◆《From self-cultivation to labor division》

Generally speaking, rough rice/paddy is sealed in bags and stored after drying. Milling is conducted whenever necessary. During ancient times, farming families would prepare their own rice milling utensils and perform rice milling works from seed sowing to rice milling and rice polishing. Farming families would do everything themselves. Later, as commerce prospered and professional labor division began, rice milling related lines of work appeared. Rice milling was gradually separated from farm works. After rice milling steps became mechanical, equipment costs increased and rice milling became a professional task. Farming families and rice milling works were no longer related to each other. This situation is similar to modern mechanical tillage in which people are hired to engage in seedling growing, land preparation, rice seedling transplanting, harvesting and drying works. Farm owners no longer participated in these works. In other words, rice milling is one of the first tasks to detach from rice planting procedures of a farming family during earlier times.

◆《Two stages of rice milling》

Basically, rice milling can be divided into two stages namely: “dehusking/dehulling” and “rice refining.”〔rice pounding 〕 “dehusking/dehulling” refers to obtaining brown rice by removing husk. The remaining rice husk is called chaff； “rice refining” refers to further removing the outer layer yellow coat of brown rice (embryo layer) to obtain milled rice/polished rice. The coat removed is called rice bran. From the past till now, the rice milling process had always been carried out in this fashion. As time went by were utensils used differed, efficiency, and results were improved.