Crying Marriage
Crying Marriage Peng Xueming Since the day her father brought the reunion umbrella the matchmaker had placed at the gate into the fire hall, she knew her father had given the word agreeing to this marriage, and knew that her sweetheart would soon come to ask for the gengtie, to match the eight characters, and to carry her away in a bridal sedan with much fanfare. To be honest, she was really afraid her father would ignore that matchmaker's umbrella, for then she would have to endure an ordeal and would be at a loss. Many years ago, her elder sister, dissatisfied with the arranged marriage and unwilling to marry that…
Wedding Lament
by Peng Xueming
Ever since the day her father carried the reunion umbrella that the matchmaker had left at the gate into the fire hall, she knew he had given the word approving the match, and that her sweetheart would soon come to ask for her horoscope card and to have their birth charts read for compatibility, and would come with pipes and drums to lift her into a bridal sedan and marry her. Truth be told, she had been quite afraid that her father would ignore that matchmaker's umbrella, for then she would have to endure an ordeal and would be at a loss as to what to do. Many years before, her elder sister had leapt off a cliff to her death because she was unhappy with an arranged marriage and unwilling to marry that wealthy man who was missing an arm.
In recent years everything had turned out well: money and rice in plenty, no worries about food or clothing, and the whole family enshrined her like a fairy maiden. She never had to cut firewood, carry water, or work the fields; they had raised her to be fair and clear-skinned, tender and lovely. Her father had even gone to great lengths to send her to an art school as a self-funded student, and after graduation she joined the township Yang opera troupe. In the troupe she played the pretty, clever heroine, and the pretty, clever heroine came to know the handsome, dashing hero and he became the darling of her heart. That sweetheart of hers was truly silly enough to nibble her for real even during a performance, leaving her itchy and sore, with red marks that took days to fade. And that sweetheart was truly good enough to kneel before her father the moment he stepped through the door, calling him "Dad" over and over and refusing to get up, making her father stroke his beard, laugh, and raise him to his feet.
To be married meant leaving the company of girls, taking off a daughter's attire, leaving her brothers and parents, and going to serve her sweetheart and his family. So this was the time when the wedding lament should begin.
She knew that the wedding lament had existed among Tujia daughters since ancient times. It was an emotional mode that was both song and weeping, both weeping and song, with words, tunes, and tears—a lament sung with tears flowing as the voice rises at the time of marriage. Parting in life, parting in death, and having to leave one's kin and hometown—how could one not weep from heartache? Although today the wedding lament is no longer a byword for protesting arranged marriage, it is still a standard by which a woman's virtue is measured. If a bride cannot weep at her wedding, people will think her hard-hearted, eager to leave her parents. Therefore, girls here all weep at marriage. A girl who can weep is a good girl; one who cannot is a foolish girl. Even if she cannot truly weep, she must wail a few times. Although the tune is fixed and monotonous, the words of the lament are rich and varied, and one must compose them on the spot while weeping. Thus the wedding lament also became a measure of a woman's literary talent.
So she too had to obediently perform the wedding lament, obediently completing the assignment laid down by some ancestor of unknown generation:
Auntie, you ate a little of their food, just scraps of meat, yet you helped them speak only good words; you ate a little of their food, just crusty rice, yet you praised them to the skies. They served you stir-fried pumpkin slices, and you said their cured meat was cut as thick as a palm; they served you stir-fried sour long beans, and you said their intestines were stir-fried crisp yet tender. Your daughter is leaving now—may your intestines rot, your belly rot, and the soles of your feet rot.
This aunt being wept at and scolded was the matchmaker, the one who had done a good deed yet must be scolded. But scold away—that was the rule. No one would say you were wrong to scold, and no matchmaker would be angry or hurt because of it. Instead she would be delighted, letting you weep and scold as you pleased. When you had wept and scolded enough, the matchmaker too would shed tears and speak:
When the swallow chick grows, it must leave the high tower; when the puppy grows, it must go out the door; when the sweet potato is full-grown, it must break through the soil; when a daughter is grown, she must toss the embroidered ball. What Auntie did for you is a good deed for a thousand years; if you do not keep it in your mouth, keep it in your heart.
