Cover design by Roberto De Vico De Cumptich
Our lives, somehow, will eventually make a full circle. We may be married, have a career, and have our own children to raise. Our memories, however, will always bring us back to that one moment in our past; our childhood, that in someway added a footprint to the shaping of our character. Adeline Yen Mah’s Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter, is a wonderfully crafted book detailing recollections about her upbringing in a rigid family household in Communist China while allowing the reader to be enchanted by Chinese culture. In a simple yet mesmerizing narrative, Yen Mah gives us a detailed story about gender roles, and the importance of being tenderly nurtured as a child.
Reliving the Past
Yen Mah’s title derives from a Chinese aphorism that reads, “Falling leaves return to their roots.” She states in the prologue, “My roots were from a Shanghai family headed by my affluent father and his beautiful wife, set against a background of treaty ports carved into foreign concessions, and the collision of East and West played out within and without my very own home.”(3)¹ We are given an insightful flashback as she is sitting in an office with her estranged family awaiting the reading of her father’s last will and testament. While she gives us a sense that she is utterly uncomfortable, we begin to feel that Yen Mah does not have a positive relationship with her older siblings and her stepmother Niang. Unfortunately, we understand immediately that her story will not be a joyful one, and we must take a journey back to where her roots began in Shanghai, China to grasp why she feels so uncomfortable during the reading.
Yen Mah’s own mother passes away while she gives birth to her youngest daughter. Immediately, Yen Mah’s father distances himself from the child because he blames her for his wife’s death. Her siblings are abusive towards her, and she is constantly shunned by the family. A heart-breaking example is when she has to fearfully walk home alone from first grade class because not one person in her family remembers to pick her up from school. In addition, we hope that her family will begin to show signs affection when Yen Mah shows high intellect at school, but instead, we only feel disappointment as we see her to continue to endure painful abandonment not only by her stepmother, but also from her very own father. We do, however, cheer for her triumph till the very end of the memoir.
Chinese Culture
Throughout her memoir, Yen Mah gives the reader a brief yet intensive history lesson about the Chinese cultural facets beginning in 1842. During the early 1840’s, “Britain, France, and the United States of America staked out foreign settlements within the city” of Shanghai. (5)¹ The Westernization of the city gave way to corruption and a loss of Cultural assimilation within its people. In addition, Yen Mah’s own father struggled for many years to become successful, and although he triumphed in the business world for many years, the Cultural Revolution between the years of 1965 and 1968 had a profound negative impact in her entire family.
Another brilliant aspect in Yen Mah’s beautiful memoir is her use of her native language. She is meticulous on showing her readers how to pronounce each sentence and phrase as we look deep into her family’s history, “At the age of twenty-six, Grand Aunt’s third elder brother, my Ye Ye (grandfather) entered into an arranged marriage through a mei-po (professional female marriage broker). My fifteen-year-old grandmother came from an eminently suitable Shanghai family. Theirs was a men dang hu dui (as the appropriate door fits the frame of correct house) marriage.” (10)¹ In addition, we are given the gift of learning Chinese aphorism as we are given glimpses of her ancestors’ arranged lives.
It is shocking to learn that Chinese women up to the nineteenth century were forced to have their feet bound. Foot binding was done as the women’s were “wrapped tightly with a long, narrow cloth bandage,” that forced “the four lateral toes under the soles so that only the big toe protruded. This bandage was tightened daily for a number of years, squeezing the toes painfully inwards and permanently arresting the foot’s growth in order to achieve the tiny feet so prized by Chinese men.” (11)¹ Although foot-binding was considered a symbol of women’s “subservience and of their family’s wealth,” Yen Mah explains that the woman she looked up to, her Grand Aunt, refused to submit to such a painful act. And in spite of this refusal, her Great Aunt became a very successful woman during her early life.
Gender Roles
Yen Mah reveals to us that “Confucius had professed that ‘only ignorant women were virtuous.’”(14)¹ The Chinese culture during her time growing up in China lived up to that profession. Women were not allowed to hold prestigious positions in businesses, and they were treated with the lowest form of disrespect for centuries. In addition, we meet Yen Mah’s stepmother soon after her own mother dies giving birth to Yen Mah. Her stepmother, who she and her siblings call Niang, is a manipulative, uncaring woman who makes it her mission to isolate Yen Mah from her family. Niang in some way represents the social injustices that many women suffered during Yen Mah’s lifetime. While men were allowed to exercise their manhood freely in many ways, women were shunned and forced to abide by the roles that men had established for them.
Unhappy Childhood leads to Excellent Writing
As we have seen in many memoirs such as Angela’s Ashes and I know why the Caged Bird sings, others suffering gives life to true writing. Why is it that we are so absorbed reading about an individual’s struggle to survive through a heart-wrenching abuse? It is because we believe the writer’s story, and in some way, we begin to relive our own unhappy moments from childhood. Yen Mah decided to share her experiences to give us strength. Through her painful memories, we are able to gather our own insecurities, place them on the table, and only then can we begin to decipher on how to perfect our future. As Yen Mah stated herself, “I read somewhere that an unhappy childhood is a writer’s whole capital. If that is so, then I am rich indeed.”(2)² In addition, we gain full access to her account thanks to the excellent recollections about her painful childhood.
1. Yen Mah, Adeline. Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Girl. New York: Broadway Books, 1997.
2. www.randomhouse.com/resources/rgg.html. Reading Group Guide. Random House, 1997.
Letters from Earth 
Posted on February 16, 2011
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