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Essay: 《不死鸟》The Immortal Bird by Sanmao – Chinese Reading Practice

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In this tear-jerker essay, famous Taiwanese authoress Sanmao ponders on the value of her own life. It was written as she grieved the drowning of her beloved Spanish husband in 1979, and is all the more tragic in light of her suicide 12 years later. But Sanmao was much more than a lovesick widow. She was a Bohemian wanderer whose travel writing inspired a whole generation of Chinese women to have adventures and find themselves. Her most famous book, Stories of the Sahara, describes her time in the desert with her husband in the 1970s. It’s sweet and personal and definitely worth your time. Sanmao makes quite a few references to suicide in this essay, some of which are a bit oblique. For example, she says she might “走了一步” or “walk forward a step” / “take a step ahead.” That’s basically a reference to taking a step into the afterlife. Another confusing part of this piece is that, in parts of it, she seems to talk about her husband Jose as if he’s still alive. He’s not – she’s speculating

Ready to bawl your eyes out? No? Well, you better scamper off then, because this essay is an exquisitely sad exploration of deep grief. It was written by Taiwanese authoress Sanmao in 1981, two years after the death of her beloved Spanish husband, Jose, in a diving accident. In this piece, Sanmao describes how badly she misses her husband and wishes she was dead, but can’t bear to hurt her parents by taking her own life. A decade after this was published, she committed suicide by hanging herself with a pair of silk stockings. Yes, really. But Sanmao was much more than a lovesick widow. S

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