Here's a slideshow of an interesting story I shot for Bloomberg on traditional handmade noodle making in Ratchaburi, a small province 1.5 hrs from Bangkok. A handful of companies have been making longevity noodles in the Ban Pong district of Ratchaburi province since 1960. Longevity noodles (or Shou Mian) were thought to have originated in China but in fact have roots in Japan in a type of noodle called Somen. Japan had a military base near Ban Pong during their WWII occupation in Thailand when they were building the Kwai bridge in nearby Kanchanburi. It’s believed that the Japanese introduced this technique for making longevity noodles to Thais who in turn made the noodles to cater to the Japanese troops. Longevity noodles are different from normal noodles which are straight like spaghetti. The main difference is that they are handmade and workers start kneading them with their hands starting at midnight in a process that takes 14 hours. The noodles - made from wheat flour, food colouring and salt water - are cut into thinner noodles and stretched between 2 bamboo sticks to make them as thin as possible. Noodles are stretched horizontally into a figure 8 shape like the infinity symbol. The bamboo sticks contain one long strand of noodle which conveys the message of longevity. People like eating the noodles because they symbolize long life and good fortune.
You can check out the slideshow here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2016-12-20/the-dazzling-art-of-hand-pulled-noodles-in-thailand
