When we think of Sanmao, we always think of wandering and far away, thinking of her Sahara, and remembering her romantic love with Jose. However, in addition to the label of "legend", Sanmao is completely an ordinary woman's appearance -
In Sanmao's letters to his parents and sister, there is no shortage of embarrassment and loneliness in a foreign country, and each letter has a few words of worry about not having money to spend: "At present, I still have three hundred and ten dollars"; there is also the problem of hair loss: "If I go bald, I will go crazy"; of course, it is also tough and full of hope: "I only hope that I am poor but happy and happy", "I am like a sheathed sword, the light is too dewy"; in self-deprecation, I am full of confidence: "I am so ugly, but I am invincible"...
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Sanmao's death, and we have selected 4 of them from Sanmao's collection of letters, "My Soul Rides on the Back of Paper", to re-acquaint ourselves with this free soul from every real detail she wrote to her family.
I only hope that I am poor but happy and happy
Sister:
Returning to Madrid for twelve days, people are very sick, menstruations keep coming, stomach pain, diarrhea, and then abscesses in the mouth, fever, and people almost don't want to live anymore. J (Sanmao's boyfriend when he was studying in Germany) has made many long-distance phone calls, and people are anxious like crazy.
Sister, I have gone to the letter to ask my father and mother to help me live this next year, I am going to Germany, I have to go to see J like this, yesterday I called, as soon as I called his name, he said "people are good or not", and then I couldn't say a word, I cried desperately, a phone call for a long time, didn't say anything, both of them were very excited.
His sex was originally an acute person, I was alone here for a long time, he was the first to collapse, and this time I returned to Madrid, I thought the two could forget, but there was no way, as soon as I talked to him on the phone, he was too weak to be weak, this person has completely changed, once full of ambition, now as long as I can settle down early, how to be willing.
Today he came to write a letter, a letter stamp seventeen marks (about four dollars), written a lot, he himself also want to write to Daddy, Mom, but ask me to write to you, please talk to Daddy and Mom for us, he likes Huang Junyun very much, and trusts you. Although I still have to help my family this year if I get married, our current situation is too heavy, I am not afraid to ask my father and mother, because they are the people who love me the most in the world, and I can't continue to do so.
Sister, you go to tell the family, I went to Berlin in early October, I spent the same time here, and I wanted to go to Christmas, but if you pay the "University of Malaysia" tuition fee is another fee, it is better to go to Germany now, I can live in the "student village" first, wait for the "couple's dormitory" to come out and we will get married, the so-called marriage is just a simple procedure, but I know, Daddy and Mom when I am baby, I married J, they don't know how sorry it will be, but we have a good relationship, he loves me too much, I will regret it in the future, I will regret it in the future. Everything is predestined, and if this time the love is missed again, I will die of chagrin for the rest of my life.
Please go and tell the family, J poor, telegram, telephone, if I don't go again, he spends all his money on this, when he first made friends, he never expected him to be so obsessed. Sister, I don't talk much about his situation, please help me, my brother-in-law must have been surprised when he came back, at that time on M Island I told him that I had the ability to go to the United States, forget about it, he said no, on the contrary, he would only want to go to Berlin more, and sure enough, he said.
Sister, you go to discuss with your father and mother, we have used this year in the province, next October he can read it out, the two of us do things to make money to send back, I will never understand whether this is right or wrong, but at present we can't divide it. I calculate that you will have to receive this letter on the eleventh day at the earliest and fastest, please hang up the phone with your family immediately, and reply to me quickly? Because I want to go to the embassy to go through the formalities, I had a letter from home yesterday, only to say that I very much hoped that my father and mother would help me, but I did not insist, I knew that if I went to the United States, J would be very sad, I did not have to go to find another object, you are the boss of the family, you go to talk about persuasion, maybe they will promise me, only that I want to go to Germany early, I don't need anything to get married, it doesn't matter if I wear long pants, but J will not treat me badly, always say that I always have enough clothes to dress up when I have money.
