Marlon Martin reflects on growing up with traditional grandparents who served as tumonak, or agricultural leaders, and strictly observed Ifugao rice rituals. Spending his early childhood alongside them in the rice fields, he learned through direct experience—walking the terraces, working the land, and witnessing rituals performed throughout the agricultural cycle. He explains that this upbringing shaped his understanding of the terraces as products of sustained labor, discipline, and respect for nature and the rice gods, rather than as aesthetic landscapes. Martin notes that witnessing these rituals firsthand was increasingly rare for his generation, making his early exposure both formative and exceptional.