The Chinese New Year of the Rabbit and the Demand for Carrots

The Chinese Lunar New Year celebration has just gone by. In some countries, the Chinese New Year was celebrated with only a mention in prime time television news, but in some other countries, the Lion Dance and fire crackers busied in the day and into the night, celebration parties non-stop, the celebration took a whole 15 days with culminations of intensified 6th Day, 7th Day, 9th Day and the 15th Day as more auspicious than the other days. Each of the 15 days holds important implications how the rest of the year would unfold for the believers. According to the Chinese zodiac calendar, this is the Year of the Rabbit. After having studied the starry positions in the sky, after complex calculations have been made from the feng shui compass, and the divination references from the I-Ching has been done, there is a consensus from the Feng Shui Masters that the 6th Day of this New Year would be an auspicious day to start work or reopen business offices. This is a wonderful start. Even the workers in my Company were convinced and they have all taken appropriate leave to start the year correctly. The Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival, where in China the people celebrate the end of the wintry months to herald the coming of more favorable spring weather. Having indulged in the farming career in the past 25 years, I have explained to my late-teenage children that farmers in Asia have always looked forward to the Spring Festival. This is a time for the Northerner farmers to begin sowing the seeds for the new crop as the grounds become less cold. For us in the Malay Archipelago, the monsoon rains should have subsided, and the sun should be back again to push another flush of flowers for a new season of fruiting. These are happy days to look forward to, and as farmers, we look forward to another year with great expectation of bumper yields from our tree crops, hope that crop pestilences be held in abeyance, and crop prices kept steady. However, with climate change intervening with the elements of earth, wind and fire these days, the Feng Shui Masters have more difficulties divining the future. Even with the help of modern technology, where greater nations have conquered space, where doctors can cure leprosy, many farmers in their millions would still startle from their sleep with nightmares of crop failures, locust chewing their corn and the dreaded worry of how to pay off their debts. Coming back to the Year of the Rabbit, this Rabbit this flurry vegetarian brings a great comfort of hope in the expectation of success and prosperity for the coming year, for those who believe in the predictions of the Feng Shui Masters. For those who believed more in themselves, they consider that the zodiac Rabbit symbol is a reflection of the gracious, kind, amiable, artistic, selfassured, elegant, soft-spoken nature of themselves especially if they were born in the Year of the Rabbit. From my late parents, they have given me a different sense of this animal. My father had told me stories how the rabbits had gotten into the chicken coop in our farm, and had invited the python to come by and attacked the chickens the rabbit had ran off fast enough from being eaten. From

my mother, I remember the lovely ginger rabbit stew she cooked that we enjoyed as children. In those days, meat dishes on the table were a blessing, otherwise it was my fathers payday, and we never have enough of meat. Today, my children squirm on the thought of having to eat meat. Strangely enough, my son is convinced that the rabbit also eat insects perhaps it would be dessert, as cheese cake is to me. I have just come back from yet another CNY family clan party, perhaps this will be the last one for this year, and between bites of the pork spare ribs, a dear cousin had claimed that the Rabbit favorite food is not the carrot. There was silence for a while, as many around the table quickly picked up food into the mouths, keeping busy and pretended not to hear. This is most harrowing news for me - the pork ribs got stuck between the teeth, making me look ridiculous. This is as blasphemous as saying that Adam is not Gods favorite creations. This is a cardinal impossibility. Everybodys first-born is a favorite and the carrot is the rabbits favorite food. Perhaps I have too much of Hollywood influence, or my cousin, she had too much influence of the Australian Merlot during dinner. Later I checked to confirm this new knowledge with my children. They were upset to be confronted with this contradiction. Daddy is becoming stupid. Carrot is the Rabbits favorite food, affirmative. They remembered from the many bedtime stories I told when they were little, the many adventures of Bugs Bunny. So, there goes the theme of this story The Year of the Rabbit and the Demand for Carrots is no longer relevant. This is most disappointing. An innocent claim over such a trivial subject, yet, the consequences of disappointment is so profound for so many people. If my local MP had made that claim, perhaps I would have been more forgiving. But it was my cousin, she is only an ordinary primary school teacher, she reads only the local media. Easier for me to stop trusting the media, but I trust my cousin, despite the merlot. I am angry with Hollywood, and my children are angry with me. The carrot farmers are also angry. This is bad for their business. These farmers have so looked forward to this Year of the Rabbit to add a little boost for the demand for their carrots. How that works is rather amazing. We know that rabbits can breed rapidly, and my god, if my clan is big, watch how the fluffy brads breed. If each child-loving parent would have half-believed the Feng Shui Masters divination of the rabbit for this year, and if half of them went out and bought half of a pair of rabbit as a pet, and if they allowed their rabbits to mate with each other, they would have come out with an adorable population boom. Children love rabbits. They love to feed the rabbits in the cage with their little handfuls of food pallets made from carrots, thats right. But now, if carrot is not the rabbits favorite food, the pallets will not be made from carrots, but from some other vegetables. I would imagine that rice would be a good substitute, simply because it is cheaper than most vegetables. This will be the new pet food fever. Rice is cheap and it would taste nice. Roasted rice pallets, made from subsidized rice, and if my son is right, stuffed with fried crickets crisps.

