Gansu farmer 'Field Mouse Auntie' reads, writes and records village life

In a small village on the edge of the desert in Minqin county, Gansu province, farmer Pei Aimin has spent more than 30 years growing crops and just as long reading and writing. Online, she is better known as "Field Mouse Auntie".

The nickname came from her love of fairy tales. As a child, Pei was fascinated by Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina. Years later, while working alone in the fields, she often imagined the tiny girl wandering into the farmland and listening to stories about wheat, sunflowers, and potatoes. "There are so many stories hidden in the fields," she said.

Born into a typical rural farming family, Pei left school after junior high and married young, like many women of her generation. Yet even during the busiest farming seasons, she never stopped reading and writing.

She carried paper and pens in her pockets to jot down thoughts as she worked.

"In the village, people only cared whether the wheat grew well or the sheep were fat enough," she recalled. "Nobody thought reading mattered."

Books quietly became her shelter. "When I open a book, my heart calms down," she said. "If the soul has nowhere to rest, then pick up a book."

In 2011, she opened a Weibo account under the name "Field Mouse Auntie" and began sharing snapshots of rural life; the scent of fresh soil, wind through cornfields, fading village memories.

Her warm and poetic writing gradually attracted readers across China. In 2022, she published a collection of her musings titled Field Mouse Auntie's Diary.

Now in her 50s, Pei still spends her days farming and her nights reading and drawing under the lamp. As elderly villagers pass away and old traditions fade, she feels increasingly driven to preserve their stories. "I feel it's my responsibility," she said. "If nobody records these stories, they may disappear forever."

Through her words and paintings, Pei hopes to preserve the traces of ordinary rural lives that she believes are just as meaningful and worthy of being seen.