Queen of Hearts

On December 4, 2024, news of Chiung Yao’s passing sent shockwaves through the Chinese-speaking world. The 86-year-old was found in her New Taipei City apartment. Police confirmed her death as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning.　

Her note, discovered at the scene, revealed a deliberate choice to end her life while she was still relatively healthy. She wrote of her desire to take control of her fate, avoiding her inevitable decline into old age.　

As a novelist, screenwriter and producer, Chiung Yao shaped Chinese pop culture for decades. Over her career, she authored 66 novels – primarily romances – and saw more than 100 films and television series adapted from her works. Known affectionately as the “Godmother of Love,” Chiung Yao captivated readers with lyrical, idealistic tales of protagonists defying societal and familial constraints to pursue true love and individual freedom.　

In a culture where arranged marriages were the norm for centuries, Chiung Yao inspired generations to value love and personal choice in relationships. However, in recent years, her works and their love-above-all philosophy have lost resonance with China’s younger generation.

Born Chen Zhe in 1938 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Chiung Yao moved to Taiwan with her family when she was 11. In 1963, the 25-year-old published her debut novel, Outside the Window. This semi-autobiographical story recounts a tragic romance between a 17-year-old literary prodigy and her older teacher, a man 20 years her senior who recognizes her talent. Based on Chiung Yao’s own youthful romance with her Chinese teacher, the novel defied traditional morality by exploring the intense emotions of a teenager navigating forbidden love.　

The novel became an instant bestseller. In 2006, it was named among the “100 Greatest Chinese Novels of the 20th Century” by magazine Asia Weekly.　

Chiung Yao’s love life was as dramatic as her novels. At 20, she married Ma Sen-ching, a budding Taiwanese writer. The marriage lasted only five years, ending in 1964. Divorced and raising a son, Chiung Yao began a complicated and long-lasting affair with Ping Hsin-tao – her editor, a prominent publisher and married man with three children. Their affair continued for 15 years until Ping finally divorced and married her in 1979.　

This tumultuous period deeply influenced her writing. Novel Spray (1974) draws from her life at the time, telling the story of a divorced artist and a renowned gallery owner, whose troubled marriage and mutual longing for happiness spark a love affair.　

Chiung Yao’s novels gained widespread popularity in Taiwan and Hong Kong from the mid-1960s and were introduced to the Chinese mainland in the 1980s.　

For nearly three decades after 1949, romantic ideas were deemed a dangerous “bourgeois corruption” in the Chinese mainland. Romantic literature and films were banned, and public displays of affection, even holding hands, were frowned upon. Kissing or hugging in public was seen as “degenerate” or “capitalist,” and accusations of “lifestyle problems” could ruin lives and careers.　

The reform and opening-up policies of 1978 brought sweeping changes to Chinese society. As materialism rose, lifestyles grew more Westernized, and individualism and private rights flourished. This cultural shift paved the way for a romantic revolution in pop culture, with Chiung Yao’s works playing a pivotal role.　

In 1981, The Strait, a State-backed literary magazine in Fuzhou, Fujian Province – a city just 300 kilometers from Taiwan, published her novella Far Away From Home. Unlike her typical romances, this story centers on brotherhood from the perspective of a young man.　

In 1983, The Strait serialized her seminal work I Am a Cloud (1976), a heartbreaking romance about Duan Wanlu, a young woman torn between her marriage and the man she truly loves. This story of courage in pursuing true love deeply resonated with mainland readers.　

Yang Jilan, former editor of The Selected Works of Taiwan-Hong Kong Literature, told the Fuzhou Daily that the first wave of Chiung Yao’s popularity in the mainland emerged around 1986, when many publishing houses released her novels. In that year alone, the publication featured four of her stories – two novellas and two short stories.

Yang Jilan cites individual liberation and the pursuit of pure love as the cornerstones of Chiung Yao’s fiction. These strong messages resonated with millions of young Chinese in the 1980s, planting the seeds of love and personal freedom in their minds. However, this awakening was met with strong conservative resistance.　

Zoey, a 52-year-old senior editor at a Beijing-based magazine, shared an unforgettable incident from her teenage years. In 1985, when she was in middle school, one of her classmates – a top student – was caught reading Chiung Yao’s novel in class.　

The book, Love Under a Rosy Sky (1979), tells a bittersweet story about a young couple devoted to each other since they were young teens. They endure repeated breakups and reconciliations, driven by familial and societal pressures. The novel’s cover featured the couple embracing passionately.　

“Soon the whole class and the students’ families knew about it. When I went home, my grandmother sternly asked me if I had read any books like that. She didn’t know what the book was about, but the cover was enough to offend her,” Zoey said.　

“In the eyes of adults back then, reading such books as a teenager was indecent, even shameful. The funny thing is, just a few years later, around 1989, my grandmother became obsessed with Many Enchanting Nights, a TV adaptation of Chiung Yao’s work that even includes a storyline about premarital pregnancy,” she added.　

