Since childhood, she was said to have avoided writing the character "Mao" (懋) as it was too complex; later in life, she legally changed her name to Chen Ping.

[3] As a child, she developed an interest in literature and read a range of writers from all countries, including Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Bing Xin, Lao She, and Yu Dafu,[3] and works such as The Count of Monte Cristo, Don Quixote, and Gone with the Wind.

[3] After an incident when a teacher drew black circles around her eyes and humiliated her in class, Sanmao dropped out.

[5] Sanmao studied philosophy at the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, with the goal of "[finding] the solution to problems in life.

[3][2] In Madrid, she met Spanish marine engineer José María Quero y Ruíz, whom she would later marry.

[3] Sanmao returned to Madrid and began teaching English at a primary school,[3] rekindled her relationship with Ruíz,[6] and married him in 1973, in the then-Spanish-controlled Spanish Sahara.

Following the book's immense success in Taiwan, British Hong Kong, and China, her early writings were collected under the title Gone With the Rainy Season.

[6] In 1980 she returned to Taiwan, and in November 1981, she traveled to Central and South America on commission from Taiwanese publishers.

[9][10] In 2019, Sanmao was acknowledged in the New York Times Overlooked posthumous obituary feature for her book The Stories of the Sahara.

Her work is lauded for its endurance through generations, inspiring young Taiwanese and Chinese women yearning for independence from conservative cultural norms.