Adeline Yen Mah

Very well written autobiography of a young Chinese girl whose mother dies 2 weeks after her birth. Her father remarries a beautiful Eurasian woman, and all of his children are treated as second-class citizens, especially after the stepmother gives birth. Adeline herself becomes somewhat of a pariah, sent to live in orphanages and boarding schools, where she excels in her studies and ultimately becomes a successful doctor in the USA. The continued issues with her family are truly heartbreaking, and the book is almost impossible to put down.… (mer)

Part memoir, part philosophy and part history of the Chinese culture. Unfortunately, only a 2-star for me. Not that it was badly written, but for the fact that I didn’t understand a lot of it. I've always admired and loved learning about certain things of the Chinese culture, but a lot of her writing was way over my head. Her memoir "Falling Leaves", which is on my TBR list, will probably be more up my alley.

Adeline, a Chinese, was the youngest of seven in their family. At age 10 (a later page says she was 11) her step-mother, who didn't like her, sent her to a boarding school until she was 13 years old. Her step-mother then told her she could no longer attend school because Adeline's father couldn't afford it and she had to go get a job. At age 14 she left China. Adeline had won a writing competition, which allowed her father to send her to England to study. She is now an American Chinese and was a Physician in California. She quit that job to pursue her passion: writing. Today, she would be about 83 years old. You can Duck Duck Go Adeline Yen Mah images to see photos of her.

She notes that more and more Chinese have immigrated to America looking for education, freedom, prosperity and happiness. Adeline introduces us to Eastern thought. This is a book of her personal memories as examples that introduce some of the philosophies of life obtained from two of the oldest Chinese classic books today, "I Ching" (pronounced: ye jing and means Book of Changes) and "Tao Te Ching". Also, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism play dominant roles in how the Chinese think and live. She goes into the history of how all of this came about, while inserting little pieces of memories of her life that are relevant to each part.
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