Chinese Cinderella 

Annie Lee

Ms. Clarke

English 9 C Block

13 November 2015

 

Writing #2:Analytical

 

                    Chinese Cinderella is a nonfiction autobiography written by Adeline Yen Mah. She has described her young childhood growing up in Tianjin, Shanghai and Hong Kong, China in a family where she is not exactly “wanted”. She is bold and smart girl, but all her talents are ignored by the family. She has lost her confidence making the mood of the story her quite depressing, which is showned in her dialogues between her family and her descriptions of herself in the family, the “unwanted daughter”. Her life is dynamic and many events happen so quickly making the pace quick, but yet conveys the message.   

 

                    “She strode back toward the car, with the chauffeur trailing behind. He respectfully opened the car door for her, started the engine and pulled away. All this time, Father and Uncle Pierre had remained in the car, talking to each other in hushed, earnest voices. Neither of them bothered to lookup or wave goodbye. I watched the taillights of Father’s car disappear and an awful loneliness sank in. They had tossed me aside like a piece of garbage” (Mah 127).

 

                      This passage described the situation and the feelings that Wu Mei felt when she was placed in Tianjin boarding school. The words shows the ignorance of the family who is not even bothering to say goodbye to her when it could be their last time seeing each other in a long time. The scene itself is well described and we can easily imagine the empty scene.

 

                      Even though she faces a lot of these depressing moments, this time she used a simile to describe herself. She said she was tossed aside “like a piece of garbage”, which is an extreme comparison (Mah 127). It shows that she felt like she was removed from the family by being placed in a boarding school far from home. Making her feel the great emptiness.  

 

                      She has been living a very lonely life, being the “Cinderella” or the “unwanted daughter” and in this passage she has felt an awful loneliness again. The title of the novel symbolizes her and both of them share many characteristics. Mainly living in a harsh environment, making her develop into a timid girl because she is “the same despised daughter publicly rejected by my parents yesterday…”, but also “honored by (the) teacher and classmates” (Mah 119). All these situations and events has caused her a confusion, which affected her tone and character. The tone being full of uncertainty regarding her confusion since she doesn’t exactly know what kind of person she is and made her to even compare herself to garbage.

 

                     This passage is significant because it conveys herself easily into one short paragraph, yet strong and the message is delivered of her life. The conflicts she has with herself and the conflicts between her and Niang has been developed into these series of events causing this sorrowful life.