Chinese Cinderella: The Secret Story of an Unwanted Daughter is a book by the Chinese-American physician and author Adeline Yen Mah describing her experiences growing up in China during the Second World War. First published in 1999, Chinese Cinderella is a revised version of part of her 1997 autobiography, Falling Leaves. Her mother dies two weeks after giving birth to her and she is known to her family as bad luck. Her father, Joseph Yen, remarries a woman who treats Adeline and her siblings harshly while spoiling Adeline's half-brother and half-sister.
Plot
Adeline's cruel family considers her as bad luck since she caused her mother's death in child birth and they don't pay attention to her throughout her early childhood. This is the
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Denied love from her parents, she finds some solace in relationships with her grandfather and her Aunt Baba, but they are taken from her. Adeline immerses herself in striving for academic achievement in the hope of winning favor, but also for its own rewards as she finds great pleasure in words and scholarly success. She progresses in some things that her father and step-mother had never expected, for example at the first week of school she receives a medal for topping her class.
While at boarding school in Hong Kong, Adeline is taken away by her chauffeur. She is told that her grandfather has died. While at the funeral, Adeline openly weeps, while her stepmother and her father look on stony-faced. The rest of her siblings appear indifferent through the ceremony and don't show any heartache from the loss of this family member who loved them so much. Her love for her grandfather is resonated when she reads King Lear, finding it as inspiration to submit a work of writing for an international play-writing competition.
She wants to go to study at a university in England but is not sure her parents will want her to.She is worried about what will become of her after she finishes