“Chiung Yao’s novels are page-turners, beautifully written with lyrical language and rich allusions to classical Chinese poetry. Her engaging plots, full of twists and turns, were incredibly alluring to young girls experiencing their first awakening of love,” Zoey said.　

In the mid-1990s, the Chinese mainland witnessed a second wave of Chiung Yao mania. This time, it was fueled by cinematic and television adaptations rather than her novels. Millennials in China grew up with these adaptations as a formative part of their pop culture experiences.　

In 1998, the period drama My Fair Princess, adapted from Chiung Yao’s novel of the same name, was a hit across China and Asia. Set during the reign of Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong, who ruled from 1735 to 1796, the series follows a street-smart orphan who, after befriending the emperor’s illegitimate daughter, inadvertently becomes a princess.　

The story, all about love among family members and young couples from completely different social backgrounds, deeply touched the heart of the audience. The first season, aired on Beijing Television, achieved an average audience rating of 47 percent, peaking at 62.8 percent. The second season, broadcast in 1999, boasted an average rating of 54 percent, with its highest reaching 65.95 percent.　

Wang Ya, a math teacher from Changsha in Central China’s Hunan Province, was born in 1990. Like most millennials, she never read Chiung’s novels but grew up watching the adapted TV series.　

“My whole family loved the first season of My Fair Princess. We were so excited for the second season. I vividly remember the night it premiered. I was 9 years old, and my family had just finished a wonderful dinner at a grill house. Around 7:30 pm, we all rushed home – along with other diners – because the show was starting at 8 pm. Watching My Fair Princess together was one of the happiest moments of my childhood,” Wang said.　

In addition to My Fair Princess, Wang was impressed by Romance in the Rain, a 2001 period drama adapted from Chiung Yao’s 1964 novel Fire and Rain. Set in 1930s Shanghai, the story centers on a strong-willed nightclub singer and the estranged daughter of a retired general with nine wives. Seeking revenge on the family that abandoned her and her mother, she eventually discovers the meaning of love and forgiveness through her relationship with a mild-mannered reporter.　

“I loved the sentimental and nostalgic atmosphere of the show. It was beautifully shot with stunning period sets, costumes and music. The songs were melodious and poetic. Although the main characters are ‘hopeless romantics’ by today’s standards, I think it’s still a great show. Even now, when I hear the theme songs, I’m instantly transported back to the turn of the millennium, a time when people still believed in love,” Wang said.

Slogans promoting celibacy have gained traction on social media, with popular refrains like “No marriage, no kids, you’ll be safe and sound,” “Wise men say, only fools rush in,” and “The wise never fall in love.”　

The numbers reflect this sentiment. In the first nine months of 2024, only 4.75 million couples registered to get married, a 16.6 percent drop compared to the same period in 2023, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Demographer He Yafu projected that the number of new registered marriages would fall to between 6 million and 6.59 million in 2024, the lowest number since 1980.　

A new term, lian’ai nao, has emerged to describe those deemed to be “fools for love,” people who prioritize romance above all else. Increasingly, this mindset is ridiculed by younger Chinese, who reject the love-above-all ethos celebrated throughout the 1980s and 90s. Even the name “Chiung Yao” has taken on a mocking connotation, used to describe something as “unrealistically dramatic,” “overly emotional” or “foolishly lovesick.”　

Chiung Yao’s works, once beloved for their lyrical style and poignant explorations of love, now face criticism for being outdated and promoting “wrong values.” Critics argue that her stories place love above social norms, family responsibilities and morality. Her personal life has also come under scrutiny, with critics pointing to her romantic relationships – including an affair with a married man – as evidence of her tendency to romanticize infidelity and extramarital affairs.

　

Despite this backlash, Chiung Yao’s voice remained steadfast. In her suicide note, she encouraged readers not to mourn her but to celebrate the beauty of life. “The beauty of life lies in the ability to love, hate, laugh, cry, sing, speak, move and live freely, passionately and meaningfully. I have experienced all these joys, and I have truly lived,” she wrote.　

Chiung Yao’s passing has sparked a wave of reflection. Cultural critic Xiao Hun lamented the fading era of romanticism that Chiung Yao represented.　

“When we firmly believe ‘only fools rush in,’ avoid any risk that love might bring, and strive for stable and uneventful lives, we are saying goodbye to the passionate, intense and ecstatic emotions that only love can generate,” he wrote in an article for Sanlian Life Weekly on December 4, 2024 that quickly made the rounds online.　

Xiao reflects on what he sees as a unique period in Chinese history when two generations embraced love, adventure and a go-as-you-please attitude. “It was almost a rare accident in history,” Xiao observed.　

“Two generations of Chinese people were hopeless optimists. Even though this period lasted only four decades – a blink of time in history – it was a grand miracle.”