In the past there were no psychiatric hospitals and mad people were often locked up by their family often only give them food. In Taiwan there is a folk story the Mad woman's 18 Years that some popular films were produced about it.
Mad woman (瘋女十八年) (1957) Xiao Yan-Qiu (小艷秋) acts a poor woman marries a rich man and become mad. Her son raised up by the succeed wife and recognize her after 18 years. This film was unlike the other products, not in Mandarin, but in Taiwanese Hokkien.
The Mad Woman's 18 Years (瘋女十八年) (1979) Ouyang Ling-long (歐陽玲瓏) acts a poor woman marries a rich man and pretend to be mad. Her son raised up by the bad succeed wife who made her pretend to be mad and recognize her after 18 years. This film was produced by the same company of the Mad woman.
My beloved/Mother Love Me Once Again(媽媽再愛我一次/世上只有妈妈好) (1988) Li Xiaofei(李小飛) acts a young psychiatrian meet his lost mad birth mother in the hospital. This film is produced in Taiwan and became popular in Mainland China.
Yun Niang (芸娘) (2008) is a Chiung Yao style 32 episodes Television series produced in Mainland China. An Yixuan acts a daughter whose poor mother is locked by the other wife of a rich man as mad. The bad woman adopts a son. The daughter not known her real life, become the wife of the son. Lastly everyone find the truth and recognize the mother. The bad woman kills the mother and becomes ill and mad. She was locked up.
Famous quotes containing the words mad, woman and/or years:
““With your air indifferent and imperious
At a stroke our mad poetics to confute—”
And—”Are we then so serious?””
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)