孙宝廷《阿昌女人》

The dreams of Achang women are like the silent stars in the sky and the long, rosy horizon of spring. As vibrant as mountain flowers, Achang women entrust their boundless hopes to the night, letting the stars illuminate their love. Yet, on the arduous journey of life, countless sweet dreams of Achang women are lost to diligent labour. From the day of marriage, they are destined to endure innumerable hardships and tribulations, exhausting their youth in the labour of men farming and women weaving.

I once heard a wonderful Achang woman say she married her man not out of love but because she couldn't bear his loneliness. She married him to share his pain. Such is Achang women's broad and kind heart, as vast and boundless as the blue sea. Until today, I have only begun to understand the profound meaning of her words.

I remember my original intention for joining the army was to find a good woman, an Achang woman like a mountain peach blossom. Back then, there was a saying in my hometown: failing the enlistment physical examination meant something was wrong with your body, and girls wouldn’t marry you. I signed up on a whim, but luck was on my side, and I joined the army with a big red flower. As I watched the village girls bidding me farewell with deep affection, I was moved to tears. My yet-to-be-found lover, are you blessing me? I constantly thought, inquired, gently called, and happily called out. Those women with peach blossom faces and eyes like autumn water lined up to bid me farewell, including my familiar mother. However, the large group of beautiful young Achang women overshadowed her trim figure. Their waving fingers obscured the clear sky and the winding mountain road. Their gentle waists blurred my damp eyes like dense, ripe sugarcane fields. Though their fading figures became more distant, they became my unforgettable memory.

Achang women have become my eternal mountain. Though I was not fortunate enough to marry an Achang woman and experience their tender love, my kind mother devoted all her love to me. Where is the happiness of Achang women? I have searched for answers in my mother's life countless times, and the only answer I got was the word "tired." From my sister, I saw the same word: "tired." The word "tired" may seem easy to say, but from Achang women, I read heaviness.

My sister wept as she married into a distant village. I served in the border defence then and couldn't attend her wedding. It was said that it rained all day and night on her wedding day, with tears and rain intertwining, turning her into a weeping figure.

Achang women marry with tears. They cannot part with the parents who raised them or the mountain and river neighbours they have grown accustomed to. Their hearts are long entrusted to the soil and mountains that gave them life. Achang women are the backbone of the family. They carry back firewood bundle by bundle from the mountains, raise the fat pigs in the pen, plant the seedlings in the fields, and cook meals for the whole family. They are accessible only on the first day of the year, their happiest day. Today, Achang women can lie in bed and let men offer prayers, listening for the loudest, earliest, and crispest sound of New Year's Eve firecrackers from their homes. After the sun rises, they change into brand-new clothes and visit houses one by one, seeing who has the most abundant New Year's fruits, tasting the most fragrant ones, and noting the smoothest rice noodles. Young men and women go out for a spring outing, while married women gather around the fire pit to chat about the happiest things of the year. Taking this opportunity, men who love hunting gather their dogs and go to the mountains, returning home only after dark. If there is a harvest, women happily busy themselves before the stove, enriching their ordinary lives with the lingering aroma of wild game and the excited sound of guessing fists.

Once an Achang woman marries you, she will never resent you, no matter how tough life is. You will forever be her loyal backbone. She recognizes not you but the heart she devoted to the marriage. However, Achang women are born to love singing, singing the love songs they enjoy. Mountain songs win over many Achang women, nurtured and grown up by them. Any Achang woman you meet has as many mountain songs as she has hair. She sings about stars and the moon, love and separation, happiness and sorrow from acquaintance to death. You can never finish all her songs in three days and nights. I heard that one of my sisters-in-law passed away while singing. The sorrowful song of "Twenty-four Filial Piety" played for a whole night, never ceasing until the cock crowed at dawn. For Achang women, death is a simple ceremony. It is a liberation, and the soul's salvation is heaven's greatest gift.

The quiet life of Achang women is like the moon in the sky, their most beautiful bed. Achang women are in their best mood whenever the moon rises from the mountains. They take their children and visit door to door in the moonlight, releasing the damp mood of the summer and lighting up the lost dreams of youth.

It is said that among all the minority women's headscarves, Achang women are the tallest. They are long enough to wrap around a coffin three times if unravelled and still have extra for two hands. I believe this is the life circumference and solace designed by the ancestors for women, perhaps to foretell their boundless hope. I am convinced that Achang women's lives will improve and improve. I sincerely pray and bless them.