Sanmao's family portraits, from left to right, are: father Chen Siqing, Sanmao, eldest sister Chen Tianxin, eldest brother Chen Sheng, younger brother Chen Jie, and mother Miao Jinlan
I don't have much to say, this burst of mood load is too heavy and too heavy, night dream crying, daytime people have no spirit, so it is the worst thing to do, please help me, this matter is wrong or good is a foregone conclusion. I have changed a lot, there is no little vanity, wealth, fame and fortune, just hope that I am poor but happy and happy is, next year J a money, no matter how bitter it is, send a little bit back to the family on a monthly basis, sister, if the family wants me to consider again, I can't live this period of time, but you don't have to scare them, be optimistic to talk about it, tell them the example of the Jiang family's big sister, I am not an ordinary girl, I don't care about the Like of the Doctor in the United States, I am not afraid of my bitterness, I am looking for myself, if there are no children in these two years, there will be no trouble, J This man had always been not very optimistic, and he could not read any more books, and he might come to Madrid again.
I'm going to Germany, please tell my family, at present I still have three hundred and ten dollars (my brother-in-law has another hundred to give me not to count), Daddy does not have to send it to me before December, please write me back quickly, you see the situation, whether they agree or not, they will write to me, just write it and send it to me. This is the first time I really beg you, please understand me, we should be very good when we are together, if I am out really concerned about you and my parents and two younger brothers, I really have nothing, I can't stand to drag on, I ask you to help me. Trust J's feelings for me, although he has many flaws, but I know that he really loves me, not much to write, please reply quickly. Is Hui Hui okay? Is Yunyun waiting for her father?
P. S. I wanted to go mainly to the student village in October to have a house, only pay 750 Taiwan dollars for a single room, and only pay 1,500 Taiwan dollars for the couple's dormitory.
Younger sister
September 6, 1968
If I end up bald, I'll go crazy
I don't know how many times I have seen Yunyun and Huihui in the dream, and the strange thing is that the two children are clear in the dream. I haven't written to you for a long time, your mother-in-law Huang Auntie opened the knife I know from Mu Ma, I don't know if it's good? Grandpa and grandma want to go to Taiwan, see the letter from home Daddy And Mom are very worried, Grandpa temper you know, really unreasonable, like a child, the year before he came to January, dragged me day to night, only a month I can't stand it, now I don't know if I want to live for a long time? The little aunt naturally often comes to us, what should Mao Mao do when he reads? Mu Mama was busy making food and still had to socialize with Grandpa, because she couldn't accompany him. I see Daddy's letter is very sad look, this thing I can't think, I wish I was still in Taiwan, accompany Grandpa is just fine, although reluctant can always reduce the burden of Mom, now what to do?
I learned January German, the results are very remarkable, a month ago A person who could not speak at all, and now I can express some shallow sentences, the school guarantees that we speak German for three months, I believe there is no problem, "Goethe" is really a good school, if I can learn German, I believe this will be the best language for my grammar pronunciation, english comparison is not rooted.
Now life in addition to class (from three o'clock to seven o'clock in the afternoon, every day), come back to eat a good dinner and wash the dishes, that is, study until twelve o'clock at night, get up at nine o'clock in the morning to freshen up and then read until two o'clock, go to class in the afternoon, life has no entertainment, no sound, and no hope.
J every two or three days to come two or three hours, I cook something for him to eat, after eating he went again, everyone is forced to die without time to eat, play, meet, this kind of tense life I actually lived down, every day a few Saturdays, because Saturday J will come to pick me up with him to study with him to the evening, Sunday morning and then pick me up to go to the dormitory to read together until night, this is perhaps my greatest happiness, usually there is no one to talk to, the school students are busy with their own, rush to class after a rush and scatter I can not make any friends, I have no time.
