Chinese Cinderella

Content Warning: The source text for this guide deals heavily with child neglect and abuse, includes a graphic instance of animal abuse, briefly mentions human trafficking, and describes historical cultural practices that constitute female mutilation.

At the end of her first week of kindergarten, Adeline returns home to the room that she shares with her Aunt Baba, proudly displaying a silver medal pinned to her uniform and a certificate for leading her class. Aunt Baba cherishes the certificate, even though she cannot read the European language it’s written in, and stows it in her safe-deposit box. A photograph of Adeline’s grandparents falls out of the box, and Adeline asks to see a photo of her mother. Aunt Baba reminds Adeline that her mother passed away when she was a baby and claims that she has no photo of her.

This chapter consists of expository information. Adeline explains that her family blames her for her mother’s death. The year afterward, her father remarried a half-French woman whom their grandmother Nai Nai suggests the children call Niang (the Chinese word for mother). Along with the younger siblings from Father’s marriage to Niang, the family lives in the French quarter of Tianjin.