Sister Luo Si Sings Across a Thousand Miles with Liu Sanjie

Synopsis: Luo Sijie was born into a wealthy family in Jiahe, Hunan, during the Song dynasty. She was bright from an early age and loved to sing. Later, dissatisfied with the feudal system of her time, which placed men above women and favored sons over daughters, she accidentally entered the ancestral shrine where men performed rites. The clan leader sentenced her to death by drowning in the river, but a farmhand saved her. Because his family had rescued Luo Sijie, they were expelled from the clan.

To repay the farmhand for saving her life, Luo Sijie told the clan leader the truth about how she had entered the shrine by mistake. From then on, her family faced the punishment of having all its property confiscated and being expelled from the clan. To preserve his wealth, Luo Sijie’s father proposed drowning her to ward off disaster. The farmhand saved her once again. To get rid of this supposed bringer of misfortune, her father asked a matchmaker to arrange her marriage to a fool. To escape the marriage, Sijie ran away from home, singing folk songs as she traveled with a group of porters. She made friends through song and journeyed across Guangdong and Guangxi. Her folk songs gave voice to the poor throughout the land, earning their respect and support.

Later, the prefects of Guangxi and Hunan decided to hold a grand folk singing competition by the Li River, selecting singers from among the people. Guangxi nominated Liu Sanjie as its lead singer, while Hunan chose Luo Sijie. The officials of both provinces racked their brains and schemed endlessly to claim the championship. In the end, the two folk singers, Luo Sijie and Liu Sanjie, set aside the interests of the authorities and formed an alliance in the spirit that all the poor under heaven were one family. Their songs rang out with the call for unity between the Han and Zhuang peoples.

The authorities sent troops to capture Liu Sanjie and Luo Sijie and pursued them relentlessly, but to no avail. Meanwhile, the two women’s songs spread far and wide…