J is always good to me, although we regret each other did not get married, but it is also the situation can not get married, the trivial things of daily life he is really too careful and thoughtful, whether I bank, residence, police station, registration, and even send a registered letter are all he is accompanying to get, yesterday because of my health insurance to check the whole body, by the eyes, nose, teeth, spinal bone, abdomen, heart, X-ray, blood urine all checked (please tell the family that I am probably not sick), J step by step, from 7:30 a.m. to the afternoon, I've never treated this kind of thing in my life.
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Although life here is a little bit bitter spiritually and materially, this year I have to make myself happy for J, and next winter if he can finish his studies, we will make plans. The mood is often very heavy, for a few days J does not come I can continue to speak for three or four days (the school does not count, the class answer questions is not speech), he came to me to cry, I cried he was sad, I felt that I did not have a good life in Germany, in fact, it is not, but often feel too lonely, this is a cold city, there is no time for each other, foreigners can not get used to living.
My hair fell out so badly that I fell desperately in the West, and I didn't care, I fell off one by one on Mallorca Island in the summer, even more so after coming to Germany. Until about a week ago, I washed my hair and suddenly found that the scalp on the top of my head could be seen, people were really anxious to die, I had been crazy for the past two weeks, really rare, one can hold all the hair, this is a sudden discovery, I did not notice before, now I changed my head to comb my hair, cover the less place, but what if I fall down again? I'd go crazy if I went bald. J also fell hair, but he is a man does not matter, I even want to come back to Taiwan next year, if it is the climate, food should not be so, J said that if I fall back to Taiwan, see if it will be good, I will see a doctor next month, I am really anxious to die, this matter is sullen and unhappy when I think about it.
Eat badly here, but people are fat, because all day long butter bread and cereal jam are my staple food, fish and meat eat canned more provincial and less troublesome, vegetables are rarely eaten, today eat a white boiled cauliflower actually relish (mixed meat pine). It's just a matter of reading on weekdays, and there's very little other entertainment, and it's worth it if you can speak German after a year and it's Chinese. Laide ate fresh meat twice in February, which is how everyone lives, but I live dizzy, and four hundred marks in January is indispensable, if you eat some meat every day, then the cost of living can not be balanced. Next year I want to find a house of 100 marks, so I can save some money (currently 160 marks, that is, NT$1,600). It has snowed once here, and it may fall again tomorrow, but fortunately, no matter how busy J is, he will come to drive me to class, which is not a worry, he is a good boyfriend.
Sister, if you have read the newspapers and periodicals, please collect them and send them to me by boat, but it doesn't matter, I just said it casually. I can't read the newspaper here, and all the major events that happen in the world are told to me by J, and he rarely talks about it, only looking at it himself, and as a result, my world seems to be sealed.
Is the brother-in-law okay? Please greet him in particular, and J greets him. Do you have any pictures of the two ladies? I have not had time to take pictures in Germany so far, and I will send some of them back to you next spring.
I'm going to J's house for christmas, and on January 3rd his sister gets married and I'll stay. J's mother and brother have written to me to ask me to go, this family is really good enough for me, Taiwan mushrooms, his mother bought canned food in Böblingen and sent it to Berlin to me (thinking that I am from Taiwan to eat native products), there are long-distance calls to J on weekdays. Don't write much, you don't have to write back, you have time to write.
November 30, 1968
If God gives me health, I can break out of the sky
Daddy, Mommy:
Woke up at seven o'clock this morning, came out at ten thirty, the newspaper hall through the SEPU company to fight, the next day and then published my photo, I went to the "Iya" newspaper today to see friends, and then go to the post office to send the manuscript, after sending out and met a group of young tourists to ask for directions, I took them a long way, and then went to Xu's house. Xu family came out is already 4:30, I have a cocktail party at 5:30, the class is too far away, it is too late to rush to go, there is no rest when I come back, it is 5:30 pm to change clothes and go out again, at six o'clock to the cocktail party (SEPU company oriental art exhibition), the general manager personally took me to visit, I was forced to pay too much attention to me too kindly. (Who am I?) They were cultured, so they treated me like this. I ordered a dress from India, seventeen hundred CZDs, and I wanted the one on the model until next week, but I could get a 20% discount. It's so pretty, not an Indian native dress, it's an evening dress.
