including a coconut milk sauce with Mae Ploy Yellow Curry Paste mixed with steamed potatoes and broccoli on brown jasmine rice.  Again, I couldn’t eat it all.

Today’s Nutritional Intake – holding steady at 113.5 for three days in a row:

Hunger in North Korea

In the 1980’s my husband was studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute.  He had an elderly Korean instructor who shared how people in the old days used to greet one another with the phrase have you eaten today? The phrase could also be translated to have you eaten well?

North Korea is number 46 out of 84 on the Global Hunger Index.  This is considered serious.  Out of a population of 23,858,295, roughly 34 percent of North Korea’s population is living with hunger.

A February 2010 article from the Telegraph contained the headline Kim Jong-il admits being ‘heartbroken’ over diet of North Koreans. The article continued, claiming Kim’s immediate ambition is to end his people’s dependence on corn and instead provide them with rice and wheat.  He was quoted as saying I’m the most heartbroken by the fact that our people are still living on corn, and What I must do now is to feed them white rice, bread and noodles generously.

He admitted he failed at providing his people an acceptable standard of living.  If Kim has a plan, he didn’t reveal it at that time.  A famine in the 90’s killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans (supposedly some were eating grass) and North Korea has suffered with food shortages ever since.

Meanwhile, according to another Telegraph article, not even two weeks after Kim’s expression of concern for his poverty-stricken and hungry people, he had an extravagant birthday party at a time when economic problems are causing civil strife.  And then there’s the part where Kim is upsetting the U.N. with containers of curious cargo being shipped to the Congo (see  Telegraph article).

Disagreements over North Korea’s refusal to abandon its nuclear (NU-CU-Ler) weapons program have caused further issues with receiving help from the outside world according to CNN.

In a Newsweek article entitled Food for Naught, the World Food Programme admitted inflating their food aid shipping budget and that some of its shipping budget went to companies owned by dictator Kim Jong Il’s government.

According to the AP last year Kim’s regime cracked down on its agricultural sector by stopping small-scale farming and closing local markets. It is claimed that Kim’s government did this because he wants his people to be dependent on the state.

And who suffers?

The 8.2 million North Koreans who are in desperate need of food.  It appears that North Korean’s government is not only blatantly contributing to its own problem of hunger, it’s actually imposing obstacles for possible solutions – preventing the North Koreans citizens from taking the initiative to care for themselves.  And it looks like there may be some accomplices…

Have you eaten today?

Every gun that is made, every warship made, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who HUNGER and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is spending the genius of its scientists, the sweat of its labors.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

To support the organizations I write about in the series, purchase a World Hunger: Be the Solution Tee.  Proceeds from the shirt will go to the Small Planet Institute Fund and the International Fund for Africa.  All tees are sweat free and available in organic cotton.  To see the selection of World Hunger tees at Conducive’s Humanitarian & Human Rights Tee store, click here

To follow this series from the beginning, you can click the links below:

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 1

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 2

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 3

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 4

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 5

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 6

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 7

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 8

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 9

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 10

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 11

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 13

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 14

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 15

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 17

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 18

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 19

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 20

21 Days for World Hunger: Day 21

Solutions for World Hunger: Part I

Solutions for World Hunger: Part II

Solutions for World Hunger: Part III