The newly harvested paddy rice is easy to fissure during the hot air drying process. Tempering operation can effectively reduce the fissuring rate of dried rice. The acoustic emission (AE) method was applied for the first time to monitor the formation and development of microfissuring inside the rice kernel during the hot air drying process. The drying characteristics and fissuring rate of rice were investigated experimentally for the isothermal dryingtempering process, low temperature dryinghigh temperature tempering process respectively. Parametric studies were conducted by varying the tempering and drying temperature, tempering ratio (the ratio of the drying time to the tempering time of each section) and drying time of each section;and their effects on drying characteristics and fissuring rate of paddy rice were demonstrated. The possible reason for fissuring was discussed. Experimental results showed that there was always fissuring or development inside the rice kernel during the whole drying process. Tempering operation can decrease the drying time and fissuring rate of the dried paddy rice effectively. And 40℃ and 45℃ were the suitable hot air temperatures in the continuous constant temperature drying process. In the isothermal drying-tempering processing, the drying temperature can be increased to 50℃, and the fissuring rate was qualified. In low temperature drying-high temperature tempering process, the shortest drying time was achieved when the tempering temperature was 15℃ higher than the drying temperature, and the increased fissuring rate was still below 3%. The tempering time was reduced with the increase of the tempering temperature. These results provided a basis for developing an efficient drying process of paddy rice. 