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BOOK: Chinese Cinderella
Chinese Cinderella is a girl’s true story — her experiences in life that dared her to live through it, even if not in the best of circumstances a child could face. Adeline Yen Mah relates her own story up to the age of fourteen years in her book Chinese Cinderella. The death of her mother is regarded as her fault by her siblings. With no one to love her except for her Aunt Baba, she moves on ahead with her life quite alone. Though a remarkably talented student who scores ‘A’s in every exam, her family makes her feel like an unwelcome burden. There are times when her father forgets to pick her up from school, leaving her to walk home, though her other siblings have enough ‘tram fare’ to get home by themselves. Her stepmother cares only for her two children. Adeline is not allowed to attend parties or to host them at her house in Shanghai, because her stepmother thinks that Adeline will show their grand house off to her friends. Seeing that Adeline and her aunt have such a close relationship, the stepmother separates them by sending Adeline to a boarding school in Tianjen away from Shanghai, despite knowing the perilous political scenario there. Soon she is the only student left in school because all the parents remove their daughters from a place they might get captured from. Fortunately, another aunt of Adeline’s takes her away to Hong Kong where her parents had already fled. Her stepmother immediately puts her to another boarding school as a permanent boarder. Over there, she wins a play-writing competition making her to prove herself to her parents and the girls at school who used to make fun of her fading dress and ragged appearance.
While reading this marvellous novel, girls might be crying over every page because it is written in such a beautiful manner that one starts to pity Adeline and at the same time curse the discrimination taking place in every corner of the globe. This book is all about standing up for something you believe in, even if everyone around you makes you feel bad. It’s all about finding the Cinderella within.
Ayesha Nasir
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