Chinese Cinderella

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 1999

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Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-18

Chapters 19-22

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Background

Historical Context: China in the First Half of the 20th Century

Chinese Cinderella is set against the backdrop of seismic political shifts occurring in China. Over the course of the autobiography, Adeline witnesses various colonial powers vying for control over the country, as well as the resolution of the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949), which resulted in the communist takeover of China.

At the start of the 20th century, China was under imperial rule, as it had been since 221 BCE. The Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) was under extreme political strain after decades of conflict with foreign powers. In the mid-19th century, the First Opium War (1839-1842) with the British Empire ended in the defeat of China, forcing the Chinese imperial government to cede Hong Kong to the British and legalize the importation of British opium products into China. Opium’s rapid introduction to China proved socially and economically overwhelming and was followed by a series of internal rebellions. At the turn of the century, the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) further crippled the dynasty when a Japanese victory resulted in territory cessions and trade expansions with the West. A final internal rebellion, called the Wuchang Uprising, resulted in the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.

The nationalist republican government, led by Sun Yat-Sen, quickly delaminated in the face of more internal conflict and mounting foreign pressure. At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles boosted Japan’s status as a colonial power—it was the only non-Western nation included in the negotiating table’s original “Council of Ten”—by transferring all German territory in northern China to Japanese control. Japan’s hold on the country continued to strengthen until their defeat during World War II. There was much political instability in China in the 1920s, especially as the Chinese Communist Party rose to prominence with the help of the Soviet Union and further challenged the already fragile nationalist government.

Civil war soon broke out between the Communists and the Nationalists (1927-1949). When Adeline Yen Mah was born, the Chinese Civil War had been ongoing for 10 years already and would continue until she was 12 years old. This conflict therefore sits at the heart of Chinese Cinderella; in a 1997 documentary, Yen Mah states, “To people my age, history is not some piecemeal, hearsay event […] it is a palpable, living, tumultuous series of happenings which I personally experienced” (Family Ties: The Story of Adeline Yen Mah. Produced by Eleanor Morris, BBC, 1997). The long-term effects of the Chinese Civil War are palpable on every page of the memoir, as young Adeline witnesses the communist People’s Liberation Army slowly overtake mainland China. Hong Kong, which remained a British colony, becomes the site of a mass exodus from the mainland for families like the Yens who sought to flee the communists. Thus, by 1950, China was an enormously different place than it had been only half a century prior.

Cultural Context: The Chinese Religious Landscape

For thousands of years, China has been home to a diverse range of religious communities and traditions. Both indigenous religions—such as Confucianism and Taoism—and imported ones—such as Buddhism and Christianity—coexist in Chinese society, oftentimes within the same households. This is the case in Chinese Cinderella, in which various religious influences play an important role in Adeline’s upbringing.

Adeline’s grandparents, Ye Ye and Nai Nai, are devout Buddhists, representing the more traditional aspects of Chinese religiosity. Buddhism was brought to China from India during the Han Dynasty (206 BE-220 CE), where it gradually blended with local religious practices, forming a theological tradition distinct from those of Buddhism in South and Centra Asia. In particular, the transformation of local gods into bodhisattvas, “being[s] who aspire to buddhahood,” shaped the unique character of Chinese Buddhism (Yü, Chün-Fang. Chinese Buddhism: A Thematic History. University of Hawai’i Press, 2020, p. 263). Adeline’s description of her late mother in a mountainous, garden-like afterlife is reminiscent of historical Buddhist portrayals of bodhisattvas dwelling in paradise. In general, Buddhism’s influence is most apparent in the memoir during passages that deal with death and funerary practices.

The influence of Confucianism is also apparent in several aspects of the text, most notably in the strict familial hierarchies enforced by Adeline’s father and Niang and in the family’s conviction in meritocracy. Confucianism predates the arrival of Buddhism in China by roughly 700 years and can be categorized as a religion, philosophy, or political theory. As such, it blended over time with other spiritual practices in China, including Buddhism. Filial piety is one of Confucianism’s four core virtues, defined as a strict adherence to paying one’s parents, elders, and ancestors proper care and respect. This value set contextualizes the overwhelming sense of subservience with which other family members treat Father, but ironically, Niang’s dominance over the household runs directly counter to Confucian thought, which is notoriously patriarchal. Ye Ye’s powerless status in the family also conflicts with teachings of filial piety since elder family members are supposed to be treated with the utmost respect.

Although Christianity has been present in China since the early Middle Ages, its influence in the country escalated significantly in the wake of the First Opium War (1842). Protestant and Catholic missionaries dotted the country by the 1940s, developing thorough networks of hospitals and schools. Adeline specifies that her school is run by Franciscan nuns, pointing to the particular Catholic context of her primary and secondary education. Backed by the resources of the French government, Catholic missionaries’ religious undertakings in China were also inherently colonial. This political agenda is evident in the nuns’ promotion of European language and literature over their Chinese counterparts in Adeline’s education and is a significant aspect of why the Church faced persecution by the Chinese Communist Party. Animosity between the communist government and the Vatican continued to escalate, culminating in the severing of diplomatic relations, and today Catholic clergy in China practice largely underground.