Independence Day, Tri Color Lunch and Rice Cakes Rolling

Independence Day packs in an exciting, festive feel. You feel ready to look back at history with gratitude and look to the present with hope.

Life’s always on a great roll and here’s my yummy tri color lunch - which I absolutely enjoyed in the office canteen.

Ah, and that reminds me of a sweet Japanese story called ‘The Rolling Rice Cakes.’ It is about an old man and his wife. She packs delicious rice cakes in his lunchbox when he goes to cut firewood in the forest.

One day, one of the rice cake rolls down into a hole in the ground!

From the beneath the ground, he hears tiny voices sing:

"Rice cakes, rice cakes,

Nice, fat rice cakes,

Rolling, rolling, rolling – down!”

He loves the beautiful song and rolls down all the rice cakes to the tiny voices. Unexpectedly, he tumbles into the hole too, where he is greeted by hundreds of field mice. They had eaten all his rice cakes and thanked him. As a return gift, they give him a small bag of rice.

The Old Man goes home with the small bag of his wife. When he tells his wife about what happened, you can guess the earful she gave him for giving away all her rice cakes! She said, “Hmmph, this bag of rice wont even make more than than one or two rice cakes!”

But guess what happened?

No matter how much they used, the bag remained fully stocked with rice, more than they could possibly eat!  Now the old man and old woman had plenty of rice cakes to make as much as they wanted!

Lovely story and a beautiful message, don’t you think? I have always believed that goodness brings its own reward. And if you liked this Rolling Rice cakes story, do get a copy of Japanese Children’s Stories, edited by Florence Sakade and translated by Meredith Weatherby, a well known translator of Japanese literature. This is a book for children, but I loved reading every story in it. 

Now, it’s your turn. How did you spend Independence Day? What were the moments or thoughts that made it special for you?

Waiting to hear from you!