Adeline Yen Mah Falling Leaves Summary

You He Bu Ke? In English this Chinese phrase means is anything impossible? For those growing up in China not that long ago, they had to adopt the attitude that nothing they wanted to was impossible even when many parts of their own culture were working against them. In Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah, she tells the story of her life from the events leading up to her birth to much later on. The author touches on everything from world events like the Cultural Revolution to very personal aspects such as her relationship to her abusive step-mother. Through reading this book one can learn about a lot of different aspects of Chinese culture but specifically women's role in society, marriage customs, …show more content…
For example, in the very beginning of the novel Adeline discusses the people in her family, describing aspects of their personalities, as well as their appearances to set up the rest of her story. Eventually, she gets to her Grand Aunt who she explains never married. This then leads to the talk of how “In those days, daughters could still be legally sold or bartered,” even treated close to that of a slave (8). The author says it was expected of a wife to bear children and if she could not concubines were routinely brought in. Even though an assumption could be made about women's role because of the time period, it shows it in a different light to hear from someone who had to witness one of her family members go through a lot of social disapproval of her life choices. The same paragraph even talks about the different standards of men and women. Widowers were expected to get remarried, but widows were supposed to remain alone; men visited brothels but a woman who cheats could be killed. Even though anyone reading Adeline's’ story would probably have previous knowledge of gender roles, it is surprising to hear that the standards were that different and that women were treated that horribly. Even more surprising is that so many women were okay with the treatment and thought that that was just how it had to be. Later in the novel, the author shares a memory of the …show more content…
After the death of Adeline's mother, the family is in the processing of mourning and grieving when “marriage brokers again clustered around, not for Aunt Baba, but for her newly widowed brother,” (25). At this point in time it is assumed that Aunt Baba will take on the household responsibilities since she is already thirty years old and unmarried and that Adeline's father will get married as soon as he possibly can. In present day in the United States, people have so many more options. Men and women alike can get married, remarried, remain single, remain a widow at any age they like and that idea of limiting everyone to the choice of what will romantically happy just seems completely crazy. However, that is the custom and that is the way their society works but it still seems crazy and was probably unknown to most readers before reading this novel. Additionally, Adeline shares the memory of her older sister, Lydia whose marriage is arranged for her at just seventeen due to a small disability; her left hand is limp, and deformed due to Erb’s palsy which she is born with. Their father and step-mother sit her down and essentially inform her that she could never be successful with a disability and that no man will ever willingly marry her so her marriage must be arranged. Although Adeline recalls Lydia being incredibly excited about the marriage, Lydia writes that she “had never even thought of