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A free Chinese flower in the Sahara
A free Chinese flower in the Sahara (image courtesy of San Mao)
By Wang Lin
San Mao is a free Chinese woman and my favorite writer. In her book Stories of the
Sahara, she described her life near the desert, encounters with locals and love with
her Spanish husband Jose. It was first published in the 1970s and became a huge hit
in Taiwan and Mainland China. It is believed that her exotic stories gave post-Mao
Chinese a taste of the outside world. Though I was born in the late 1980s, I still love
her stories for the passion, curiosity and kindness.
Taste “rain” in the desert
After Sao Mao moved to Sahara, her caring parents post her a lot of ingredients from
dried mushrooms to smoked pork. Amazingly, San Mao turned her Sahara home into
a Chinese kitchen. She enjoyed inventing dishes and seeing the surprised looks of her
Sahara guests. Once she made a soup with fensi (a crystal Chinese noodle made from
beans or potatoes). She gave the crystal fensi a very poetic explanation. "It is called
rain. When the spring rains fall onto hills, they get frozen. Farmers collect them into
bundles and trade them in the market for rice wine.” While her guests were both
amazed and confused, San Mao laughed like a naughty child.

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Dig treasures in the dumping site
While San Mao was studying in Madrid, she danced at parties and explored the flea
market. But in Sahara, life can be as plain as tofu. But cheerful Sao Mao enriched her
life with passion and curiosity. Every morning after her husband left for work, she
came to a nearby dumping site to dig treasures. She collected a green soda bottle
and decorated it with thriving brambles. What a piece of art! She named it “painful
poetic life”. Once she saw an old man sitting like a statue, with stones scattering
around him. His nimble hands crafted stones into birds, camels, antelopes and
unusual things she couldn’t tell. Sao Mao gave him a big note and took three pieces.
The old man stood up and dragged her back. He picked up two birds and tucked
them into her arms. Sao Mao walked home happily, with arms full of treasures.
Grow friendship in Sahara
One hot afternoon, Sao Mao found a man in rags resting on her neighbour’s roof. He
leaned against the burning wall and covered himself with a broken straw mat. He
was a mute skinny slave rented by the neighbour to repair the roof. Sao Mao invited
him to her kitchen for a rest and laid over the table with a bottle of cold orange juice,
a loaf of fresh soft bread, a piece of cheese and some boiled eggs. But the man took
out a stone-like bread from his pocket and chewed it with little juice. He gestured to
Sao Mao that he wanted to share these foods with his wife and children. Sao Mao
loaded everything into a bag, with one more watermelon and some toffees. Next
morning, she found a fresh lettuce at her doorstep and her broken fence was fixed.
When the man came to repair the roof, he gestured to Sao Mao with a sincere smile:
did the lettuce taste delicious? You eat lettuce so your teeth won’t bleed in this
weather. Sao Mao was touched. His life is so tough, yet his heart is so gentle.