From Taiwan to Laayoune. San Mao:
Chinese: 三毛之旅, 拉约内, 摩洛哥
Taiwanese: 三毛之旅, 拉約內, 摩洛哥
This is my story in the desert. She lived for years in the desert, and her photos in the Church of Laayoune still bear witness to that. She and her Spanish husband José settled in the desert in 1974, residing in the Catalonia neighborhood in the city of Laayoune, where her house is still visited, to this day, by Chinese and Taiwanese people influenced by her writings, along with her husband, who worked for the Fosbucra company and was eight years her junior.
- English: San Mao’s Residence, Laayoune, Morocco
- Chinese: 三毛居所, 拉约内, 摩洛哥
- Taiwanese: 三毛居所, 拉約內, 摩洛哥
They lived a wonderful love story that ended tragically when he drowned off the coast of La Palma Island in the Canary Islands on September 30, 1979. The Taiwanese writer, traveler, and poet, whose status in Taiwan and China is legendary, according to the English translation of her book “Stories of the Desert,” San Mao recounted her experience in Western Sahara in this book, shedding light on dark aspects of the lives of the Sahrawis at that time, including the reality of “slavery” during that period.
This led her into conflict with the Spanish authorities, who controlled the Sahara during that era. During her stay in the desert, San Mao was invited to dinner at the home of one of the wealthy Sahrawi landowners. At one point, a child no more than eight or nine years old appeared and politely greeted the guests, then proceeded to sprinkle perfume on each of their heads, continuing until San Mao’s head was completely wet.
- English: San Mao Memorial, Laayoune, Morocco
- Chinese: 三毛纪念馆, 拉约内, 摩洛哥
- Taiwanese: 三毛紀念館, 拉約內, 摩洛哥
This was an important desert ritual, as San Mao describes in her book, explaining that the child, whom San Mao would later learn was a slave, placed camel meat on a grill to be roasted, while simultaneously preparing tea; he added mint leaves to the hot water and, alongside, solid pieces of sugar, served tea to the guests, which San Mao described as “strong and delicious.” After her continuous inquiries about the child performing many tasks and her loss of patience, her husband José whispered in her ear and informed her that he was a slave, one of more than 200 others owned by the wealthy host.
- English: San Mao’s Legacy, Laayoune, Morocco
- Chinese: 三毛遗产, 拉约内, 摩洛哥
- Taiwanese: 三毛遺產, 拉約內, 摩洛哥
San Mao, born in March 1943, wrote in “Stories of the Desert” that the slaves in Western Sahara at that time were Africans living in the desert, who were captured and deprived of their consciousness, tied up for a month so they would not escape, with the likelihood of their escape being slim if an entire family was captured. But “the child that San Mao saw with the wealthy Sahrawi, ‘was not treated badly, and other slave children could go to their families’ tents when night fell,'” the book recounts. Response to Spanish Authorities During that period, San Mao met with a Spanish official and asked him, “I wonder how the Spanish government allows slavery in its colonies,” to which he replied, after a deep sigh, “We do not have time to make villains peaceful; we dare not do that.” The words of the Spanish official led the Taiwanese traveler to consider that the Spanish authorities in the region were not only ignoring the mentioned practice but were also participating in it by employing slaves in road construction, and paying their owners for this service, which San Mao described as “ridiculous.” “What is your role in this?” the official replied after she mentioned the “ridiculous” description, but he justified the authorities’ inability to act against slavery, as the slave owners were tribal leaders, asking her, “What can we do?” San Mao wrote in “Stories of the Desert” that she and her husband used to provide things every day to their Sahrawi neighbors, but a slave family, who, as she described, did not even own their bodies, was the only one that returned some of those things to them. San Mao had given money to the deaf slave she met at the wealthy Sahrawi’s house, only for his deaf father to later return and try to return the money to her.
San Mao’s life also depended on adapting to this social situation and to the harsh desert climate. The temperature in the area, according to the author, reached 55 degrees, which San Mao considered “sufficient to drive one to madness.” This is what this Taiwanese woman faced by lying on a mat, waiting for the evening breeze to arrive with it so that she could sit outside the house for a while, which was the only pleasure that San Mao hoped for.
On one occasion, San Mao saw the deaf slave exhausted from the scorching sun, prompting her to rescue him and bring him into her house. He entered the tense because he had never been treated as a human being before, writes the Taiwanese author. After bringing him into her house, she placed on his table orange juice she had taken from the fridge, bread, hard cheese, and a boiled egg, then closed the door and left him alone, so as not to embarrass him and make him unable to eat in front of her. After a while, San Mao returned to remind the deaf slave that he had to return to work, fearing that his owners would scold him, only to find that he had only eaten the bread and taken just one sip of the juice, as the book recounts. From his signals, San Mao understood that he wanted to leave food for his wife and three children—two boys and a girl. So, San Mao collected the food and put it in a bag, placing it next to him.
He also added half a watermelon and two bottles of Coca-Cola. She also opened a box of “Tavvez” candy, her husband José’s favorite, and took a handful and put it in the bag as well. San Mao, who passed away at the age of 48 after committing suicide by hanging herself upon being informed that she was suffering from cancer, in a Taiwanese hospital in 1991, concluded her story about the slaves in the Western Sahara by talking about what she gave to them, saying, “We didn’t have a lot of food, and the giving was little.”
