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:
“Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 21:22.
“When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness which joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)