this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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I lived in a subsistence farming community that did everything by hand. Same techniques and crops for literally millennia. 450 or so people in mud huts.
Overall, no one wants this life. It's back-breaking work. Kids don't get counted in the census until they're 5 because child mortality is so high. Women meeting at the well was the highlight of their day bceause it was the only thing they saw other people. If anyone was smart enough to learn to read and go to school, they usually left the village for better opportunities.
Everyone worked longer hours than a 9-5 because it's agriculture. Rain doesn't care about holidays or the weekend. Up before the sun every day for a few months. Most people in bed 2 hours after sundown.
Sure, people smiled. People laughed and had joy in their lives. But people also were just as petty and mean and clique-y as anywhere else. The only drama was on the radio and between each other.
3/10. Don't generally recommend.
Everything else sounds shitty. This, however... sounds pretty good. My kingdom for a solid circadian rhythm
Proximity to the equator made the days almost always 11-13 hours long. But yeah, no one stayed up past 9:00 or 10:00pm unless there was a big event.
In my parents' villages... they told me had fucking parasitic worms that creep up and will bit you and suck your blood and like feed off of your blood... I mean you don't even see them coming when you're busy working. And I was told that it's very painful.
Like ew, that's all I need to hear and I instantly hate rural areas forever. It's why everyone in China wants to go to cities for work, farming is horrible. Also no machineary like the US has, it's all manual.
Are you talking about leeches?
No idea. It was just described to me, not named. Not sure if my grandmother even had an education during that era of China, she was born just a few months before the PRC was proclaimed