Each year in the month of Chor Law Bar Lar—which is similar to what the Han majority calls the eighth lunar month and what I now know the rest of the world calls September—we have the Swing Festival. The four-day celebration always begins on Buffalo Day, exactly nine full cycles—one hundred and eight days—after the ruma has told the people of his particular village to plant their rice. The festival has yet another purpose beyond a sacred thanksgiving, and that is for boys and girls of marriageable age to meet. For this reason, some people call the Swing Festival the Women’s New Year, because it can be the beginning of life for us. This year I turned sixteen, and now the women in my family have gathered to help me put on my headdress for the first time.
“When you reached twelve years, you discarded your child’s cap so you might wear a simple scarf,” A-ma begins. “Two years later, you tied a beaded sash around your waist, which hung down and kept your skirt from flying up.”
She motions to Third Sister-in-law, who holds up my headdress. It’s decorated with dyed chicken feathers, monkey fur edging, colorful woolen pom-poms, and silver coins, balls, and pendants that A-ma and others have given me over the years.
“The effort you’ve put into this will show your future husband and his family your meticulousness, willingness to do hard work, and knowledge of the Akha’s path of migration through embroidered symbols,” Third Sister-in-law says, proud of her teaching. “It will also announce your artistic sensibilities, which you can pass on in the unfortunate event that one day you give birth to a daughter.”
She hands the headdress to A-ma, who gently ties it over my hair. Five kilos was a lot lighter in my lap than it is on my head, and my neck wobbles a bit.
“You have now received the gift of womanhood,” A-ma says.
The sisters-in-law smile, and my nieces stare at me enviously. When I look in the mirror, I see a thin, but pretty, girl. My eyes are wide and shaped like leaves. My nose comes to a delicate point, unlike the mashed noses of Han majority women. My cheeks are tawny from the sun and mountain air. I’m most definitely ready for marriage. I wish I could run outside this instant to see if the boy I secretly love has come, but the ceremony isn’t over.
“As promised,” A-ma continues, “you’ve never missed a single chore or duty. You thresh rice and grind it under the house every morning. You haul water. You work as hard as your brothers during tea-picking season . . .”
Her voice trails off. This is to make me remember all the time we’ve spent on my useless land, tending to the mother and sister trees. Instead I think about all the classwork I completed aided by Teacher Zhang’s ongoing tutoring and how I learned never to talk to my family about what I’d been taught. I made that mistake early on when I told A-ma and A-ba that a lunar eclipse was not caused by a spirit dog eating the moon and that Burma was now called Myanmar.
“You can now make potions,” First Sister-in-law says. “You gave my daughter tea leaves to place over her pimples so they’d disappear quickly.”
“And you gave them to me to reduce the circles under my eyes,” Second Sister-in-law adds. “My husband benefited from the wild tobacco you told him to chew to help with his toothaches, and now he uses the gooey residue left in his pipe to kill leeches just as you recommended.”
“You know the proper opium dosages to give to the dying,” Third Sister-in-law says in awe. “And you’ve even learned how to extract and then boil the stomach contents of a porcupine to give to someone who is unable to stop vomiting.”
A-ma holds up a hand to silence the others. “Most important, you have learned the skill of delivering babies.”
It’s true. When that mother in Bamboo Forest Village gave birth to a stillborn, I made sure that the tragedy was buried in the forest. The next year, she had a second stillborn. Tradition says that this child is the first baby returning. I instructed the father to throw the corpse in water to break the cycle of returning. The next year, the couple had a perfect baby boy. In other villages, I saw three human rejects come into and leave the world. One had a head double the normal size; one was too small; and the last had a particular look that A-ma said marked him as a future idiot.
“Never once have you faltered,” A-ma says.
But what changes A-ma and I have seen since the birth of Ci-do and Deh-ja’s human rejects! I now understand that I live in an area so remote that we didn’t hear about the One Child policy for almost fifteen years. When the Family Planning Office finally opened at the tea collection center, it was only for Han majority workers, because this policy doesn’t affect any ethnic minority anywhere in the country. However, if a Han woman gets pregnant with a second child, she’ll be made to abort it and pay a fine. If she continues her reckless behavior, she’ll be sterilized. But this talk of midwifery isn’t just to praise me. It’s the prelude to the warning every girl who puts on her headdress for the first time is given by her a-ma.
“Today, across the country, babies have a value they never had before, and we Akha get to have them,” she says. “Even multiple litters of twins if we want! Our ruma and nima have accepted this—with sly male satisfaction—because this is the one thing we have better than the Han majority.” When she says, “It is a shame this change didn’t occur sooner,” I know she’s speaking of the one terrible time twins were born in our village. Then she adds, as if to comfort me, “Fortunately, our leaders were quick to embrace change. Other villages . . . Well, it can be hard abandoning something you’ve done and believed in for generations.” She pauses to let me absorb her words. Then, “No matter what, though, we, like Han majority people, would not condone the birth of a baby if the mother was unmarried. Everyone knows that having a child without a husband is taboo.”
This is one of our traditions that makes no sense. Boys and girls are encouraged to do the intercourse before marriage, but a girl is forbidden to come to a head. No matter. I’m too smart to let the second part happen to me. I’ve read novels, and studied history, math, and science. Together they have taught me the importance of independent thinking, watching out for my body, and looking to the future.
“You are a woman now,” A-ma says, and the others nod their heads at the solemnity of the moment.
Just then, from outside, I hear Ci-teh call my name.
“May I leave?” I ask A-ma.
It’s an abrupt end to the ceremony, but what else is left to say? I’m shooed out the door, with A-ma calling, “This is a big day for both of you.”
Ci-teh waits for me at the bottom of the stairs. I’d like to tell her she looks beautiful in her headdress and festival clothing, but we Akha never use that word to describe another human.