(2) Obituary | Chiung Yao; The bestselling romantic novelist in the Chinese speaking world died on December 4th, aged 86. The Economist, Jan 11, 2025, at page 76.
Note:
(a) The "aged 86" is British English. American English is "age 86."
(b) Nothing in this obituary was known to Taiwanese including me (except her husband's name; I spoke for the time I spend in Taiwan, up until 1984), perhaps in part because she did not seek publicity and in part we were not interested in gossip.
(c)
(i) 琼瑶
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/瓊瑤
(1938—2024; birth name 陈喆 [喆:「哲」的异体字]; "籍贯湖南衡阳，出生于四川成都，[4] 1949年随家人来台。[5] 其笔名出自《诗经》诗句 '投我以木桃，报之以琼瑶'
高三时，与自己的国文老师蒋仁相恋，并相约考上大学后成婚；这段恋情因琼瑶的父母阻拦而中止。[23] 琼瑶也最终没有考上大学，[17] 就此毕业于台北市立台北第二女子中学（今台北市立中山女子高级中学）。[21] 1959年，她与国立台湾大学外文系出身的马森庆结婚。[24] 马森庆供职于高雄的臺湾铝业公司，结婚后，偕妻子住在高雄。 * * * 她将自己高中的师生恋改写成小说《窗外》，[23] 投稿多处皆因篇幅过长而拒稿，惟平鑫涛所创办之《皇冠》杂志允诺刊载。[29] 1963年7月，琼瑶的半自传爱情故事《窗外》在《皇冠》杂志正式刊载，并大获成功，后又发行单行本。[21] 琼瑶因此结识平鑫涛。[29] 平鑫涛 [who was married to 林婉珍] 在自家对面租房，供琼瑶专职写作，并派人照顾，因此琼瑶带着孩子由高雄搬来台北。[29] * * * 两人 [马森庆 and 琼瑶] 最终于1964年离婚。[26] 离婚后，琼瑶和平鑫涛相恋；[25] 两人在《窗外》的电影首映夜定情，琼瑶因此成为平鑫涛的情妇。[30] 琼瑶自诉对这段爱情极度愧疚，曾经尝试分手，却总被平鑫涛所挽留。[31]
(ii) 平鑫涛
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/平鑫濤
(1927—2019; [籍贯] 江苏常熟人; "出生上海贫苦家庭"/ "上海大同大学毕业。1949年迁居台北。本行会计 * * * 最早任职于台湾肥料公司南港厂，1954年2月22日公余创立皇冠杂志社")
(d) "He was Ping Hsin-tao, head of the Crown publishing company [皇冠杂志社]. In 1963 he had published her first novel, 'Outside the Window' * * * in 1998 her adaptation of 'My Fair Princess,' an imaginary saga of the Qing dynasty, became the most-viewed TV series in China. * * * ('That's so Chiung Yao!' [真琼瑶: from my personal experience, what I heard] people would say of anything romantic.) * * * Her mother taught Chinese literature in primary school, to which girls in conservative Sichuan were not allowed to go. But she would sit by the door, listening. When she was six she startled her mother by correctly reading the characters for 'night' in a wistful poem of the Tang era. * * * she bought manuscript paper, ink and pens and began her [literary] life in earnest."
(i)
(A) My Fair Princess 还珠格格 (小说)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/還珠格格_(小說)
(1997; section 3 创作灵感)
(B) "电视剧 * * * 分为三部，第一部于1998年首播，第二部于1999年首播，第三部于2003年首播。": zh.wikipedia.org for 还珠格格.
(ii) "Her mother taught Chinese literature in primary school, to which girls in conservative Sichuan were not allowed to go. But she would sit by the door, listening. When she was six she startled her mother by correctly reading the characters for 'night' in a wistful poem of the Tang era."
(A) It is certain that her mother, in Sichuan, did not teach in "primary school," but in middle school.
袁行恕
https://baike.baidu.com/item/袁行恕/4620844
("1916年， [12] 袁行恕出生在江苏武进书香门第，自幼在北京读书 [1] [6]。1936年，袁行恕与陈致平结婚。七七事变爆发后，离开北平去了四川 [5]，在四川时在泸南中学教书 [7]。1938年4月20日，袁行恕诞下一对龙凤胎，取名陈喆和陈珏")
第一部 二十七、瀘南中學. In 瓊瑤, 我的故事 (1989 book; publisher 皇冠杂志社)
https://www.hetubook.com/book2/652/21330.html
(抗戰剛勝利 "我們一家人 [五口: two parents and three kids] 終於到達四川，抵達重慶] 父親決定去李庄教書。至於母親和我們三個孩子，將怎麼辦？這時候，我的勳姨出來說話了：「一點問題都沒有，三姐和孩子們，全跟我到瀘南中學 [in 四川省瀘縣] 去！我正缺少國文教員」 * * * 勳姨是母親的堂妹。母親在長房中行三，所以勳姨稱母親為三姐。當時，我的勳姨和姨夫在四川的瀘縣，辦了一所私立中學 * * * 從小就很依戀母親，當她上課的時候，我總坐在教室的門檻上「旁聽」，有一天，她在教《慈烏夜啼》其中有這樣兩句話"：夜夜夜半啼，聞者爲沾襟)
(iii) manuscript paper in English has two definitions.
(A) One is for music. See manuscript paper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscript_paper
Wiktionary for the same term defines the same way.
(B) The other is 稿紙 in Chinese and 原稿用紙 in Japanese (both of which look the same). An example of the latter is shown in
manuscript paper. Namuwiki, last modified Apr 11, 2025
https://en.namu.wiki/w/원고지
Namuwiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namuwiki
(e) "Yet she fell for a writer again [who was her first husband]. * * * They had a little son, Xiaoqing [陈中维] * * * By far the most dramatic episodes, however, had happened long before, as she and her family struggled across China in the [Sino-Japanese] war. * * * Her brothers went missing, presumed dead; at which point her parents rolled into the Dong'an river to drown themselves. She followed, terrified, and her cries revived their love for her."
