Daily Life in China                  

Chinese Combine, motorized:

A motorized harvester.  The drum inside has spikes and is turned by the motor.  The person standing receives stalks from the women.  He then puts them on the drum and twists the lot from side to side so the spikes knock off the rice.  The person bending over is scooping out shallow basketfuls of rice to put into a larger basket.  As the large baskets fill another farmer carries them to the road.

A very simple motor turns a single pully connected to the drum.

The threshed stalks are thrown neatly to the side.  The women tie stalks together with a few rice stalks and stand the grouped stalks in rows to dry.  

When a section of the lot is cleared the combine is moved to a new spot.  The combine rides on wooden runners.

The rice is carried to the road, two baskets at a time handing off the split bamboo carrying stick, laying on top of the baskets in the foreground.  There is a good deal of chaff mixed in the the rice kernels.  The chaff is removed by methods dependent on several factors: the closeness of the family home to the plot, closeness to a road, availability of a few types of portable combines for rethreshing and winnowers.

The motor is easily slides off it's platform and carried away. The wooden combine is then hauled to the road and hand carted to another field or home.

Note the rice stalks tied for drying, lower right.