If you live in Japan (or, well, Asia), you have a rice cooker. If you don't own one, get thee to a store and buy one. But, if you want something non-tech and have access to lots of firewood, there's a work around.
Last week, I went way into the mountains with some friends and made lunch. This is how we cooked rice: putting water and washed rice in this tin and then leaving it over an open flame.
Honestly, I'd never cooked rice this way, and I thought it was pretty darn neato.
How did it taste? Pretty good. I didn't do a taste comparison with the same rice cooked in a rice cooker, but it worked out really well. The best rustic cooked rice I've ever had in Japan was cooked in hollowed out bamboo shoots. Now that was good eating.
Postcard is a regular peek behind the Kotaku East curtain, whether that be game-related or, most likely, not.