Falling Leaves by Abrianna Santiago

About the Author

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:33:37 UTC

Her notable works are Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter and Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter. Awards she's gotten is being a New York bestseller, getting the Children’s Literature Council of Southern California and the Lamplighter’s Award.

Some relevant background is that her mother died giving birth to her, and her family blames her for her mother's death. After that her father remarried and the step-mother was abusive and her father had no backbone to protect her.

Sources: https://www.committee100.org/members/adeline-yenmah/#:~:text=Her%20first%20book%20Falling%20Leaves,Contribution%20to%20Exceptional%20Children 's%20Literature

https://www.librarything.com/author/mahadelineyen

POV and the Reader's Interpretation Perspective

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:34:48 UTC

Adeline Yen Mah uses first person perspective, speaking from her point of view. It shapes the readers experience by making them feel like they're truly immersed in the story. Making them feel every emotion and thinking every thought she writes.

Central Message/Theme

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:35:07 UTC

The central message/theme of Falling Leaves is strength, resilience, and the author's struggle for identity. It's developed through the stories of her growing up throughout the book. From how she was treated as a child to how she became an adult, she was still looking for approval until she truly grew up past the need for approval.

Context: Relevance

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:35:39 UTC

Tianjin: This outside circumstances put stressors on her family and caused her father to run away to Shanghai leaving his family before requesting only part of his family to join him, showing his family hierarchy. Tianjin is also relevant because that is Adeline's home. But it's also her families home, where she felt the most safe and protected by her Aunt Baba.

London: London is relevant because of Karl, he was Adeline's first love, teacher and mentor. Like everyone's first love it shaped her future.

Context 1 - Tianjin

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:35:53 UTC

Time: 1937-1943 and 1948-1949.

Place: 40 Shandong Road and St. Joseph's.

Circumstance: The Japanese invaded and the second Sino-Japanese war started. The Japanese troops that occupied Tianjin and Beijing moved southwards, when they met resistance the Rape of Nanking in 1937 and early 1938. In 1939 there was a great flood in Tianjin which was extremely disastrous. The Pro-Japanese newspapers blamed it on Chiang Kai-shek and Anti-Japanese newspapers blamed it on the Japanese. The flood covered three provinces and every crop in the path was destroyed. 2 million went homeless, hundreds of thousands dies from starvation and disease. 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and now the Japanese is in league with Germany. Japanese soldiers took over foreign concessions of Chinese treaty ports. (Yen Mah, 22, 23, 30, 31, 37, 38, 42, 86, 93)

Context 2 - London

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:36:11 UTC

Time: 1952-1963.

Place: Rye St Anthony.

Circumstance: At college one of her lecturers, Karl Decker, was a 34 year old German. Adeline was assigned to his tutorial group and she noticed his earnestness. He would be thorough in his corrections that he gave her work. He also started to compliment her. The discussed his experiments and articles about his field. He constantly wrote to Adeline. Karl also thought Adeline, so full of life, should not waste her time with him. Karl wrote to her that he'd always be in his lab for Adeline. (Yen Mah, 122, 128, 129, 131, 137, 140)

Rhetorical Devices: Imagery

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:36:44 UTC

“Day after day, twice a day, morning and afternoon, walking to and from school, I chased my shadow in the sun and steadfastly avoided cracks in the pavement. I also made up fairytales and indulged in an imaginary wonderland. It was one way of passing the time. In my serialized stories which continued from one day to the next, I was really a little princess in disguise, thrust into this cruel Shanghai household by accident. … High up in the mountains amidst the clouds, this place was full of tall bamboos, twisted pines, odd-shaped rocks, wild flowers and colourful birds.“ (Yen Mah, 53)

The imagery in the excerpt is impactful because it shows the way Adeline would distract herself from her boring and inconsequential home life.

Rhetorical Devices: Irony

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:36:58 UTC

“Then Niang went over and attempted to pick Susan up. To my two-year-old sister, her mother was a complete stranger. Susan wriggled and fought and resisted with all her might. Finally, she burst into tears screaming, 'I don't want you! I don't want you! Aunt Baba! Aunt Baba!' No one dared say a word. All conversation ceased as we watched Susan kick and struggle in Niang's arms. Finally, to my horror, Niang forced her child down on the couch beside her and gave her a stinging slap across the face. Susan only cried louder. Exasperated and by now no longer in control, Niang began a vicious beating of her daughter, her slaps landing on Susan's little cheeks, ears and head. … I knew I should keep silent, but words choked me and I felt compelled to spit them out. Finally, forgetting who I was or where I was, I blurted out in a trembling voice, 'Don't beat her any more! She's only a baby!' Niang turned around and glared fiercely, her large eyes seeming to pop out of their orbits. For a moment, I thought she was going to come after me. Aunt Baba gave me a warning look to say no more. Even Susan was barely whimpering. My protest had interrupted Niang's frenzy but I had become the target of her fury.” (Yen Mah, 46)

The irony in this excerpt is impactful because it’s cruel irony. The irony is showing that Niang would even hit her own blood daughter, showing that she would treat a daughter not of her blood way worse. Showing how truely cruel Niang was.

Rhetorical Devices: Simile

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:37:08 UTC

"I wandered like a ghost from classroom to classroom, spending much time reading fairy tales in the library" (Yen Mah, 92)

This simile is impactful because it compares Adeline to a ghost, like she's haunting the halls of St. Joseph's. She basically is because all the other girl's parents took them away and Adeline is the only one who's parents didn't care enough to take her away. And by comparing her to a ghost it also shows how she feels inside, invisible because her parents left her.

Rhetorical Devices: Hyperbole

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:37:19 UTC

“Why did we each hand back Father's unread will as if we were mindless robots?" (Yen Mah, 3)

This hyperbole is impactful because it exaggerates the fact that the children still listen mindlessly to their elders.

