A real-life Cinderella

Coral Wilson

It is a classic tale that has been passed down for generations about

a little girl, her evil stepmother, a pair of glass slippers and a

prince. It was a story about Ye Xian told in China during the Tang

Dynasty. When the story spread into Europe, the magic fish became a

fairy godmother and the girl’s name was changed to Cinderella.

The story was not forgotten -- could not be forgotten, because it

is a story known all too well by children past and present. And

sometimes, it is not all make-believe.

Once upon a time not so long ago, a little girl was born in China

named Adeline Yen Mah. Cursed from the beginning, when her mother

died shortly after giving birth, she was considered bad luck by her

family. When her father remarried a teenage bride a year later, she

was the object of her stepmother’s anger and her sibling’s blame. She

became so insignificant to her father that he even forgot her name.

Only her fairy godmother, her Aunt Baba, loved her.

The girl escaped to study medicine in England and then to America,

where she met her prince. She became a successful anesthesiologist

with a large house in Huntington Beach, a happy marriage and two

children.

After the death of her father and stepmother, she was finally free

to write her story, “Falling Leaves,” which became a New York Times

best-seller. Surprised by a huge response from sympathetic children,

she wrote her second book, “Chinese Cinderella,” a true story for

other real-life Cinderellas around the world.

“When many children feel desperate, they confide in another. If

there is no one to turn to, they turn to me,” Mah said. “I want to

tell children to believe in themselves and that they can prove their

abusers wrong. When they are told they are worthless, ugly, a lost

cause, a child starts believing.”

A third book, “Watching the Tree,” followed. “A Thousand Pieces of

Gold” was published at the end of last year. Mah is now working on a

fifth book, a kung fu novel for children based on history. Each book

offers new insights into Chinese thought, philosophy and the

language, ultimately bringing people and cultures together.

“In Chinese, every word is a picture, which is very well if the

concept they want to develop is concrete. A bird is a bird and a

horse is a horse. But what if the word is abstract, like

contradiction?”

The Chinese word for contradiction is “spear armor.”

Words in Chinese come from stories based in history and don’t

always make sense when translated directly.

Mah tells the story behind this word, contradiction: There was a

man who sold spears and armors in the marketplace. He claimed the

spears could pierce any armor and the armor could withstand any

spear.

When someone asked, “What if you pitch your spears against your

armor?” he could not answer. Thus came the word for “contradiction.”

“When the Chinese talk, it is not just gibberish. It may sound

like it, but it isn’t,” Mah said. “It is so important for the East

and West to understand each other.”

Essential to the Chinese language are proverbs.

There was once a prime minister who carved a piece of writing on

the city wall and dared onlookers, “Anyone who can improve my

manuscript by adding or subtracting one word, I will give 1,000

pieces of gold.”

The Chinese have been saying, “One written word is worth 1,000

pieces of gold,” ever since. That phrase is the title of Mah’s latest

book.

“Family ugliness should never be revealed in public,” is a proverb

Mah did not follow in her own life, to the shame of her siblings. But

they are “Pointing to a horse and calling it a deer,” or in other

words, being hypocritical, because they know it is true and they

suffered, too, Mah said. This common belief prevents many Chinese

from writing honest autobiographies.

Like proverbs, Mah’s tale is universal and everlasting. It has

happened before and will happen again. Although her life has had a

happy ending, Mah has returned to relive her painful past in an

effort to share it with others. She explains in the dedication to all

unwanted children of “Chinese Cinderella” why she gave up her career

in medicine and rebelled against her family to write.

“Perhaps others who were also unwanted may see them 100 years from

now and feel encouraged,” she said. “I imagine them opening the pages

of my book and meeting me [as a 10-year-old] in Shanghai without

actually having left their own homes in Sydney, Tokyo, London, Hong

Kong or Los Angeles, and I shall welcome each and every one of them

with a smile and say, ‘How splendid of you to visit me!’

“I understand only too well the rankling in your heart and what

you are going through,” she said.