Before we went to Chentang, we had heard about the Sherpa custom of snatching marriages. This custom has become one of our greatest curiosity about Sherpas. After entering Turonggou, we inquired all the way from the Chentang Power Station about the marriage robbery customs. Along Nadang, Zangga, and Chentang, since the Sherpas don't speak Chinese, we even speculated and reluctantly sorted out the Sherpa marriage-stealing customs.

The Sherpa custom of snatching marriages is interesting. If a young man sees a girl he likes, he does not ask the woman directly, but calls a young man among his relatives and friends, sneaks into the girl's house at night, and forcibly takes the girl away. After the young man brought the girl back, he did not marry immediately, but hid the girl, and then sent someone to the woman's house to ask for marriage. If the woman's family does not agree for a day, the young man will not marry for a day until the woman's family agrees. At this point, the woman's family will eventually agree to this family business. The woman's family nods, and the young man can hold the wedding. Since the Sherpas do not intermarry with foreigners, the brides they rob are only Sherpas. The Sherpas have strict requirements for marriage, never intermarry within the same tribe, and there is no such thing as divorce after marriage, so for the Sherpas, marriage is sacred and solemn. In the Chentang area, because of the settlement, there is no need to adopt the extreme form of marriage robbery between several tribes, so the object of this marriage robbery is actually only for the Sherpas in neighboring Nepal. The Sherpas' view of marriage makes them extremely loyal to marriage, even if it is a snatched bride, once married, will never have a different heart, but wholeheartedly maintain their own small family. This attitude towards marriage of the Sherpas makes the family relationship extremely strong for the Sherpas.

As our knowledge of Sherpa wedding rituals grew, so did our curiosity and desire to have the opportunity to attend one of these weddings.

After we settled in Chentang, we began to ask our landlord about the Sherpa custom of snatching relatives, and expressed our desire to attend such a wedding.

En's Chinese to the teacher is good, and he smiled when he heard what we were saying. He said that in the past, the Sherpas did have the custom of robbing marriages, mainly to rob brides in Nepal. But that was a long time ago, and it hasn't happened anymore. They didn't need to rob the marriage anymore, and Enxiang told the teacher that we could go to the mountains to have a look, and the Chentang side was full of new houses with blue or violet tin roofs. Nepal is still full of stone-roofed houses, they eat miscellaneous grains, and most people do not have TVs and mobile phones, and their living standards are much worse than those in Chentang. Now the girls in Nepal are eager to marry to China, and there is no need to grab another marriage?!

Although En's words to the teacher cut us off, they are even more intriguing. After all, the pursuit of a better life is a common dream of human beings.

During this trip to Chentang, although we were not able to witness the custom of Sherpas snatching marriages, we will inevitably have some regrets in our hearts. But then think about it, an era has a product of an era. If a product cannot exist in this era, then it can only be said that this product no longer belongs to this era. The same is true of the custom of robbery. For us, it may be a small pity that we have not been able to see the strange customs, but for the Sherpas, it is a natural blessing.