Adeline Yen Mah
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In her autobiography Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah talks about the emotional and physical abuse she suffered in her childhood from her parents. They did such things as starve their children, slap them, send them off at the age of 14 to leave and get a job, and did not protect their children during the war. Needless to say, her parents were only half of her parents. Her mother, the ringleader of it all, was actually a step mother. When her father and step mother had new children from the second marriage, they loved, cherished and pampered those children while leaving all the other children out. Eventually, her parents one by one let an older child come into the "new and better" family, but Yen Mah was never included in this. They left her out because out of all the children they disliked, they disliked her the most. She was the youngest of the first family, and they hated her and abused her the most. This was due to the fact her mother died from a fever a few days after giving birth to her. She only had 3 relatives who really cared about her, and that was her Ye Ye (Grandfather), Nai Nai (Grandmother), and her Aunt Baba. Adeline Yen Mah wrote the book Chinese Cinderella because it represents her life from she was born till when she turned 14. So, this book is basically her biography in about 200 pages.
NormsAdeline Yen Mah talks about the emotional and physical abuse she suffered in her childhood from her parents. They did such things as starve their children, slap them, send them off at the age of 14 to leave and get a job, and did not protect their children during the war. Needless to say, her parents were only half of her parents. Her mother, the ringleader of it all, was actually a step mother. When her father and step mother had new children from the second marriage, they loved, cherished and pampered those children while leaving all the other children out. Eventually, her parents one by one let an older child come into the "new and better" family, but Yen Mah was never included in this. They left her out because out of all the children they disliked, they disliked her the most. She was the youngest of the first family, and they hated her and abused her the most. This was due to the fact her mother died from a fever a few days after giving birth to her. She only had 3 relatives who really cared about her, and that was her Ye Ye (Grandfather), Nai Nai (Grandmother), and her Aunt Baba. Adeline Yen Mah wrote the book Chinese Cinderella because it represents her life from she was born till when she turned 14. So, this book is basically her biography in about 200 pages.
Symbols“You may be right in believing that if you study hard, one day you might become fluent in English. But you will still look Chinese, and when people meet you, they’ll see a Chinese girl no matter how well you speak English. You’ll always be expected to know Chinese, and if you don’t, I’m afraid they will not respect you as much.”
(Chinese Cinderella 151) Ye Ye expresses a level of insight that has been apparent within him for the entirety of the novel but never outwardly expressed until this instance. The quote expresses finality: regardless of all the effort or sweat that Adeline pours onto her goals, there are some inescapable truths that come with her birth. Perseverance is an admirable trait that Adeline exhibits throughout the novel, leading the reader to believe that anything can be overcome with faith and hard work. Ye Ye shows us that diligence doesn't destroy all barriers but rather that some must be first accepted to be overcome. So, speaking Chinese is a symbol of being Chinese if you look Chinese. If you are Chinese in America it is symbolic to speak Mandarin Chinese Also, it symbolizes your respect for your home country. |
LanguageAdeline Yen Mah was born in Tianjin, Republic of China on 30 November 1937, to Joseph Yen (Yen Tse-Rung), a businessman, and Ren Yong-ping, an accountant. She had an older sister called Lydia (Jun-pei) and three older brothers, Gregory (Zi-jie), James (Zi-lin) and Edgar (Zi-jun). She has stated in Falling Leaves that she did not use the real names of her siblings and their spouses to protect their identities but she did, however, use the real names of her father, stepmother, aunt and husband, while referring to her paternal grandparents only by the Chinese terms 'Ye Ye' and 'Nai Nai' .
Yen Mah also writes of her Ye Ye's younger sister, whom she calls either 'Grand Aunt' or 'Grand Uncle Gong Gong', and cites as founder and president of the Shanghai Women's Bank. Values![]() "The room was completely still. The only sound I heard was that of Ye Ye chomping on his apple. Surely he was going to say something to put Niang in her place!"
(Chinese Cinderella 39) The balance of power within the Yen household has shifted dramatically by this point of the novel. What was originally a house run by Father under the supervision of Nai Nai and Ye Ye has become the empire of Niang, with Ye Ye only preserved as a mouthpiece. The importance of this scene is that the shift of power strongly hampers the future of Adeline within the household, especially after the fiasco with Little Sister and Aunt Baba. Without Ye Ye's protective and sympathetic presence holding any sway, Adeline's life is surely going to go from bad to worse. This shows that the Chinese valued the person in charge of their family. |