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In a story set in mainland China before and after the 1949 Revolution, Adeline Yen Mah tells us about growing up doubly unwanted--as a step-child and as a youngest daughter whose mother died soon after giving birth. The early loss of her mother and the inattention of her father, combined with the abuse of a cruel step-mother makes for an interesting story. Despite Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter being non-fiction, comparisons to Amy Tan, a fiction author, seem inevitable to me. Mah's book is far more straightforward in both language and the telling, and in many ways, a lot more disturbing. Here, there are no difficult mothers secretly yearning to be emotionally nearer to their daughters and vice versa. Here, there are no neat endings. Rather, Falling Leaves is about torn relationships, and the bitter divisions between family members that stretch over the course of a lifetime. The Story The author does not immediately begin with her birth, but rather the funeral of her father, survived by his children and his second wife. Right away, we get the idea that Jeanne Yen, Adeline's stepmother, is not a person to be trifled with. She has the lawyer hand them the will, informs them that their father (a well-known and successful businessman) had died penniless, and that the will was therefore void, and instructs the lawyer to take back the wills, unread. It is clear that even after all these years, "Niang" or "Mother", as her children and step-children called her, still has quite a sway over them all. No one questions her. From there, Mah takes us back in time with a description of her ancestors, like her independent Grant Aunt who refused to have her feet bound and broke with tradition to become a successful banker and never married. Mah is very blunt about what roles were expected of women in those times, and the kinds of double standards existing then. Chinese wives, she tells us, were often little more than indentured servants in their husband's households. Mah's own grandmother was told on the eve of her arranged marriage (to a man she'd never met) that from tomorrow onward, she would be the property of her husband's family, to become "the willing p iss-pot and spittoon of the Yens" in order to please her own family. Luckily for her, Adeline's grandfather, or "Ye Ye", was a kind man, and they genuinely fell in love and had many children. Two feature most prominently in the book, the author's strong-minded Aunt Baba and her younger brother, the author's father. Ye Ye was a successful merchant and Aunt Baba worked at Grand Aunt's bank. It was not long before Adeline's father grew up and helped with the family business, marrying a young women who also worked at the bank and having a daughter, three sons, and then, Adeline Yen Mah, the author. For a while, life was enjoyable if not perfect, but everything changed when Adeline's mother dies of an infection after giving birth, and her father remarries a woman named Jeanne Prosperi, a beautiful woman of mixed French/Asian descent. From then on, Adeline's childhood became increasingly hellish. Her new "Niang" was demanding and pushy, stingy with money and displayed preferential treatment to her own children, particularly her son, Franklin. Adeline and her siblings became second-class citizens in their own home, and even their beloved Ye Ye could not help them, as he too, was at the financial mercy of his son and new daughter-in-law. It's an incredibly disturbing story, and Jeanne comes off as a very petty and cruel woman who has no qualms about manipulating her step-children and pitting them against one another for special favors. Adeline's adulthood is no easier than her childhood, and even though she eventually moves to America and finds happiness with a fulfilling job and marriage, the past still haunts her and her story. The Good Stuff Mah's book is very rich in detail, not just personal details like what she ate as a small child and what they did for entertainment, but also historical details. Adeline and her family were present when the Japanese invaded, and they were present at the Communists' victory in 1949. These political changes play a surprisingly small role in the this autobiography, mainly because there was a mini internal war between Niang and her children. That is really the biggest draw, and it's like craning your neck to catch a glimpse of an ugly car accident. There were many times when the bitterness (even after all these years) and implicit blame in Mah's tone leaps from the page. Not that I blame her...Niang sounds like a horrible woman, the very epitome of the Evil Stepmother. She blamed Adeline for just about everything, and often singled her out for special punishment. It's hard for me to identify with this, but the author brings it as close to home as she can. Each chapter is headed with a Chinese phrase which illustrates key scenes or ideas. For example, one chapter is entitled, dian tie cheng jin, or "converting iron into gold" and tells about how the family fortune was made and how Adeline's father became known as a man of success. Another is yi dao liang duan, or "let's sever this kinship with one whack of the knife", when Adeline quarrels with her older sister and challenges her to end the relationship. These are scattered throughout the book and add a wonderful flavor to it. Many are recognizable since there are similar sayings in English (like the Chinese version of "let sleeping dogs lie") and all are easy to understand within the context. Flaws At one point in the book, Adeline's Aunt Baba reflects upon her current plain lifestyle when contrasted to the old days. Although her surroundings are primitive by modern standards, she is content with "coarse tea and plain rice". And that makes sense. Aunt Baba reasons that she is lucky to have a place of her own, and that all the hardships she has suffered were nothing compared to living under Niang's harsh rule. The food and drink is plain, but it fills her stomach. And that is pretty much the way Mah's writing goes as well. Compared to Amy Tan, her prose is plain, indeed. There is very little of the lovely turn of phrase contained in novels like The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, nothing that makes me pause with my finger on the page and sigh a bit, knowing exactly what the author means or being able to conjure up the exact image she describes. Another thing that bothered me just a little was wondering how big of a grain of salt I should take with this book. It's not that I think the author is lying, exactly, it's just my habit to question. There are very few positive people in this book. Ye Ye is one, even though his influence is weak as he grows older, and Aunt Baba is another. Adeline is also a positive character, although it is clear that her weakness is her family. She never gives up on the hope that they'll reconcile, even when you, the reader, will probably be screaming at her to pull her head out of the sand and face reality. Some people are so poisonous, they're not worth losing sleep over. The end wasn't very uplifting, since I never got the feeling that Mah wholly triumphed over her neediness or Niang. There is some closure as Adeline reflects at Aunt Baba's deathbed. She has the the feeling that life has come full circle, luo ye gui gen, "falling leaves return to their roots". Maybe it's because life is rarely as tidy as fiction, but I don't feel the same kind of return to balance. Recommendations Those shortcomings aside, I was glad I'd read the book. Mah has a different perspective to offer than the fictional works of Amy Tan. Unlike Tan's daughter characters, Adeline was born and raised in China. She speaks the language, she knows its people. The view of life we get from her is arguably more traditional, and it is that way of life which takes precedence, not the conflict between eastern vs. western upbringings. I must warn you that it is incredibly depressing. I'm not short on family spats and ugly quarrels either, but Mah's family takes the cake. As disgusted and disappointed as I was about her oblivious father and disagreeable, spineless and scheming siblings, I was interested and managed to read it in one sitting. Mah doesn't really cover the role of women or daughters in general, and she doesn't discuss the mother/daughter relationship except for one heartbreaking aside: "My mother died two weeks after my birth, with five doctors at her bedside. She was only thirty years old and I have no idea what she looked like. I have never seen her photograph." Maybe this is what keeps me going, places where plain prose fits the situation best. Adeline Yen Mah focuses on her own personal story in unadorned speech, and that is what you get, for better or for worse.
Very nice story,.easy to read,..but very sad,..so get those tissues,..
Very nice story,.easy to read,..but very sad,..so get those tissues,..
posted by Jean @ 8:21 PM
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