Cultural Context 1

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:37:40 UTC

The cultural context is than many Asian cultures push the women down as inferior to the men, making them serve the men like slaves. In the book the women isn't expected to remarry when the husband dies but men are expected to marry immediately after the wife dies. The husband is even encouraged to take on concubine's, emphasizing the women subservient role. Also, in Asian cultures there's a family hierarchy, respecting elders. So since Adeline is the youngest and also a daughter she's at a worse disadvantage than "normal".

Cultural Context 2

quinlanbryant5 — 2025-09-02 14:38:02 UTC

Another cultural context is that in Asian cultures there's a lot to do with family. It's taught to respect your elders more than you respect yourself sometimes. Respecting your elders is very distinguished in families where the younger people are expected to give up their dreams and ambitions if your family needs help taking care of an elder or the family is going into debt. So Adeline being the youngest and a daughter doesn't set her up to have many expectation other than marriage in her future so her becoming a doctor is extraordinary.

Title

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-02 14:39:50 UTC

The book is called "Falling Leaves" by author Adeline Yen Mah. Our names are Quinlan Bryant and Abrianna Santiago.

Subject Focus

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-02 15:01:03 UTC

'Falling Leaves' is a memoir about Adeline Yen Mah's story of growing up as a girl in a household and society that contained women and their development. Her story of surviving the global experience of physical and emotional trauma provides an influential first-hand account. The book also reveals the numerous major societal and political issues arising during this period in China, giving the reader context of what life was like in Chinese homes and towns.

Pivotal Moment

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-02 15:22:28 UTC

The most significant event of the book was when Adeline found and discovered what her Father's will truly said. Prior to this event, Adeline and her siblings were told by Niang and her solicitor that nothing was left in Father's will (Yen Mah, 236-237). However, when Adeline along side her husband, Bob, found the authentic will, it was revealed that Adeline was in fact given one part of her Father's estate (266-267). During these times, receiving part of your parent's will was a testament to how well of a child you were. Therefore, this event revealed to the main character that her hard work to prove her worth to her parents had essentially paid off.

Vocabulary (1)

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-02 15:33:31 UTC

'Niang'

Definition: Chinese term for mother

Parts of speech: noun

Usage in sentence: "All eyes turned to Niang, our stepmother" (Yen Mah, 3).

Vocabulary (2)

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-02 15:35:19 UTC

'Ye Ye'

Definition: grandfather

Parts of Speech: noun

Usage in Sentence: "Her third brother, my grandfather Ye Ye, was softspoken and gentle" (Yen Mah, 7).

Vocabulary (3)

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-03 01:26:59 UTC

'san ge'

Definition: Third older brother

Parts of speech: noun

Usage in sentence: "My san ge James was my hero and only friend" (Yen Mah, 35).

Key Individuals: Aunt Baba

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-04 04:40:06 UTC

Aunt Baba was the sister of Adeline's father and was the most supportive figure in Adeline's life. Aunt Baba, despite facing her own challenges with financial dependency and societal place within the family, always made time for Adeline and showed her the love and compassion no one else ever did. Throughout the book, the author constantly shows her deep love towards Aunt Baba. Such as when the author states, "I had returned once again to the warm cocoon of Aunt Baba's world, safe in the knowledge that she was the one person to whom I would always matter." "She was gentle, patient, and wise. I loved her very much." (Yen Mah, 272)

Key Individuals: Niang

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-04 05:07:50 UTC

Niang is Adeline's stepmother and the main antagonist through the entire book. Niang continueously showed favoritism to her own children compared to Adeline and her siblings. Therefore, causing Adeline to feel unwanted and forgotten quite often. These double standards were stated as being 'resented' by the unrecieving children (Yen Mah, 56). Niang also emotionally and physically abused Adeline and her siblings, constantly striving to divide the household. The author stated, "Niang's new strategy was to divide and rule" (Yen Mah, 57). These obstacles made by Niang proved to be tough for the main character, Adeline, to overcome.

Key Events (1): Adeline's Birth

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-04 05:18:44 UTC

Three days after Adeline was born, her mother started to get sick. With her condition worsening every day, she died 2 weeks after Adeline's birth leaving a dark cloud to hang over the family (Yen Mah, 23-24). Since Adeline's birth caused the death of her mother, she was always viewed as the cursed child and thought to have 'bad luck' from the death of her mother.

Key Events (2): Niang's Abuse

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-04 05:24:03 UTC

Due to the death of Adeline's birth mother, Adeline's father remarries. The women he married is referred to as 'Niang' and she brought multitudes of abuse and pain unto the family. Through favoritism, manipulation, and lies Niang turns everyone in the household against each other over the span of many years. Adeline, however, is shaped through these troubles through education and the support of her Aunt Baba.

Key Events (3): Adeline Education Journey

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-04 05:27:05 UTC

Adeline's opportunity to study abroad gave the experience of freedom. Beyond the boundaries of her household. While studying in England Adeline was exposed to new experiences and circumstances which molded her into pursuing the career choice she wanted to choose. This freedom gave her a larger sense of identity and helped her develop even more.

Key Events (4): Death of Adeline's Father

abrisanti16 — 2025-09-04 05:35:40 UTC

Following the tragic death of Adeline's father, all of Adeline's siblings were worried over what was in their father's will. After the lies of Niang stating,"'Your father's will is meaningless because he had no money in his estate'" (Yen Mah, 3) Adeline searched her family's house for the will. She soon discovered that Niang had forged father's will and that she had lied. Knowing this gave the main character peace of mind knowing that she had received part of the will. Furthermore, developing Adeline's character further.