Rao Pingru began painting after his wife died to preserve their memories. Photo provided to Shanghai Star

Wu Xiubo: A different kind of actor

My beloved enemy

Like millions of young people, Rao was sent to a remote area for "re-education". The couple kept in touch mainly through correspondence, except for the short annual home leave Rao was permitted.

They sent close to 1,000 letters to each other over those difficult years, half of which, those sent from Meitang to Rao, have been preserved and are now pasted in an album.

"I had this wooden case with me, for keeping letters from Meitang. It was nothing sentimental, just trivia like how she managed to make a better dinner with little money," Rao says.

To increase the family income and help raise their five children, Meitang put in some hard labor. The daughter of a wealthy businessman in Jiangxi was carting 10-kilogram bags of cement at the Shanghai Natural History Museum.

Rao says every time he walks past the museum, he pauses.

"I don't know which part of the pavement was made from the cement she carried, but I know she carried it for our children, for our family, and suffered from a lifetime of hip pain probably because of this."

In 1979, Rao returned to Shanghai and became an editor at a publishing house.

In 1992, Meitang was diagnosed with diabetes, and later Parkinson's Disesase and Rao quit his job to devote his time to looking after her.

According to Rao's granddaughter, he would ride his bicycle and search for hours for a particular rice cake she wanted. By the time he returned, however, she would have forgotten about it.

"I would feel guilty if I didn't," as he put it.

On March 19, 2008, five months before their 60th wedding anniversary, Rao lost his wife.

Rao made it to her bedside and felt her hand slowly grow cold as he held it. When he "felt she was really, frozen cold", Rao cut a lock of her hair to keep, tying it with a piece of red string.

Rao is now living with his eldest son and a yellow cat in Shanghai. His albums of paintings were published in a book in April last year. The book has sold for over 140,000 copies by far.