(i) "琼瑶与 [马] 庆筠的婚姻仅维持四年，陈中维三岁便在单亲家庭长大。离婚后琼瑶将儿子姓氏改为外公姓氏": from the Web
(ii) 第一部十三、投河. In 瓊瑤, 我的故事
https://hetubook.com/book2/652/21316.html
(廣西 "東安城 * ** 城外有條河，叫做東安河")
THat was before the two brothers were located.
-------
“So we must break up?” he asked her. “Yes,” she said. His face darkened, and he jammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt. Without warning, he flung the door open. “Then get out!” he cried. They were on a narrow mountain road, with desolate wilderness all around. Did he really mean to abandon her? But as soon as she left he slammed the door, revved up the engine and aimed for the cliff-edge. Instinctively, she hurled herself onto the bonnet to save him. At the very edge, he stopped and got out. As she almost slid off, into the abyss, he pulled her into his arms.
To cut a long story short, she married him, and they were together for 40 years. But this was not one of Chiung Yao’s 65 novels; it was a scene from her own life. She was the passionate heroine, torn between obeying her lover and living freely. He was Ping Hsin-tao, head of the Crown publishing company. In 1963 he had published her first novel, “Outside the Window”, a huge success all over the Chinese-speaking world. After that, remorselessly, he ordered her to write more, even two at once. When she told him she couldn’t, he shouted that she could, and she succeeded. She and Hsin-tao adapted most of them for film and television, and in 1998 her adaptation of “My Fair Princess”, an imaginary saga of the Qing dynasty, became the most-viewed TV series in China.
At the height of her success in the 1970s and 80s it seemed that everyone, female at least, was reading her books. (”That’s so Chiung Yao!” people would say of anything romantic.) They offered stories of love that triumphed despite differences of wealth or class, parental disapproval, etiquette or stifling tradition. There were many, many ups and downs, much pain, many tears (she loved to cry herself, the sign of a softening heart). Both her book titles and the names of her heroines, which became popular too, suggested something beautiful but fragile: “Dream”, “Cloud”, “Rain”. Yet despite their apparent weakness or submissiveness, these were women who insisted on loving as they chose.
As did she. She took “Chiung Yao”, “beautiful jade”, as her pen-name, pretty but adamant. And from early childhood she was already in love, with words. Her mother taught Chinese literature in primary school, to which girls in conservative Sichuan were not allowed to go. But she would sit by the door, listening. When she was six she startled her mother by correctly reading the characters for “night” in a wistful poem of the Tang era. Both the melancholy, and Tang poetry, stayed with her. From that point, she read and read. At school in Taiwan, to which the family fled in 1949 from the communist revolution, she realised that all she wanted to do was write. Rather than retake the college entrance exam, which she had twice failed, she bought manuscript paper, ink and pens and began her life in earnest. This was not a career, her parents told her. But then, to her, neither was marriage.
Instead, at 18, she fell for the literature teacher at her high school. He was 25 years older, widowed and lonely, but, as in “My Fair Princess”, they could watch “the snow, the stars and the moon” together, and talk poetry. So the affair began, and went on even when the school learned of it and dismissed him for seducing a minor. When she realised she would have to give him up, she was devastated. Even the success of “Outside the Window”, her account of it all, could not dull the pain of losing him.
Yet she fell for a writer again. His clothes were worn almost to romantic rags, and his shack had just a bed, a table and chair, a pen and paper; but that, he said, was all a writer needed. She loved him for that. It was a disaster. He was jealous of her ever-growing success, especially as his attempt to write the Great Chinese Novel was not going well. He called her works shallow and sentimental; she was just “telling stories”. In one of their epic rows, she shot back that yes, she was telling stories. She loved telling stories! He should leave her alone to go on writing her shallow lowbrow stuff!
It was true that, as a writer, she was not a great wife. She could sew, but her kitchen skills ran mostly to rice and fried eggs. She controlled the family budget, but was saving for things, like a refrigerator, whose hidden purpose was to save her shopping and extend her writing time. They had a little son, Xiaoqing, whom she adored, but she wrote in every spare moment when the baby was not crying, or wrote with him in her arms, and sent him to nursery as soon as she could. That marriage could not last; this was not how wives and mothers were supposed to behave.
Nor was a woman supposed to fall for a married man, as she did afterwards. She tried not to, but Hsin-tao insisted, and his insistence had proved right before. So after eight years of wrangling over his divorce they got married. They were discreet; it was billed as a lunch party. They became, officially, a power couple on the literary scene, and she became a model of rebellious, dramatic or improper love, whichever way people saw it.
By far the most dramatic episodes, however, had happened long before, as she and her family struggled across China in the war. Disguised as peasants, they lodged in farmhouse after farmhouse that was torched by the advancing Japanese. When they fled, they narrowly escaped being shot as they hid in woodsheds and ravines. Her brothers went missing, presumed dead; at which point her parents rolled into the Dong’an river to drown themselves. She followed, terrified, and her cries revived their love for her. Having seen death up close, she realised both the fragility of life and the endurance of love. That was her real education.
Life, she learned, was a spark that should blaze, not miserably fade. Twice, in the throes of love, she had taken overdoses. She had watched Hsin-tao, felled by a stroke, linger for three years. As she aged, she vowed to control her own death. Once she had been fiery enough to fling herself on her lover’s moving car. Now, in a poem she left before turning on the gas, she was a snowflake flying lightly away to dance with the sparks of the stars. ■
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