Taiwanese writer San-Mao, whose real name was Chen Mao-Ping, was born in Chongqing, China, on March 26, 1943. Also known as Echo Chen, she had an older sister and two younger brothers. When she was six, San-Mao moved to Taiwan with her family because of the Communists’ take-over of China. At 13, while studying at Taipei First Girls’ High School, she suffered a mental trauma that was to affect her for a lifetime. One day, as she had scored zero in Math, her teacher—may the bitch burn in Hell—made her stand in front of the class and drew two circles around her eyes. The other pupils laughed at her. The teacher then ordered San-Mao to parade in the corridors. San-Mao fainted and later dropped out of school. Her father, a lawyer, enrolled her in Taipei American School where she learnt Chinese painting, flower arrangement, piano and literature. During this period, she became depressed and attempted suicide by slitting her wrist but was saved and given psychiatric treatment.
In 1967, she started studying at the University of Madrid and the Goethe Institute. At 27, she returned to teach German at the Taiwan Cultural University, and became engaged to a German teacher 20 years her senior. But her fiancé died of a heart attack on the eve of the wedding. San-Mao attempted suicide a second time by overdosing on sleeping pills. She survived and,wanting to start life afresh, returned to Madrid where she re-ignited her relationship with Jose Maria Quero (pix above), a marine engineer, whom she had met while studying there earlier. In 1973, the couple married in the then Spanish-controlled Western Sahara, where Jose had secured employment. During this time,
In 1989, at 46 years old, San-Mao started a romantic relationship with Wang Luobin, a famous musician 30 years her senior, and who had spent 18 years in imprisonment by the Communist Government. They had admired each other’s works even before they had met. After having travelled from Taiwan to meet him in Uruqumi, Xinjing a few times, she wrote to him: “We are a kind of people without age. Ordinary worldly concepts can neither restrain you nor me. I don't want to call you teacher. Respect and love are not the same title. I don't think your heart is old." In another letter, the travel writer confessed: “It's not a coincidence, it's destiny, I can't resist it, it's a long way from thousands of miles. You can't ask me not to love you. At this point, I'm free.”
In Chen Tien-Hsin’s biography about her sister San-Mao, the former refuted their relationship. She wrote: “For Wang Luobin, she wrote to us and told us that she sang Wang Luobin's songs since she was a child, but now she knows this person; Wang Luobin is very old, so she regards Wang Luobin as an elder, but Sanmao expresses love to her elders. People may think it is love between a man and a woman, but she believes that this kind of emotion comes from the appreciation of artistic creation, and it is also a kind of emotional transmission between the elders and the younger generations. She did not mention that the two will become lifelong partners."
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In early 1990, the movie “Red Dust” was released, its script written by San-Mao. On December 15, 1990, San-Mao attended the 27th Golden Horse Awards Ceremony, harbouring hope of winning an award. "Red Dust" clinched twelve nominations and won eight. San-Mao competed in the Best Screenplay Award, but did not win—she was heart-broken. The word in movie circles was that influential quarters pressured the judges not to award San-Mao because her script portrayed the Taiwanese Government unfavourably—she was angry.
At 7:00 am, January 4, 1991, a nurse making her round in a ward at the Taipei Veterans Hospital noticed that a patient was missing from her bed. She found the patient in the bathroom hanging from a metal IV stand with brown silk stockings around her neck. The deceased was San-Mao, who had earlier undergone an operation for endometrial hyperplasia. As the IV stand was shorter than her, she had bent her body to suffocate herself. The writer was buried at the Chin Pao San Cemetery in New Taipei City. Interestingly, after San-Mao’s death, Wang Luobin wrote a love song dedicated to her.
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From 1976 till her death, San-Mao published 26 books, the most prominent being Stories from the Sahara. The book has to date sold 13 million copies since its original publication 45 years ago. Over her lifetime, the adventurer-writer had travelled to more than 50 countries. Her former red-brick house—where she had lived alone—in Chingchuan village, Hsinchu County, Taiwan, has been converted into a museum.
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