Chinese Cinderella 1-55

In the book Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, a young girl known as Wu Mei which means fifth younger sister in Chinese faces many difficulties in her life so far. The problem roots from one place, which is her mother’s death. A couple of days after Wu Mei was born her mom developed a high fever and after a few weeks she died. Now most of the people in her family blame her for what happened.

After Wu Mei’s mother dies her father marries another woman and has two kids. They live in a large home accompanied by all her siblings from her mom’s side and also her stepmothers. Also living with them is the grandmother and grandfather and most importantly Aunt Baba. Aunt Baba is Wu Mei’s father’s older sister and is the only one that Wu Mei can trust in the whole house. Her Aunt is just like a mother to her and she loves her very dearly. All of her siblings tease and bully her nonstop. There was a part in the book where she received a medal from the teacher because she was doing so well in class. It was a very happy moment for her and even her father noticed which meant everything in the world to her. Her brothers and sisters ruined all of that for her by scolding her and putting her down even at such a happy moment in her life.

When Wu Mei’s grandmother died, it became very obvious that things in the household changed. The change that was demonstrated in the book was that the grandfather was not the head anymore, but was instead replaced by his son Wu Mei’s father and his wife, Niang. Niang was the evil stepmother like in all the Cinderella stories. She hated all the children that weren’t hers and she definitely proved it. When it was New Year’s she got all of them clothing that were out of date and very unfashionable while her children wore the newest western styles. When they decided to write an anonymous letter to their father, they found out that she was eavesdropping and threw away all the evidence. As a result Niang separated the oldest sister from the rest of the children by befriending her and turned her against her own siblings causing all the children to be hopeless.

“When I wrote, I forgot that I was an unwanted daughter who caused her mother’s death. Instead, I could be anybody I wished to be” (Mah 53).

Wu Mei had a very difficult life that she had to deal with every single day. The only time she was able to escape from that was through her writing. She talked about how she could become anything that she wanted to be in her writing, whether it was a hero or a female warrior that would rescue her loved ones from all harm. She didn’t have to be that little girl whose brothers and sisters bullied and felt unwanted.