The Chinese word for rice is the same word used for food. Young girls are told that they must eat all of the rice in their plate because otherwise each grain of rice represents each pock mark on the face of their future husband.
In Thailand, you call your family to a meal by saying, “eat rice.”

In Japan, the same word for cooked rice is for meal. The little rice grains are affectionately called little Buddhas to persuade children to eat all of their rice.

In India, rice is the first thing that a wife offers her husband, and rice is the first food offered to a newborn. Also in India, they have the saying that the grains of rice are like two brothers – close, but not stuck together.