About the proverb "A bowl of rice is worth a bamboo stick"

(Baothanhhoa.vn) - In the previous issue of the “Chatting about words” column, we had an article “Nuốc lát và không lạc lát”, which clearly pointed out the difference between “nut” and “nuốc”. Specifically, “nut” is the place where the two ends of the rope are tied together, and “nuốc” is the loop of rope that leads to “nut”, not the “Southern dialect” that calls “nut” “nuốc”.

In this "Chatting about words" column, we would like to discuss an idiom related to the word "nuoc", which is "A bowl of rice is worth a bowl of rice".

“A bowl of rice with a bamboo stick” (a variant of “A bowl of rice with a bamboo stick”) is interpreted by Dai Nam Quoc Am Tu Vi (Huynh Tinh Paulus Cua) as “Expensive labor” (expensive labor - HTC); and the Dictionary of Vietnamese Idioms and Proverbs (Vu Dung Group) as “It is costly to hire workers; the one who puts in the effort will be paid, fairly, no one can claim credit for anyone else”.

Why is there such a thing as “expensive” and “costly” labor here?

In the past, houses were thatched with bamboo and thatch, so every few years they had to be re-thatched. When the farming was off, the homeowner would carry out the work. People from the village, hamlet, and hamlet would gather around to help. Women would clean, cook, and carry the reeds; men would go up to the roof. The number of people who came to "contribute" was almost unlimited. At first, there were only a few, but later they sat in rows, covering the entire roof. Laughter and chatter were bustling, and the calls of "Ke de,...! Me de...!" were bustling. People were thatching and making fences... Slow and clumsy people would not be able to keep up with skilled and agile people. Therefore, some people only had time to thread the reed through the reeds and then through the reeds to form a "nuoc" but had not yet pulled it tight to twist the "nuoc", but had to quickly leave it and place the next reed to keep up with the person next to them. When the reeds were finished, standing below and looking up, they would discover loose reeds, sometimes reaching down to pull them down and they would slip off.

All the people who participated in the roofing party were volunteers, working for free. However, after the work was done, everyone would sit down to eat rice, even those who arrived late, sometimes only tying a few bamboo strips before the job was done. So, “One bamboo strip, one bowl of rice!” Later, this phrase was understood to mean that labor was expensive, “it was costly to hire workers.”

Man Nong (CTV)

Reference: Variant “Nuốc lát bát cốm” is explained in the Dictionary of Vietnamese Idioms, Proverbs and Folk Songs (Việt Chương): “Tying a single string is an easy and quick task, anyone can do it. A single string cannot build a house, but that does not mean doing the job carelessly.

The figurative meaning of this sentence is that when doing anything, no matter how small or unimportant, we must do it thoroughly and carefully. Only then will the work be completed well and last long.

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/ve-cau-thanh-ngu-nbsp-mot-nuoc-lat-mot-bat-com-260920.htm