The original idea to subsidize the price of rice was gracious and noble thought by Parliament, to help the poor, so that poor people could afford to buy rice to feed their family. But if rabbits were now to start a diet on rice pallets, the demand for rice and thus the price of rice would sure to rise. All the noble intentions would backfire. However, since there will be no demand for carrots this year, despite the Year of the Rabbit, we could get the poor to start eating carrots as they cannot afford to eat anymore rice. I can agree with this kind of sound economics, and it does not mean that I love the rabbit more than poor people. It is just simple logic and economists are most logical people when come to solving problems. We have a problem at hand but we have now a solution. Carrots are good nutritious food by the way. This sound logic reminds me of the story 2 years ago when we went through the Global Food Price Crisis, where the price of basic food ingredients, rice, wheat, sugar had shot through the ceiling, people rioted in the streets, supermarkets made huge profits and farmers had a field day planting new crops of rice, on roof tops and country roads. Many of the poor neighbors had to forgo expenses on books and the children were introduced to a 2-meal day routine. An academician came up with the idea of asking people to switch from eating rice to eating sweet potato. Sweet potato was cheap and could grow abundantly well. Unlike rice, sweet potato is good food, more nutritious and the production system impacts less on the environment. Such a campaign could read, Eat sweet potato for health and wealth. My parents would never have thought of eating sweet potato, switching from eating rice. They had lamented to me so many cruel stories of their life, as refugees during the War and subsequently the Occupation, the family hiding from the soldiers. Life was hard then, there was no work, there was no food to eat, homes were destroyed, the soldiers seek to kill the men and rape the women; and how our family survived when our parents hid us behind the chicken coop in the forest, feeding themselves and the children uncooked sweet potatoes with every meal. So there will be no more sweet potatoes for the family now. That is what stories my mother had told me as a child. It may be true, it may be just stories, but if I remember often enough it will become part of my history and perhaps would get printed into words one day as a fact. You are what you eat. Believe me when I say that I have no prejudice against the fluffy rabbit. It is only fair game that if the rabbits feed on rice pallets (stuffed with crispy crickets), the poor would feed on carrots, and I swear I would not feed on sweet potato, I would perhaps take up to eating the ginger rabbit stew again. The food chain rules, okay. Actually, man rules, okay. The economic equations have thus come to order. People who believe that the Year of the Rabbit would bring them good fortune will realize their fortune this year. The rabbits will have their rice pallets stuffed with crispy crickets. This however will raise the demand for rice and the price of rice will rise but the rice farmers will be happy, the poor people may not, and certainly not the tax payers. Carrot farmers will also be happy, because of the substitution effect. Poor people will eat more carrots, and live longer. I will add more merlot into my stew and have a happy meal.

Such economic rationale might be a bit difficult to understand for the common fellow on the street. Much easier to tell them that everything is fine and there have no cause to worry. We will teach the Rabbits to like Carrots. This is a much easier and definitely cheaper way to keep the price of rice affordable to the poor consumers. And if the high price of rice continues to be a nagging issue for the CPI, we would simply lift it from the Basket of Goods, since it is no longer relevant in the calculation, and let the carrot take its place. We do not expect rabbits to riot in the streets on CPI numbers. The poor might if they can read. We are safe now from a major global catastrophe this year. No more carrot crisis and no problem to food prices. It is amazing how narrowly we have averted a disaster from a precarious statement - no, it could just be a rumor, that the carrot is not the rabbits favorite food. It has yet to bring the house down. So the moral of the story is; we have to be careful what we speak, however seemingly innocuous it may be, because any subject can become an issue if we put our minds into it. Another moral of the story is; man is more intelligent than the rabbit, and the rabbit has a better deal than the poor man. But there is always an opportunity that lie in every challenge. As an intelligent farmer, I will attempt to grow carrots this year, keep a rabbit farm and perhaps breed crickets as well. I wish for peace in the world and prosperity to everybody. I wish you all Happy New Year of the Rabbit.

Kit Chan Kuala Lumpur 19th February 2011

*P/s. What is the difference between a rabbit from hare? My wife would call this a hare-brained story. I look forward to the next Chinese New Year of the Dragon and may God have mercy on us.