Lumière Brothers - Indochina: Children Gathering Rice...

[hduc2000]

The title of the clip is "Indochine: Enfants annamites ramassant des sépèques devant la Pagode des dames" (Indochina: Annamese children collected sapeques in front of the temple of women".

It was not rice these women throwed, It was sapeques (coins with holes in the middle so they can be strung together with strings). You can see the women holding these coins in strings and then unstripped them.

See Prof. Barbara Creed paper on this "Memory and History: Early Film.." (you can google on net)

[317East32nd]

hduc2000, thank you again. I love learning things! I'm sure we all observe rituals today that will seem rude and disgusting 100 years from now. But they aren't.

[hduc2000]

Actually, the women threw rice first then later they threw sapeques (zinc coin used in the old time). Yes, it was disgusting what they did from our viewpoint now. But in the old time, this was a fertility rite to throw coins (and rice) to children during the festival in Asia. The French also had the dragee-throwing tradition at the church door.

[317East32nd]

hduc2000, thank you for your comment. If what you have written is true, it should make us all think a little more about message, medium, cultural traditions and the types of assumptions we all have made here. Very interesting...

[MaoSuratt911]

They dressed in such fine attires,one would think they employ some inner grace,beauty and compassion,but in reality just a couple of ill-bred french bitches.Ho Chi Minh have every justification to cut their throats...Les miserable French whores...

[MaoSuratt911]

The conquerers and the conquered...

[MaoSuratt911]

There goese my faith in humanity...

[MaoSuratt911]

I dont even treat my pigs,chicken,ducks,dogs and farm livestock this way...the audacity of these french bitches..

[317East32nd]

I've purged a few comments that were both profane and purely inflammatory... not that you can't be both profane and inflammatory while making a cogent comment, but these were just crap. Anyhow, I'm pleased to witness the power of 110-year-old cinema. And yes, this film makes quite a statement. (I don't even know how intentional that statement was...)

[shakilm01]

it is a disgusting image .. but you need to remember this was over a century ago .. these women were a product of their times and did just what everyone one else was doing .. we can look at them in disgust but that's only because we live in enlightened times .. in another century, people will probably be looking at our actions in disgust (ie illegal wars we have started, ignoring famine/natural disasters etc etc ) .. in alot of ways, humans have not actually changed very much since this footage

[kloratis]

It looks like she was feeding birds! Disgusting... What year is that?

[hofnerman1]

That was my very first thought as well. Disgusting!!

[joe101394]

Dirty French in the clip

[cangooooods]

Et toi! T'es francais quand meme!!!!! LOLZ

[FrancoPhobe001]

Frenchs dirty pigs are on the clip

[dmartinezc]

please put it in context, it's not a time for insult people but for learn from the history and being better people...

great video, we have to seize it.

[Francophobe]

French dirty was raped by Japanese in WW2 in Asia

[rrubbenn]

who can they do that... french never takes shower¡

[ChinaChinese]

French is dirty dog !!!!

[cangooooods]

LOLZ in this video it's not the french but the natives who are the dirty dogs. ^_^

[vnrozier]

Well, one might be in a park in Paris throwing bread crumbs to pigeons!

[sepszab]

I think it is naivity to say this is only France, only the XIXth century or only colonialism. This is the human nature itself. This is how we've been treating each other ever since we've been on earth, and this is how we think now as well. To consider others's dignity and situation too is just unimaginable to us. Great, powerful video.

[LittleLulu62]

It's shocking to think people were treated like this at one time! >:(

[redsoil5]

that's very degrading to Indochinese. shame on this for french, they should give apology to Indochinese.

[bobbygnosis]

As though any Frenchman alive now had done this to anyone in the mid-eighteen hundreds. A human is not his culture. The culture is many humans. One human cannot apologize for things another has done - certainly not for something over a hundred years in the past. All of the people you're looking at in this film are dead. An apology would be meaningless to them as well as to present day indochina.

P.S. This is an amazing series. Thanks for the post.

[317East32nd]

@bobbygnosis, thank you.

[ckrusson]

This film is actually documentary in nature. Therefore it is a stretch to assume the nationality of the women featured. Whether the women casting rice for the children are French, English, German, etc is not finally the point. The social commentary on colonialism, racism and poverty is what should be taken from this phenomenal piece of work!

[roninstevie]

superior=evil?

[nobody3693]

why the fuck didn't anyone think to kill the two women and take the rice?! i would've

[317East32nd]

I feel I should mention at this point that I haven't posted this in order to take the French to task. I'm rather a Francophile, truth be told. Also, my own country was a British colony for quite some time. I'm merely trying to expose new generations to the power of (French) silent film.

As for the politics, I've not met anyone who is willing to return the land they "own" to its former "owners," regardless of how "enlightened" the current occupant may be.

[intigfx]

one must be a total idiot to use this film to bash modern France. that was the racist colonialism of the times, not only France but virtually every western nation had that attitude. Americans, Brits, Belgians, etc have no better records. so, haters, stfu

this movie is a priceless reminder of the shame that was colonialism.

[brightshadows13]

Damn... that's horrible.

[joe101394]

Two bastards Frenchwomen

[317East32nd]

My apologies to the viewer whose well-written comment I accidentally deleted while trying to cleanse this page of references to "hot cam girls."

[saqibakascarface]

This is disgusting.

[joe101394]

today, the france is poor, sick,..., a toad want to be a cow, that's true

[houlala16]

"today, the france is poor, sick,..., a toad want to be a cow, that's true"

Ohh where did you see that you? France poor and sick? it s the 6th economic power of the world, my god, go to school again. This film is horrible but it s truth of an other age, like it s say on other commentary brits, belgium... did the same!

[ml2001]

was she feeding those people like pigeons? She was the one being pathetic...not those poor class people

[joe101394]

France is an old woman, stupid, sick, Francetoque DEHORS

[aussieviet]

what the fuck she's doing ? is that norms and values from France ?

[FabuleuxFab]

Yes, in the 19th century.

[theloniouz]

thankyou for posting this 317East32nd. At a time when Niall Ferguson and others are warping the historical meaning of empire with "objective" economic and statistical analysis, this short film speaks volumes.

no argument, no matter how tightly focussed, can overturn the degeneracy of both colonised and coloniser demonstrated in this short.

[Luciper911]

what a bitch

[YallMeanMVP]

sad

[enzo115]

this is so sad...glad the vietminh kicked them out.

[kdpham3]

That's right! Thanks to Ho Chi Minh

[vlcupper]

Sickening.