Anthology Part 1 - Chinese Cinderella

Autobiographical voice and power

From Chinese Cinderella

By Adeline Yen Mah

Growing up in a wealthy family in 1950s Hong Kong, Mah should have had an enviable childhood, but she was rejected by her dominating stepmother and despised by her brothers and sisters. She was sent to a boarding school and left there. In this extract from her autobiography she relates one of the few occasions when she went home.

[1] Time went by relentlessly and it was Saturday again. Eight weeks more and it would be
[2] the end of term … in my case perhaps the end of school forever.

[3] Four of us were playing Monopoly. My heart was not in it and I was losing steadily.
[4] Outside it was hot and there was a warm wind blowing. The radio warned of a possible
[5] typhoon the next day. It was my turn and I threw the dice. As I played, the thought of
[6] leaving school throbbed at the back of my mind like a persistent toothache.

[7] ‘Adeline!’ Ma-mien Valentino was calling.

[8] ‘You can’t go now,’ Mary protested. ‘For once I’m winning. One, two, three, four. Good!
[9] You’ve landed on my property. Thirty-five dollars, please. Oh, good afternoon, Mother
[10] Valentino!’

[11] We all stood up and greeted her.

[12] ‘Adeline, didn’t you hear me call you? Hurry up downstairs! Your chauffeur is waiting to
[13] take you home!’

[14] Full of foreboding, I ran downstairs as in a nightmare, wondering who had died this time.
[15] Father’s chauffeur assured me everyone was healthy.

[16] ‘Then why are you taking me home?’ I asked.

[17] ‘How should I know?’ he answered defensively, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Your guess is
[18] as good as mine. They give the orders and I carry them out.’

[19] During the short drive home, my heart was full of dread and I wondered what I had done
[20] wrong. Our car stopped at an elegant villa at mid-level, halfway up the hill between the
[21] peak and the harbour.

[22] ‘Where are we?’ I asked foolishly.

[23] ‘Don’t you know anything?’ the chauffeur replied rudely. ‘This is your new home. Your
[24] parents moved here a few months ago.’

[25] ‘I had forgotten,’ I said as I got out.

[26] Ah Gum opened the door. Inside, it was quiet and cool.

[27] ‘Where is everyone?’

[28] ‘Your mother is out playing bridge. Your two brothers and Little Sister are sunbathing by
[29] the swimming-pool. Your father is in his room and wants to see you as soon as you get
[30] home.’

[31] ‘See me in his room?’ I was overwhelmed by the thought that I had been summoned by
[32] Father to enter the Holy of Holies — a place to which I had never been invited. Why? …

[33] Timidly, I knocked on the door. Father was alone, looking relaxed in his slippers and
[34] bathrobe, reading a newspaper. He smiled as I entered and I saw he was in a happy
[35] mood. I breathed a small sigh of relief at first but became uneasy again when I wondered
[36] why he was being so nice, thinking, Is this a giant ruse on his part to trick me? Dare I
[37] let my guard down?
[38] ‘Sit down! Sit down!’ He pointed to a chair. ‘Don’t look so scared. Here, take a look at
[39] this! They’re writing about someone we both know, I think.’

[40] He handed me the day’s newspaper and there, in one corner, I saw my name ADELINE
[41] YEN in capital letters prominently displayed.

[42] ‘It was announced today that 14-year-old Hong Kong schoolgirl ADELINE JUN-LING YEN
[43] of Sacred Heart Canossian School, Caine Road, Hong Kong, has won first prize in the
[44] International Play-writing Competition held in London, England, for the 1951—1952
[45] school year. It is the first time that any local Chinese student from Hong Kong has won
[46] such a prestigious event. Besides a medal, the prize comes with a cash reward of FIFTY
[47] ENGLISH POUNDS. Our sincere congratulations, ADELINE YEN, for bringing honour to
[48] Hong Kong. We are proud of you’.

[49] Is it possible? Am I dreaming? Me, the winner?

[50] ‘I was going up the lift this morning with my friend C.Y. Tung when he showed me this
[51] article and asked me, “Is the winner Adeline Jun-ling Yen related to you? The two of you
[52] have the same uncommon last name.” Now C.Y. himself has a few children about your
[53] age but so far none of them has won an international literary prize, as far as I know. So
[54] I was quite pleased to tell him you are my daughter. Well done!’

[55] He looked radiant. For once, he was proud of me. In front of his revered colleague,
[56] C.Y. Tung, a prominent fellow businessman also from Shanghai, I had given him face. I
[57] thought, Is this the big moment I have been waiting for? My whole being vibrated with
[58] all the joy in the world. I only had to stretch out my hand to reach the stars.

[59] ‘Tell me, how did you do it?’ he continued. ‘How come you won?’

[60] ‘Well, the rules and regulations were so very complicated. One really has to be dedicated
[61] just to understand what they want. Perhaps I was the only one determined enough to
[62] enter and there were no other competitors!’

