When Chinese writer Rao Xueman was still a teenager more than 30 years ago, she wrote a 10,000-character letter to her idol, a popular singer from Taiwan named Qi Qin.
Rao was living in Zigong, Southwest China's Sichuan province, a city famous for dinosaur fossils, thousands of kilometers away from Taipei. In the mid-1980s, there was still no direct postal communications between the mainland and Taiwan.
Luckily, with the help of a lot of friends, acquaintances and strangers, the letter finally arrived in the hands of Qi's staff member for public relations, who then sent back a poster with the singer's signature on it.
Rao relates the story at the launch ceremony of her new book Dayue Zai Dongji (Possibly in Winter), a novel adaption of Qi's famous love song of the same name.
Qi wrote the song in 1987, when he was dating Hong Kong actress Joey Wong, for their long-distance relationship.
"For most, the song is a memory of the late 1980s and early 1990s, but Rao developed the novel according to her understanding of the changes happening in big cities like Beijing over the last three decades, including romantic relationships and star-chasing," says Qi, who appeared at the ceremony, adding that he likes the story because "it can happen to anyone".
The story centers around a recently widowed Chinese mother and her 19-year-old daughter, Xiaonian, who live in present day Los Angeles. Xiaonian, who has a bad relationship with her mother, is surprised to find her "cold-blooded" mother crying as she packs luggage while listening to the song Possibly in Winter. A curious Xiaonian starts to learn more about her mother and uncovers a touching love story.
At first, Rao was writing a screenplay for a movie based on the song. Later, though, she developed it into a novel. Before that, she has published about 60 popular novels, most of which feature romantic young couples and their heartbreaks. Some of them, like The Left Ear, have been adapted for the screen.
Rao says that she could not imagine that some day she would meet her idol in person. Rao met Qi because of the novel, so it is also a book that helped her "realize the dream".
