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Xinyi Wu

Enid Tsui

Taiwanese romance novelist Chiung Yao has died at the age of 86.
She committed suicide in her home in Tamsui, New Taipei City, on December 4, Taiwanese media reported.
In a suicide note, the writer behind My Fair Princess, which was adapted for television in 1998 and made leading actresses Zhao Wei, Ruby Lin, and Fan Bingbing into major stars, reportedly wrote that she wanted to control when and how she died instead of suffering the weakness that comes with old age and “leaving it to fate”.
“I am the ‘spark’ and I have burned with all my strength. Now, before the flames are extinguished, I choose this way to go home gracefully.”

In a Facebook post a day before her birthday in April this year, Chiung Yao wrote that she was thinking of withdrawing from the social networking site due to the many physical ailments she experienced.
She went back online last week to dedicate two posts to her late husband, Taiwanese publisher and producer Ping Hsin-tao, who died of an illness in 2019. They were married for 40 years.

“It is better to go back,” she lamented in a lengthy post attached to a video montage of old photographs of them together. “How much I miss you, both your good and bad!”
The two were a power couple in literary circles, with Ping publishing many of Chiung Yao’s romances through his company Crown Publishing. The couple also worked together on adapting Chiung Yao’s novels into television series and films, often taking on the roles of producers or screenwriters themselves, as they did for My Fair Princess.
Ping suffered a stroke in 2016 and was diagnosed with vascular dementia. He had wanted to die with dignity, according to Chiung Yao, but his children insisted on intubating him, leading to a falling-out between them.

Chiung Yao, whose real name was Chen Che, was born in Chengdu, Sichuan province, southwest China in 1938. Her family moved to Taiwan after the Communist Revolution in 1949, which was where she grew up.
Her first novel, Outside the Window, was published in 1963, when she was 25, and adapted into a film in 1973 starring Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, just one of many famous film stars who owed their early careers to Chiung’s books.
Chiung Yao would end up writing 65 novels altogether, and “Chiung Yao-style romance” came to mean love affairs that are sentimental and laced with tragedy.
For a long time, scholars labelled her works “escapist, overly melodramatic, and tear-jerkers”, said Associate Professor Lin Peiyin, head of the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. But her writing has continued to resonate with audiences and the sociological significance of the circulation and consumption of her work has now been recognised, she added.
Because she talked about love, her books were universal
Lei Chin-pang, lecturer in literature and cultural studies
As one of the bestselling Chinese-language authors in the world, her influence on both popular literature and popular culture was “extremely important”, said Lei Chin-pang, lecturer in literature and cultural studies at the Education University of Hong Kong.
“Her penmanship was beautiful and glamorous. I certainly learned better Chinese reading her novels as a teenager growing up in Macau. But what made her so special was how her work straddled different media and generations,” he said.
In addition to Outside the Window, many of her other novels were turned into films and television series in the 1970s in Taiwan and were widely shown in Hong Kong and in other Chinese-speaking communities. “Because she talked about love, her books were universal,” said Lei.

For a writer, she was unusually involved in the adaptation of her work and even wrote lyrics for the theme songs, such as the 1975 “Fantasies Behind the Pearly Curtain”. The composer was the Taiwanese musician Liu Chia-chang, who also died this week.
“By the 1980s she was no longer in fashion. But then she came up with the historical romance My Fair Princess in the 1990s and it was filmed in mainland China, where it became a massive hit. So her career peaked again,” Lei said.
In mainland China, her tender love stories were considered a breath of fresh air, especially after her novels were first published there in 1985, Lin said.
“While Chiung Yao’s writing is hardly avant-garde, it was an important constituent of the ‘softer’ Hong Kong-Taiwan popular culture, which was warmly received at that time [on the mainland] as ‘modern’ and ‘fashionable’. But at the same time, perhaps a bit paradoxically, her writing was inspired by classical Chinese literature.”
Chinese social media platforms were swamped with an outpouring of tributes by fans and celebrities alike.

On Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, Taiwanese actor Alec Su, who starred in adaptations of My Fair Princess and Romance in the Rain, wrote: “You once said, ‘I am like a spark, burning with passion, and one day I will become a snowflake, quietly falling.’ Now you have gracefully returned, leaving behind an eternal treasure of the era.” His post received over 36,000 likes within two hours.
Chinese state media outlets, including Xinhua and People’s Daily, also reported on Chiung Yao’s death.
If you have suicidal thoughts, or you know someone who is, help is available. For Hong Kong, dial +852 18111 for the government-run “Mental Health Support Hotline” or +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans and +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For a list of other nations’ helplines, see this page.


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Chiung Yao, Taiwanese novelist, dies by suicide, writes ‘I burned with all my strength’

Taiwanese romance novelist Chiung Yao, who has died at the age of 86. Photo: Weibo/@会火

Fan Bingbing played Jinsuo in a television adaptation of Chiung’s My Fair Princess. Photo: Weibo/@怜疚

Chiung Yao with her husband Ping Hsin-tao. Photo: Facebook/@Chiung Yao

A younger Chiung Yao in an undated photograph. Photo; Handout

Brigitte Lin, who starred in a film adaptation of Chiung Yao’s first novel, accepts a lifetime achievement award at the 60th Golden Horse Awards in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2023. Photo: CNA

Alec Su, who played Prince Yongqi (above) in the TV adaptation of Chiung’s My Fair Princess, was among those to post tributes to the writer on Chinese social media on Wednesday. Photo: Weibo/@Alec_紫凝

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Miho Nakayama in Love Letter (1995). She has died aged 54.

Japanese actress Miho Nakayama appears in Tokyo in 2009 to promote Sayonara Itsuka, one of many films in which she appeared. Nakayama was found dead at home on December 6, 2024. Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty Images

Miho Nakayama in Taiwan. Photo: Instagram/@_miho_nakayama_

Miho Nakayama in Love Letter (1995). 

Miho Nakayama in a still from Love Letter. Photo: Handout

5 notable screen adaptations of Chiung Yao romance novels, including My Fair Princess

Ruby Lin and Zhao Wei in a still from My Fair Princess, a television adaptation of a popular romance novel of the same name by late Taiwanese writer Chiung Yao. 

Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia in a still from Outside the Window (1973).

A poster promoting a DVD of Fantasies Behind the Pearly Curtain, a film adaptation of a novel by Chiung Yao. 

Romance in the Rain starred Leo Ku, Zhao Wei and Ruby Lin.

A still from Cloud of Romance.

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Ju Ming with two of his works at an exhibition of his sculptures at Place Vendome in Paris, France on December 4, 1997. The Taiwanese sculptor has died aged 85. Photo: Getty

Ju’s “Single Whip” (1986) outside Exchange Square in Central, Hong Kong, in 2018. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Ju’s “Living World Series – Lining Up” (2002) outside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui. Photo: Felix Wong

Ju at the Juming Museum outside Taipei on the day before its inauguration, on September 18, 1999. Photo: Getty Images

Ju’s “Gate of Wisdom” (1986) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2014. Photo: May Tse

(From left) Ju’s “Single Whip” (1986) and “Tai Chi” (1991) outside Exchange Square in Central, Hong Kong, in 2018. Photo: Shutterstock

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Lifestyle

Arts & Culture

Culture

Books

Writer known for novels including My Fair Princess reportedly leaves suicide note saying ‘I choose this way to go home gracefully’


Writer known for novels including My Fair Princess reportedly leaves suicide note saying ‘I choose this way to go home gracefully’.


Books and literature

Taiwan

Obituaries

Obituary

Obituary | Chiung Yao, Taiwanese novelist, dies by suicide, writes ‘I burned with all my strength’

Writer known for novels including My Fair Princess reportedly leaves suicide note saying ‘I choose this way to go home gracefully’