Sanmao or Wanderings of Sanmao is a cartoon “manhua” character created by Zhang Leping in 1935. To this day, he remains as one of the most famous and beloved fictional characters in China. Many Chinese millennials and adults today can remember growing up reading the comic book and/or watching this iconic cartoon. The name Sanmao means “three hairs” in Chinese and in 2005, he celebrated his 70th birthday. Sanmao was a very poor orphan and has mostly been drawn with the trademark three strands of hair, which implies malnutrition as a result of poverty at the time during the 1930s.The comic takes place mainly during the 1930s and early 1940s and is set in Old Shanghai in its “golden era.” Sanmao, however, lived mostly in misery and stark poverty against a backdrop of war, colonization, and inflation.

Most Chinese cartoon comic books prior to Sanmao featured adults and the animated stories were also unusual in that they lacked dialogue. When Zhang Leping created Sanmao, the manhua comic series, his main goal was to dramatize the confusion brought about to society by the second Sino-Japanese War. He wanted to express his concern for the young victims of the war, particularly the orphans living on the streets. Most of the changes in the characters would come after World War II during the liberation in 1949.

The landmark cartoon character has undergone a number of transitions over time and Sanmao’s image has been evolving throughout the years. In some modern continuation of the comics, he is depicted as a healthy, “normal student”. In addition, the character has also been portrayed as living through some of the most important periods in Chinese history and even to futuristic space explorations.

https://youtu.be/tV2IzDbW8VA