you are , admit it , your mum was a frenchdog
-edit- :
1# Irish (and strangely , i'm not a redhead )
2# American (huh ?)
3# Italian (Ma , mia mamma e italiana .... )
4# Polish (ok ...)
5# German (hmm , i don't like sauerkraut and i'm not too tidy)
6# Scandinavian (i'm not a viking , i don't go in town on reindeers)
7# French (YAY)
8# English (heh , still after the french one )
9# Japanese (i like rice , but i don't like sushis and i don't feel like watching Anime or Monster movies all day long while disguising into Anime heroes)
10# Jewish (yeah , why not , eating Kosheer food wouldn't kill me)
rice is chinese.
rice plants are very common all around Asia , at least in the parts which are well irrigated and reached by the monsoon
The origins of rice have been debated for some time, but the plant is of such antiquity that the precise time and place of its first development will perhaps never be known. It is certain, however, that the domestication of rice ranks as one of the most important developments in history, for this grain has fed more people over a longer period of time than has any other crop.
The earliest settlements of those persons responsible for domestication undoubtedly were in areas offering a wide range of plant and animal associations within a limited geographical area. Such sites offered a variety of food sources over a span of seasons to societies dependent on hunting and gathering for their food supply. These earliest settlements might well have been near the edge of the uplands, but on gently rolling topography and close to small rivers that provided a reliable water supply. For centuries, humans maintained themselves by fishing in the rivers, hunting in the forests, and gathering edible plant products. The earliest agriculture, a simple form of swidden, may have developed by accident when women of the settlement recognized that the mix of plant life growing around the midden was especially rich in edible forms. The earliest agriculture was probably focused on plants that reproduced vegetatively, but the seeds of easily shattering varieties of wild rice such as Oryza fatua may have found their way to the gardens at an early date.
If these assumptions are correct, then domestication most likely took place in the area of the Korat or in some sheltered basin area of northern Thailand, in one of the longitudinal valleys of Myanmar's Shan Upland, in southwestern China, or in Assam.
Cultivated rices belong to two species, O. sativa and O. glaberrima. Of the two, O. sativa is by far the more widely utilized. O. sativa is a complex group composed of two forms endemic to Africa but not cultivated, and a third from, O. rufipogon, having distinctive partitions into South Asian, Chinese, New Guinean, Australian, and American forms. The subdivision of O. sativa into these seven forms began long ago and came about largely as a result of major tectonic events and worldwide climatic changes.
It is postulated, based on measurements by electrophoresis, that the Australian form of O. sativa began to diverge from the main forms about 15 million years ago. At that time, during the Miocene, the Asian portion of Gondwanaland collided with the Australia/New Guinea portion, creating a land bridge across which O. sativa migrated. Once the blocks separated, the Australian form was free to follow an evolutionary path somewhat different from that followed by the O. sativa on the mainland.
Divergence between the South Asian and Chinese forms, the ancestors of what are commonly referred to today as indica and japonica (or sinica) types, is believed to have commenced 2-3 million years ago. At that time, migration of fauna across the proto-Himalaya was still possible, and with the animals went wild rice. The climate was suitable for rice even in what today is Central Asia, and north China had almost ideal conditions.
Botanical evidence concerning the distribution of cultivated species is based chiefly on the range and habitat of wild species that are believed to have contributed to the cultivated forms. The greatest variety of such rices is found in the zone of monsoonal rainfall extending from eastern India through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, northern Vietnam, and into southern China. This diversity of species, including those considered by many to have been involved in the original domestication process, lends support to the argument for mainland Southeast Asia as the heartland of rice cultivation.
Linguistic evidence also points to the early origin of cultivated rice in this same Asian arc. In several regional languages the general terms for rice and food, or for rice and agriculture, are synonymous. Such is not the case in any other part of the world. Religious writings and practices are also seen as evidence of the longevity of rice as a staple item of the diet. Both Hindu and Budhist scriptures make frequent reference to rice, and in both religions the grain is used as a major offering to the gods. In contrast, there is no correspondingly early reference to rice in Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament, and no references exist in early Egyptian records. Archeologists have found evidence that rice was an important food in Mohenjo-Daro as early as 2500 B.C. and in the Yangtze Basin in the late Neolithic period (Chang 1967a).
The earliest and most convincing archeological evidence for domestication of rice in Southeast Asia was discovered by Wilhelm G. Solheim II in 1966. Pottery shards bearing the imprint of both grains and husks of O. sativa were discovered at Non Nok Tha in the Korat area of Thailand. These remains have been confirmed by 14C and thermoluminescence testing as dating from at least 4000 B.C. This evidence not only pushed back the documented origin of cultivated rice but, when viewed in conjunction with plant remains from 10,000 B.C. discovered in Spirit Cave on the Thailand-Myanmar border, suggests that agriculture itself may be older than was previously thought. No parallel evidence has been uncovered in Egyptian tombs or from Chaldean excavations.
