Rice.
Rice is life.
Grains are the very foundation of human existence. It was only through farming and breeding these grains did civilization come about. These foods shaped us. Then we bred each other. Rice has domesticated us. As the saying goes, “you are what you eat.”
Being Asian meant that was the first meal you would cook for yourself. It was the first meal your mother would greet you with when you got home. It is the first meal you would teach your child. It has become so entrenched within the Asian experience that almost every meal is a derivative of it. There are rituals dedicated to its bountiful harvest.
But as a carb does, it is extraordinary at fattening you up. Being fat as an Asian woman is heavily criticized where you cannot even lift up more than a morsel to eat upon your chopsticks. There is an etiquette required from Asian women that if there is too much on their sticks, there will be too much on their waist. Our culture is very restrictive and the ancestors do worry about it because they have experienced how life is easier as a skinny woman. Though body shapes go in and out of style so much from the Romans’ full figure to the heroin chic of American 2000s pop culture, women still work against themselves to achieve what they believe to be beauty.
We are constantly working ourselves to be little, but how little is too little? Is that one last grain of rice the tipping point to a whole new world of problems? In the text, “Not Just the Reflexive Reflex,” Kosut and Moore present the consumer culture body theory where “goods we consume affect the way we think and act and this extends to the treatment of the body” (15).
Rice is so commonplace within Asian food, but it also has a vice grip on beauty standards. You can never truly ignore the calls to change yourself, whether it be the passive not fitting in Asia’s sizing charts when shopping or the aggressive marketing for plastic surgery. Going to tour Asia, you see it everywhere; a size M in America becomes an XL in Asia. The shops owners even bet money on you not fitting their clothing by looking at your broad shoulders. And then when you want to prove them wrong, they were right; your bust is just too big. You are too big in your hometown where even your doctor says to please lose the weight, it is your fault for eating too much rice. But doctor, that is all there is to eat at home.
Rice.
Rice is life.
Unruly Bodies 
I really love how you explored idea of “the goods we consume affect the way we think and act and this extends to the treatment of the body” from the first reading. It was not until you mentioned how rice was the only food we had at home, that it clicked for me with this statement. Although it seems a little irrelevant with how you explored body standards with rice, your post reminds me of how I used to bring rice and other cultural Filipino dishes for lunch in elementary school. The foods we ate are a reflection of our culture. However, when many of us were younger, we were ridiculed for such foreign food. I’m sure the day your child asks to stop bringing the food from home because they rather fit in with all the other kids who ate Lunchables is one of the most heartbreaking things to tell your parents. Having to restrict ourselves from proudly eating our food symbolizing how we had to hide our identities in a white dominated society. How not eating our rice proudly to conform to the standard in America forces us to break ties with our culture just to fit the narrative of what is a healthy body or risked being shamed for who we are. How French fries as a carb is more acceptable but our rice from home was not.