Final Blog Post

Presentation:

Chinese Cinderella takes place during the time of Japanese occupation in China in the 1940s.
For Adeline, the environment is hostile. She and her siblings cannot have friends over after school, and they are also restricted to what parts of the house they allowed to be in. Throughout the story, heart strings are being pulled because the story is from the view point of a child and has a tragice undertone to it. During this time period, it is evident (page 127) that it was important to learn English because Adeline is forced to speak English rather than Mandarin. As for the culture, a major aspect was that feet were bound as on page 7, "'When i was three years old, a tight bandage was wound around my feet, bending the toes under the sole and crushing the arch so that my feet would remain small all my life. This has been the custom in China for over a thousand years, ever since the Tang dynasty'" Also for the culture, siblings did not call each other by name, but rather by Fifth Younger Sister or Second Brother. Foot binding can be negative as it causes problems into the latter stages of life. Today, we cannot imagine having feet the size of a three year old's. Also, what the siblings called each other is different from today because most people probably do not call their siblings Second Brother. In Chinese Cinderella, there is mainly discrimination towards Adeline because they considered her a curse because her mom died shortly after giving birth. She was basically regarded as useless. Again for the time, it took place in the 1940s when Japan was occupying China. Internationally, we were involved by fighting Japan and forcing them out of China. The book's topic is a good one because it is realistic. However, the Chinese are still not treated as humanely as possible considering the way Chinese labor is. As a solution, some people choose to boycott stores that seem to endorse this, such as Walmart. International Humanitarian Law is not violated specifically in this book, but in the time period, surely children were not treated the way they should be. Furthermore, in present-day certainly some laborers are not treated as well as they should be treated.

Mah, Adeline Yen. Chinese Cinderella. New York: Laurel-Leaf, 1990. Print.