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SPEAKER_01: Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. This month we're talking about adventurers, women who refuse to be confined. They push the boundaries of where a woman could go and how she could get there. Today we're talking about a woman whose retellings of Bohemian adventures inspired generations of young women. Let's talk about Chen Ping, who you might know better as San Mao. In the 1970s, San Mao was a well-known literary name, but before San Mao, there was Chen Ping, who was born into a well-educated Christian family in 1943. The Chen family moved throughout China in the early years of Chen Ping's life. First, they moved to Nanjing to flee the Sino-Japanese War. Then, when communist forces took over the country, they moved to China to fight the Chinese war. Then, when communist forces took over mainland China, they moved to Taiwan. Chen Ping was just a child during this time of upheaval. To her, Taiwan was, more or less, just where she went to school. Even then, she disliked her strict teachers, who seemed intent on tearing down her imagination. When she wrote an essay on wanting to be a garbage collector so she could find treasures, her teacher told her to come up with a more serious occupation. Chen Ping wrote a second essay. This time, she'd be a popsicle vendor. In her second year of junior high, after a teacher humiliated her in class, Chen Ping dropped out of school entirely. She wasn't particularly studious, but she was an avid reader. Chen Ping would skip lunches just to save up enough money to rent books, Western fiction, Chinese classics, Russian novels, and a picture book she came to love about an orphan boy named San Mao. She'd take her spoils to the cemetery and read there, where she didn't have to speak to the living. Eventually, Chen Ping did go back to school, studying philosophy in college. In the 1960s, she was swept up in Taipei's art scene. When she was 17 years old, she started to paint under the guidance of an art teacher, but he encouraged her to pursue writing instead. When she did, Chen Ping found her calling. Her first short story, Confusion, was published in a magazine. Chen Ping liked her life well enough, but she yearned for change. She wanted to study something new, and she wanted to escape a bad breakup she was going through. Then one day in 1967, she saw the perfect place. Pretty, white houses and an expansive vineyard, she was going to Madrid. There, Chen Ping met José María Caro. He was her neighbor, and he became fascinated with Chen Ping, her travels, her writing, and her studies. But Chen Ping was 24, and José was just 16 years old. Chen Ping left Madrid to study and live around the world— West Germany, Mallorca, Berlin. She nearly got married to a German in Taiwan. She turned down a few other proposals along the way, too. When she returned to Madrid six years later, José was still there, now 22, working as a diver. He was still interested in her, ready to follow where she led. Chen Ping was interested, too. She had just the place for them to move. The Sahara Desert In April 1974, Chen Ping and José moved to El Ayun, the Spanish Sahara. They rented a one-bedroom house with an uneven floor across the street from a landfill. For Chen Ping, it was perfect. They had a no-frills wedding. José found work at a mine while Chen Ping busied herself making a life, decorating their house out of scrap wood and old tires, making friends with neighbors through language barriers, sometimes riding into the desert just to pitch a tent and watch the shifting sands. Chen Ping wrote essays about her life and published them in a Taiwan newspaper, under a pen name from childhood. On paper, Chen Ping became Sanmao. It was a magical year for Chen Ping and José, but by 1975, Spain relinquished colonial control over the area. The couple moved to the Canary Islands. There, Chen Ping turned more seriously to writing, where it became their main source of income. In 1976, she published a collection of essays she had written, Stories of the Sahara, her first published book, became a bestseller. It was translated into Korean, Japanese, and Spanish. It followed Chen Ping's life in the Sahara, from interactions with neighbors to forays into local culture and cuisine. Half memoir, half fiction, Sanmao was an independent, carefree rule-breaker. Sometimes she was an idyllic bohemian, getting married in a blue hemp dress with a sprig of cilantro tucked into her straw hat. Other times, she was less self-aware, denouncing local culture and culture. Denouncing local customs after peering in on them. Imagining the secret lives of Sahrawi women when she can't speak to them. José featured in her stories, a doting, anxious husband to a headstrong wife. Sanmao became a semi-celebrity. At least for other women in Taiwan and China, her adventures seemed that much more tangible. Sanmao was self-assured, an adventurer. But in reality, Chen Ping fought against loneliness for much of her life. In 1979, José died in a diving accident. Chen Ping lived on her own for another two years before returning to Taiwan heartbroken. She didn't write quite as much after his death. Over the next ten years, Chen Ping taught creative writing as she traveled. She went to Central and South America and back to the Chinese mainland as it began to open up. She wrote a screenplay called Red Dust, a 1990 film about a love story in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. She gave more than 500 lectures. Above all, though, Chen Ping was alone. She spent most of her time in her apartment. She answered letters and wrote essays. On January 4, 1991, she died at the age of 47. The death was ruled a suicide. Over the course of her life, Chen Ping had published a dozen books of essays and poetry. She was a sort of role model, a young woman who'd stepped outside of the life planned for her by society, an adventurer who challenged the boundaries of a linear career and found fame in the process. Today, her books are being translated for the first time into English. They continue to be passed around from generation to generation, inspiring new waves of adventurers. All month, we're talking about adventurers. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram, at Womanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. As always, we'll be taking a break for the weekend. Talk to you on Monday!
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