Rice has been cultivated in China for thousands of years.

在中国，种植水稻的历史已有数千年。

It was from China that the techniques of rice cultivation spread throughout east Asia-Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.

随后，东亚地区的日本、韩国、新加坡和中国台湾相继从中国大陆引进了稻田的播种技术。

Year in, year out, as far back as history is recorded, farmers from across Asia have engaged in the same, relentless, intricate pattern of agriculture.

时间飞逝，回溯历史，亚洲的农民们都同样经历了错综复杂的农业变迁。

Rice paddies are "built," not "opened up" the way a wheat field is. You don't just clear the trees, underbrush and stones and then plow.

稻田不同于麦田的“直接耕种”，稻田需要“开垦”，不仅仅需要清除树木、低矮的灌木以及石头，还需要耕犁。

Rice fields are carved into mountainsides in an elaborate series of terraces, or painstakingly constructed from marshland and river plains.

稻田通常建立在开垦过的梯田、改良后的沼泽以及河流经过的平原上。

A rice paddy has to be irrigated, so an elaborate series of dikes has to be built around the field.

稻谷种植需要灌溉，所以稻田必须修田埂，

Channels must be dug from the nearest water source, and gates built into the dikes so the water flow can be adjusted precisely to cover the right amount of plant.

稻田周围需要修建水渠。这样在灌溉时，水渠里的水流经田埂上开凿的缺口，直接流进需要灌溉的每寸土地。

The paddy itself, meanwhile, has to have a hard clay floor; otherwise, the water will simply seep into the ground.

另外，稻田地的土质层内需要有硬土层，否则水就会全部渗透到地下。

But of course, you can't plant rice seedlings in hard clay, so on top of the clay, there has to be a thick, soft layer of mud.

但问题在于，稻种根本无法在硬土层上播种，因此在硬土层上还需要有一层厚度适中且柔软的粘土，

And the claypan, as it's called, has to be carefully engineered so that it will drain properly and also keep the plain submerged at the optimum level.

粘土的作用在于保证种子始终处在湿度适宜的最佳状况。

Rice has to be fertilized repeatedly, which is another art.

稻子还需要不间断地施肥，这又是另一种艺术。

Traditionally, farmers used "night soil"(human manure) and a combination of burned compost, river mud, bean cake, and hemp-used carefully,

在过去，农民通常使用粪便和一种由豆壳饼、纤维植物燃烧后与河中淤泥形成的混合肥料来为稻田施肥。

because too much fertilizer or the right amount applied at the wrong time can be as bad as too little.

在使用的过程中，他们必须特别谨慎，因为一旦施肥过量或者选择错误的时节进行施肥都会造成不小的损失。