In The Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, Adeline Yen Mah is an unwanted child. In the Chinese culture, you are considered bad luck if your mother dies while giving birth to you. Yen Mah’s mother died giving birth to her. She is considered bad luck, which ends up making her feel unwanted. Yen Mah is the youngest child, until her father remarries and has two more children. Her older brothers continuously pick on her, and the only people she feels she can trust are her grandparents and her Aunt Baba, who takes care of her.
The only time her father is proud of her, or even acknowledges her, is when she does good in school. Her father praises her when she brings home the class leader medal every week, and also when she gets good grades on her report card. This is the reason that Yen Mah works and studies so hard in school. She goes on to become the best writer in her class, and when an award in the local newspaper.
When Yen Mah was seven years old, they moved to Shanghai. She had to walk to and from school on her own, no matter what. Her father and stepmother would not give their children money for the bus fair because they were trying to teach them the value of a dollar. However, Yen Mah’s stepmother would give her children money. Her fathers children and her stepmothers children were treated completely different. On the Chinese New Year her father’s children had to wear the traditional clothing, while her stepmother’s children got to wear new fancy dresses, and suits.
Adeline Yen Mah really feels like she is an unwanted child, due to her mother’s death. Sometimes I can see why she feels this way, but other times I think that her father and her siblings really do love her.
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