Today SEPUS gave me a set of cosmetics, about ten, and I forgot it in Salinar's car, and the umbrella fell out of nowhere. I went to SEPUS today (I went to the office twice) and everyone called me Eco, Eco, and I met more acquaintances at the cocktail party than Salinar, and he said, "Oh my God, when did you meet so many strange people, I went to Taiwan for half a month, you must be here every day in SEPU." "Actually, there really isn't, I don't know how to meet it." Today I talked with a British friend for a long time, he tried to advocate me, saying that I am too buried in Madrid, now I should go to the United Kingdom, find a big news agency as a reporter, he said I have not seen a person who has more diplomatic ability than you and can talk deeply, why don't you go to England to break in, don't get neurotic and study again, just use your broken English to write articles, someone will definitely use you. I am not moved, but Europe I can have development.
This box of torn clothes has also come in countless uses, and I will be more beautiful when the package arrives, and there is no coat yet. Today brought a Chinese girl Xiaolin (she used to study here, also danced, and now came again), Salinar was very interested in her, so we went to dinner after the cocktail party, and after the meal four people went to dance (I, Kobayashi, S, and ramon, the general manager of S Company, are also very good friends), I was too tired to dance when I danced, and came back at two o'clock, afraid of noisy girls in the same room, hurried to bed, turned over and couldn't sleep, and rant nose, and thirst, so noisy that she couldn't sleep, So I simply went to the living room to write a letter, it was very inconvenient for two people to live, I was a night owl again, tired during the day, insomnia at night.
European life is used to it, going to the United States to be a bland housewife will go crazy, oh my God! I want to rest, rest, but dating (not a boyfriend, is something that can no longer be pushed off, such as inviting me to dinner, such as the boy who made an appointment last week, I can't get time now, and there are school classmates, the interview to be done in the manuscript to be photographed), to say it is not clear, busier than Taipei, the phone I moved in only two days, ringing non-stop, other girls are annoyed to death, I am really sorry. But night insomnia, eye sockets are gray, wrinkles come, I am old very fast, too tired, but there is no way to put down work, study, I do not want to put down, Christmas should be able to rest for a few days, I can not eat except the body, there is nothing else, ginseng has no time to drink, I am not at home all day long.
There was a whole bunch of stuff to say, the fridge was empty and there was no time to buy it. Today I got off the bus, squeezed and stuffy, got off the car and walked twenty minutes to Xu's house, Mari gave me noodles mixed with ketchup, I was really angry, took a half-dead car, walked half-dead road, and ate a meal like this.
I think a person can not be too busy, know more people, have illness or be sick alone, no one will have time to take care of me, I hope to sleep tomorrow, but the situation will be noisy by the phone. Oh my God, Mai Ling wrote to say that I went abroad to escape, she said that you can live like this in Spain, if you can't do it in the United States, I am thinking, I have never been so busy here, I rarely talk to Mai Ling about a busy life. One manuscript a month, so many classes a week, and so many messy things.
I always want to come back and sleep, there is no other luxury. Because you can rest when you go home, but your home is outside the mountains and rivers! Recently, the handprint lifeline is fading to death, and people are in the void! What is done is also all false, not real. It's dawn, and I'm going to go to sleep now. Will I go back to the U.S. next year for two months off or just go? I would love to come back for a break. I am like a sheathed sword, the light is too dewy, but it does not work, if God gives me health, I can break out of the sky, but man can not be perfect. I am the same or not.
On November 3, I went to bed early this morning, dreaming that my mother came to pick me up, my father sat in the car and waited, and Ma Ma (great aunt) waited for me to return to Taiwan.
