Chinese+Cinderella




 * __ Olivia __**

Setting and Big Question 1
==== Big Questions- ==== ==== 1. In the book //Chineese Cinderella// by Adeline Yen Mah, I learned a lot about the Chineese culture. The Chinese culture revolves around respect and honor. Kids are trained to be very respectful of each other and their elders. There are major consequenses when a child disobeys someone with higher power such as an adult or elder family member. Unfortunately for Adeline, the unwanted step-daughter, no amount of respect will make her family love her. The Chineese culture also cares a lot about honor. Adeline was only honored when she gained good grades and was respectful to others. She was only useful if she “brought honor to the family.” Her family only cared about what others thought of them. ====

 Setting-
====The setting in our book first took place in Tianjin in the 1940’s. Tianjin is located in the French-English corner of China. Adeline lived in a big home with lots of siblings, step-mother, a father, a grandfather, aunt, and chauffer. Adeline was never the favorite of the family. Ever since she was born, people had hated her and called her bad luck. This is because her mother died while giving birth to her. For many years she had been abused physically and mentally by her step mother Niang, her father and her siblings. Her grandfather and aunt were the only people in the family that supported her. The family hated Adeline for really no purpose at all. ==== ====At a young age Adeline, the unwanted daughter, is relocated from her home to a boaring school in Shaing Hai where she is not safe. Meanwhile, her family had moved to Hong Kong. Her step-mother wanted was to get rid of her.. Knowing the Communists were taking over the area in Shang Hai where the school was located, and knowing the communists were going to attack, her step-mother hoped Adeline would never come back. The boarding school had become deserted. The parents of the rest of the students had cared enough to save their child. Luckily for Adeline, her Aunt had saved her from the and took her along to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong she had reunited with her family. Shortly after arriving, Niang, her evil stepmother had made her move to yet another boarding school called St. Josephs. Here, she had been the outsider. She had been the smartest one in her class with no possessions, clothes, or support from her parents. In the summer, when all of the other school girls had left, her parents left her there until her grandfather died. She had been chauffered back to her home for a few days to attend the funeral but shortly after sent back to the deserted boarding school. The settings in the book Chinese Cinderella was not very consistant, but it did show how much her family wanted to get rid of her. This poor girl, no matter what she did, lived with the knowledge that she was unloved and mistreated by her family. The family used their political knowlage to put her in harms way. ====

__**CHANGED SETTING- OLIVIA GARBER **__

[[image:china_country_map.jpg width="382" height="319" link="@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOAgSSu0crk"]]
The setting takes place in Tianjin. It is in the 1940’s. When she was young she used to live with her family in a big house. They shipped her off to Shanghai to a boarding school. The communists were coming and the school was getting deserted because people felt like they needed to leave. Adeline’s Aunt saved her and brought her back to Hong Kong where her family moved. For a few days she reunited with her family in Hong Kong. They sent her to another boarding school called St. Josephs. They kept her there for the rest of the book until she went to college in England forced to be a doctor. Throughout the book the setting was in many places because the parents had kept trying to get rid of her forever.

**Joslyn:**
==== The main character was Adeline Yen. Adeline did not have a "normal" childhood. Most of the time she tried to stay invisible and unnoticed because she feared Niang (stepmother), her father, and her own siblings. Her usual day was to get physically abused by her stepmother and to get verbally abused by her father. They thought that she would become nothing in life but Adeline was determined to prove them wrong. The only way for them to be proud of her was to **__ALWAYS__** be head of her class but her siblings despised her for that. Adeline was smart but was also **__OBSESSED__** with studying. Adeline had no power; all she could do was wait and see what the next dreadful day held for her. The main conflict in this book is that Adeline is always trying to do her best but her best will never satisfy her father. ====

= My favorite quote was: [|Favorite Quote] =

=**Adeline Yen Mah**=

=[|Interview]=



The difference between our version of Cinderella is that there is not always a happy ending. Also, I felt as if __Chinese Cinderella__ was more realistic and more graphic. This was like a biography, so the author held nothing back. It gave me an inside look of her life which opened my eyes to whole new world.





= **//__Maya__//** =

My favorite part and quote was the end of the book: Aunt Baba's letter to Adeline. I like this because it shows that there might be a better ending, and that Aunt Baba has her back and is supporting her all the way through. I think this is important because Adeline hasn't had anybody by her side her whole life.I think that made her much stronger, and a bit more fragile (pg. 194-195).



=**__Eleanor__**=

I think that my favorite part of the book was when Adeline returned to St. Josephs. This was a interesting connection between the beginning and kind of end at the book.

//**__Basic Story line........__**//
==== //**__Adeline Yen Mah was born in Tianjin, China. Her mother died two weeks after her birth and Adeline was considered to be a source of bad luck by her family. Her father remarried a beautiful Eurasian woman one year later. She was half French and half Chinese and divided the Yen family into two different classes. Adeline’s father, stepmother and their two children were the upper class, whereas Adeline and the four other step-children by the first wife were con__**////**__sidered second class. Her family ended up in Hong Kong because they were "running away" from the communist.__**// ====



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