[63] He laughed approvingly. ‘I doubt it very much but that’s a good answer.’

[64] ‘Please, Father,’ I asked boldly, thinking it was now or never. ‘May I go to university in
[65] England too, just like my brothers?’

[66] ‘I do believe you have potential. Tell me, what would you study?’

[67] My heart gave a giant lurch as it dawned on me that he was agreeing to let me go. How
[68] marvellous it was simply to be alive! Study? I thought. Going to England is like entering
[69] heaven. Does it matter what you do after you get to heaven?

[70] But Father was expecting an answer. What about creative writing? After all, I had just
[71] won first prize in an international writing competition!

[72] ‘I plan to study literature. I’ll be a writer.’

[73] ‘Writer!’ he scoffed. ‘You are going to starve! What language are you going to write in
[74] and who is going to read your writing? Though you may think you’re an expert in both
[75] Chinese and English, your Chinese is actually rather elementary. As for your English,
[76] don’t you think the native English speakers can write better than you?’

[77] I waited in silence. I did not wish to contradict him.

[78] ‘You will go to England with Third Brother this summer and you will go to medical school.
[79] After you graduate, you will specialise in obstetrics. Women will always be having
[80] babies. Women patients prefer women doctors. You will learn to deliver their babies.
[81] That’s a foolproof profession for you. Don’t you agree?’
[82] Agree? Of course I agreed. Apparently, he had it all planned out. As long as he let me go
[83] to university in England, I would study anything he wished. How did that line go in
[84] Wordsworth’s poem? Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.

[85] ‘Father, I shall go to medical school in England and become a doctor. Thank you very,
[86] very much.’

Notes

Foreboding: a feeling that something bad will happen.
Ruse: a trick intended to deceive.
Holy of Holies: the most sacred inner sanctuary.
Give someone face: bring them public honour or status.
Obstetrics: the branch of medicine concerned with pregnancy and childbirth.

Reading the text

The extract is autobiography: the adult
Adeline Yen Mah shapes a remembered event from her childhood into a narrative. She was
fourteen when the newspaper announced her play-writing prize, but the account was written
later. It is therefore more precise to say that Mah reconstructs a child's perspective than
to call the extract a diary or an unfiltered record made at fourteen.

That form creates two kinds of closeness at once. The scene stays near the child's limited
knowledge, so readers discover the reason for the summons only when she does. At the same
time, the adult writer selects the opening anxiety, the unfamiliar home, the prize and the
final negotiation so that one encounter exposes a longer pattern of family power.

Only a small amount of context changes this reading:

The central perspective is not merely that education matters. Mah presents achievement as
a route towards recognition and escape, while showing that approval from a powerful parent
can remain conditional. Adeline's writing changes what becomes possible, but it does not yet
give her equal power to decide what she will become.

This distinction also keeps the language of the scene accurate. Mah is the adult writer;
Adeline is the remembered younger self within the event; the narrator is the
first-person voice through which that remembered self is presented. Those terms may overlap,
but they are not automatically interchangeable in every analytical sentence.

From fear to a conditional future

A plot summary tells us what happens. A structural map asks why each stage appears where it
does and how the next stage changes our understanding of the one before it.

The newspaper reveal is a major turn, but it is not the final destination. If analysis stops at
the prize, the extract becomes a simple success story. Mah places another turn after it:
Adeline converts the moment of praise into a request, and her father converts permission into
a command. The ending therefore asks us to hold relief and unease together.

Notice how the remembered perspective shifts more than once:

1. threat expected: attention from home means something may be wrong;
2. kindness doubted: a smile is not yet safe enough to trust;
3. recognition embraced: the public prize seems to fulfil a long desire for approval;
4. opportunity negotiated: Adeline acts boldly, then accepts the route her father allows.

The fourth stage does not cancel the third. Her joy is real, and so is the remaining control.
An interpretation becomes more convincing when it explains that coexistence rather than
choosing one emotion and ignoring the other.

Evidence, language and suspense

The official examination provides the anthology text. Use the table as a navigation index,
then relocate each phrase in the supplied text and reread its surroundings. The aim is to know
what evidence can do, not to recite it from memory.

How suspense grows from perspective

The opening does more than announce anxiety. Time moves towards the end of term while
Adeline's attention remains fixed on what she may lose. The hot weather and possible typhoon
can be read as foreboding, but there is no need to insist that weather has one fixed symbolic
meaning. Its strongest work is contextual: an external warning accompanies an internal sense
that upheaval may be coming.

The toothache simile makes the worry bodily and persistent. When the summons comes, Mah does
not immediately explain it. Questions to the chauffeur produce no answer; the new house adds
another puzzle; the father waits in a room Adeline has never entered. Because the narrative
stays close to what the child knows, each delay makes readers share her uncertainty rather
than observe it from a secure distance.