Suzhou, Anhui
Ma was from a poor background, born in modern-day Suzhou, Anhui Province, in what was then the Yuan Empire. It is noted that she did not have bound feet, which most women above the working class had in contemporary China. All that is known of her parentage is that her mother, who died when she was young, was surnamed Zheng, and that her father had fled with her to Dingyuan (in modern-day Anhui Province) after he had killed someone.