The Snake in the Rice Granary

Since the Chinese New Year is almost upon us, what better to celebrate it than to know about what lies ahead during the year of the snake.

Apparently, according to ancient Chinese wisdom, a snake in the house is a good thing.  It is an omen that your family will not starve.  It is certainly better than a snake in the grass! LOL

When we were kids and living in Marag, our house was a beautiful two-story building.  Downstairs on the left-side corner at the back of the house, next to the kitchen was a big room which my father built into some sort of granary, storage for our palay (palay is what you call a rice which is still unhusked.)

Whenever it needed to be emptied or more palay had to be stored, our workers would say that for sure a huge snake would be comfortably ensconced in the middle of the granary, making it a bit daunting to go inside.  Luckily no one had been bitten. Once or twice we would see a smallish snake crawling near our kitchen, it would be more frightened of us than us of him.

Probably there was some truth about the snake in the house because we never did starve even when there was a bad harvest due to droughts, typhoon/flooding or something else.