Are the little sisters well? I miss it. Sister I have a letter to her, did I receive it? It was back that she sent Yunyun to paint the villain, and she did not mention the letter, as if she had not received it.
I really don't want to study, Spanish is enough to talk about, no spirit. After reading an article in "Hu Shi Wencun" "New Women's Outlook on Life", it is very well said, I agree very much, it is almost talking about me!
Sister on
November 3, 1973
P. S. It's now one o'clock in the afternoon. I decided not to go out, no matter what you made, I couldn't push all the sick (I was going to go to a Spanish friend's house to cook dinner today), it was pouring rain, I dropped one of the umbrellas left by the landlord, and I had to buy one to compensate her, and I bought one myself. Dreaming of your uneasiness in your heart, I rarely dream of my family, and I always wake up uneasy.
A girl who lives here loves to clean too much, the home is spotless, I live really sad, she washes the floor every day, washes the kitchen, cleans the living room, I have to try to keep clean, I prefer to live with dirty people, more comfortable. I'm messy and not clean, and the closet is still piled up to ignore it. Now soak ginseng to eat.
I'm so ugly but I'm invincible
Daddy, Mommy:
It is a great pleasure to receive your letter. Ten dollars were paid for this to the girl who took the letter. I haven't been to school for three days, I'm at home catching up on the manuscripts of Industrial World and translating economic news, and I want some photos, which I write very badly, and the interview is very blunt without my own tone. The editor did not hear from me this month. Laixi had only received two letters, which was very irresponsible.
Now I am dating the curator of the "Museum of History and Archaeology" in Spain, near where I live, which is the most exclusive street in Madrid, covering a very wide area, one of the royal palaces in the past, we met two months ago, but only made a few phone calls, I thought he was an old man, and when I met the other week, I learned that the curator who was twenty-seven years old was the person on the phone (I went to the office to find him).
He is not busy now and always comes to take me out, I am suffering from no clothes, I am not a fool every day to call clothes, but do not buy, but this place is too expensive, a long skirt three thousand pieces, a pair of pants fifteen hundred, I really can't buy it.
This man is gentle and elegant, educated, learned, shrewd and capable, is a scholar, good looking, one look is everyone's origin, speaking very good German, I have entered another realm of knowledge that is not a businessman can reach, Friday (the day after tomorrow) he wants to introduce me to friends, his friends are what kind of experts and scholars, I am very happy, but I live with me do not know who the people I often go out this week are.
I was sincerely being friends with him. I could see that he liked me very much, that he was polite and serious in the office, calling him "Mr. Curator" up and down (the class was still very deep), but when I finished teaching English, he stood outside the door in the cold wind waiting for me to pick me up. I really enjoy talking to him. It was the first time I met such a student, but he was very humorous and very British. It was a stroke of luck to meet such a friend. This is called "the blossoming of flowers is uninterrupted, the spring is irrelevant, only this flower does not tire of blooming, and it often occupies four o'clock in the spring of the year."
When I met this person, I actually felt that I had met the opponent. My life has no regrets, a colorful half life, a bumpy and beautiful and sad half life, I can die, but I will not die!
Thank you for giving me such a day so that I have no worries in life, and if it were not for my parents, family, and friends who made me, I would not have such a day today. I'm so ugly, but I'm invincible. Hopefully one day I'll settle down and have a good husband to take care of me.
November 25 is the German Tomb Sweeping Day, and I can't go, but I will send a little money to Gerbert's mother and buy flowers to send him to his grave. Gerbert taught me a lot of homework, I'm not sad anymore, the memories are beautiful, but one has to look ahead. Happy things can not be sought, I hope to be happy now, and I will be happy in the future. If I can come back to see you next year, I will also be relieved. Thank you for your letter!
November 22, 1973
This article is excerpted from
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"My Soul Rides on the Back of Paper"
Author: Sanmao
Publisher: South Seas Publishing Company
Producer: New Classic Culture
Publication year: 2021-10
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