Trip to the Institute of Tropical Botany
at Xishuangbanna Yunnan

18. Dai Lady Grinding Corn

This Dai lady is grinding corn for her family's food. In this part of China people do not go to the store to buy corn meal. You grow corn; you grind it on a stone wheel. You turn the wheel by hand and drop a few grains at a time, and collect the ground meal. The grinding wheel is used by the entire village. The grain is placed in a hole in the top of the upper wheel and the meal collected in the trough below.