Then the daughter performing the wedding lament would feel embarrassed. Indeed, what was not good about the match Auntie had made? At the time, it was she herself and her sweetheart who had begged Auntie to be the matchmaker! How could she have learned from the ancients to weep a passage scolding the matchmaker?
In past years, people would lament that the groom's parents were like a scale on Cross Street, one scale with two sets of markings: within their bosom they weighed their sons and daughters, outside their bosom they weighed the daughter-in-law as an outsider. But how could that be? Every time she went to her in-laws' house, they were so happy—wiping stools, handing tea, cooking delicious food, saying pleasant things, and even bringing wash water for face and feet so that her sweetheart could wash her. And that sweetheart of hers—when she told him not to wash, he insisted on washing, gazing at her with a foolish smile as he washed, the feeling buried in his eyes like a sinkhole, bottomless, moving her and making her heart tremble. How could there be a warmer home or a more tender sweetheart? Why should she lament that someone's embroidered ball has dozens of cores—looking pretty but impossible to grasp?
She squeezed her brows at the mirror, tweaked her nose, and laughed shyly to herself.
Then what should she lament? For so many years her parents had raised her through countless hardships, and just when she could share a little of their worries and burdens, she was to leave them for another family. Not only had she left them nothing, she was taking away a whole houseful of dowry—her conscience was uneasy. And so, sorrowful and anxious, grieving and troubled, like all brides at marriage, she truly began to weep for her parents.
Mother, you carried loads for others in vain, you hauled grass for others and worried for nothing. The thrush hatched the cuckoo's egg by mistake; the bamboo got tangled in the crow's vine by mistake. A hen brooding a duck egg is brooding for another; a mouse raising young is earning for the cat. You lit a lamp for others like the blind, you spent your strength for nothing and worried for nothing. Your daughter remembers Mother's grace but cannot repay Mother's kindness, Mother! Your daughter remembers Mother's kindness but cannot repay Mother's grace.
Like an awl piercing through, these tear-soaked words of the wedding lament stabbed everyone's heart. Mother, aunts, sisters-in-law, elder sisters, younger sisters, and all the women of the village gathered around, weeping with her, performing the wedding lament together. She wept that she was not a good son who could stay with Mother for only a few years; Mother wept that a child is flesh dropped from one's body, and when the child's finger hurts, the mother's liver aches. She wept that a thousand-pound burden was left to her brothers and sisters-in-law to carry, begging them not to hate her for slipping out from under it; her sisters-in-law wept that the thousand-pound burden had made her carry bitterly, and that when she got there she should straighten her back. She wept that formerly one family steamed sweet potatoes and two families smelled the fragrance, one family pounded rice cakes and two families were filled; now it was like a handful of rapeseed scattered over the ridge—who knew whether it would sprout and form heads? The sisters all wept: Sister, do not weep, do not fret; your kindness is firmly remembered. You go ahead, beating the dew with a stick; I will follow behind with an umbrella.
With this surging song of weeping, the little village suddenly swelled like a great flood. Every ditch and gully, every pit and hollow, was cut through by little streams of emotion, rushing in all directions. After three days and five nights of weeping, after ten days or half a month of weeping, that sweetheart came following the song of weeping, wading the little streams, coming in mighty procession to welcome his bride.
Then it was time to put up her hair—coiling her braid into a bun.
Then it was time to open her face—plucking the fine hairs from her face clean and tracing her brows into slender, curved crescent moons.
Only then did she look like a wife. Only then could she leave the bridal chamber. Only then did she thoroughly bid farewell to the company of girls and enter another kind of life.
Her sweetheart's little car was draped in red and colored ribbons, and the Yang opera troupe's drums and winds played without pause. On one side they wept with joy; on the other they laughed with joy. Amid these joyous Yang opera tunes, the brightly festive dowry was carried onto the car, the beautiful bride was helped onto the car, the dear, foolish groom climbed into the car, and the bustling wedding lament was brought onto the car. A people's customs and wisdom, a people's art and songs, all ancient yet newly resonant, surged onto the car, onto the road, onto the great world beyond the mountains and beyond the sky.