Chinese Cinderella is the true memoir of Adeline Yen Mah’s childhood, describing her life up until she is fourteen years old. Adeline is born to a wealthy family in Tianjin, China, as their fifth child. Her mother dies due to birth complications and her family thus views Adeline as “bad luck” and a curse upon them. One year later, Adeline’s Father marries a half-Chinese, half-French woman whom the family calls Niang. Niang despises the five children from her husband’s first marriage and heavily favors her own two biological children, Fourth Brother and Little Sister. Denied love from her parents as well as most of her siblings, Adeline relies on the affections of her Aunt Baba, Grandfather Ye Ye, and Grandmother Nai Nai, all of whom live with the family. Beginning in her first week of kindergarten, Adeline proves herself to be a talented scholar, earning the honor of top student nearly every week.
Most of China is occupied by Japan, including Tianjin. Father, a businessman, faces increased pressure from the Japanese rulers to make them his business partners, something he does not wish to do. One day, Father disappears, having fled to Shanghai. Niang and her son, Fourth Brother, follow suit some months later, also disappearing without explanation. The stepchildren and Niang’s infant daughter live under the care of their grandparents and thrive in the absence of Niang. However, Nai Nai dies of a stroke some months later. Six weeks after her death, Father arrives secretly in Tianjin (still fearing the Japanese) to take his children back to Shanghai with him, though Third Brother and Little Sister will remain for a few months in Tianjin with Ye Ye and Aunt Baba. When the children arrive in Shanghai and reach Father’s new house, they are shocked by its luxurious, expensive decorations. Immediately, Niang explains the new rules of the household to them: All of the stepchildren will share rooms on the third floor while Father and Niang, as well as Niang’s favored children, will have their own luxurious rooms on the second floor; the stepchildren are not allowed to have friends over to their house nor go to friends’ houses; the stepchildren must only use the backdoor by the servants’ quarters. The stepchildren are embittered by this as they realize Niang has made them into second-class citizens in their own home.
On Adeline’s first day at her new school, the family forgets to arrange for someone to bring her there. Fortunately, the cook takes pity on her and brings her on his bicycle. After school, no one in the family arrives to pick her up or even notices she has not come home. After waiting for hours, six-year-old Adeline wanders through the streets of Shanghai alone until dark, when she finally finds a phone to call Father. When this happens, Adeline realizes that, without Aunt Baba, no one in the family is looking out for her.
When Ye Ye, Aunt Baba, Third Brother, and Little Sister arrive some months later, Little Sister, now a toddler, does not recognize Niang as her own mother or want to be near her. Niang is enraged and beats her daughter. When none of the adults intervene, Adeline finally speaks up and tells Niang to stop hitting Little Sister, since she is still just a baby. This infuriates Niang and earns Adeline Niang’s eternal wrath. Father and Niang find myriad ways to make the stepchildren suffer, such as refusing the stepchildren basic amenities, including fare to take the tram to and from school, and demanding that they walk several miles each direction unless they come begging to Niang.
The stepchildren are further humiliated during Chinese New Year when they are given outdated, shabby traditional outfits and Niang’s own children are given high-quality, expensive, modern clothing to wear, becoming exceptionally conceited about their privilege. This prompts the stepchildren to attempt to organize a resistance to Niang, though she quickly discovers this and sabotages them by buying the loyalty of Big Sister, who was the group’s leader. Big Sister becomes as conceited as Niang’s children and spies on her own siblings for Niang, causing even more enmity and resentment in the family.
Despite her horrid life at home, Adeline excels in school and has many good friends there, the best of whom is Wu Chun-mei. Chun-mei loans Adeline books and walks with her to school when she realizes that Adeline will not accept rides from her chauffer. After the Allies defeat Japan in World War II, Father, Niang, Big Sister, Fourth Brother, and Little Sister all leave Shanghai to return to newly-liberated Tianjin. The household in Shanghai once again becomes much more peaceful and pleasant, though Adeline is still occasionally bullied by her brothers. Adeline grows close to Ye Ye and Third Brother during this time. Several months later, shortly after Father and Niang and the other children return, the children are each gifted with a pet duckling by family friends. Adeline names her duckling Precious Little Treasure, or PLT for short, and loves and cares for it with all her heart. However, one evening, Father decides that he wants to have fun with his German Shepherd by watching it attack one of the children’s ducklings, and PLT is chosen. The duckling is killed in front of Adeline and she is horrified and heartbroken.
Two years later, Niang arranges for Big Sister to be married to a doctor who is twice her age, the thought of which frightens Adeline. Months after the wedding, Chun-mei wants to celebrate her birthday, but only if Adeline can attend the party. Adeline keeps refusing, since she is not allowed to visit friends’ houses, but eventually relents and creates a scheme to go to the party while Niang believes her to be at school. Niang discovers the ploy and beats Adeline, also discovering pocket money that Aunt Baba illicitly gave her, with which she had meant to buy Chun-mei a gift. Father also beats Adeline with a dog whip when he arrives home and resolves that Aunt Baba is a bad influence on Adeline and the two must be separated.
A couple days later, Adeline is democratically elected class president and student leader of the school. She is thrilled, having forgotten the horrors of the past few days to some degree. However, Adeline’s school friends secretly follow her home to throw her a surprise party, unaware of Adeline’s bad home environment. Niang is enraged by this, screaming and beating Adeline within earshot of her friends, leaving visible marks and causing her to bleed. After Adeline tells her friends they must go home, Father and Niang force her to throw the congratulatory gifts her friends had given her in the trash. Father and Niang decide that they will no longer care for Adeline and tell her she will be given to an orphanage.
Within days, Father and Niang take Adeline to Tianjin, even though most people are fleeing the city because of the civil war and the approach of the Communist army. They leave Adeline at the boarding school where she had attended kindergarten and fly back to Shanghai, abandoning her. The school’s enrollment swiftly dwindles as students flee the city with their families; eventually, Adeline is the only child left, kept company only by a few nuns. She spends Christmas and New Year’s there before being rescued by Niang’s sister, Aunt Reine, and her husband and two children, Claudine and Victor. The family takes Adeline with them and flees to Hong Kong via ship, where Adeline’s parents have also fled after Shanghai was captured by the Communists.
Though Adeline is initially wary of Aunt Reine, assuming she will be like Niang, Aunt Reine accepts Adeline as one of her own children and is kind and generous to her. Adeline develops close relationships with Claudine and Victor as well, getting her first experience of living in a normal, healthy family. Their ship arrives in Hong Kong and Adeline is reunited with her family, though it is days before Father or Niang even acknowledge her existence. Ye Ye is happy to see her, but he seems older and more defeated than last time Adeline had seen him. Aunt Reine’s family stays to visit for a week, but as soon as they have left the city, Adeline is placed in another boarding school in Hong Kong.
Adeline excels in her academics once again and has a few close friends, but she never manages to confide in them about her abusive family life. She also feels rather pathetic, since Father and Niang refuse to buy her properly fitting clothes or anything that is not worn out. Despite her impressive intelligence, Adeline most often feels shabby and inadequate. During this time, she begs her parents to send her to study in England, where two of her brothers are already in college, but Father and Niang ignore her.
At the end of her first term, Adeline comes down with pneumonia and is hospitalized. She recovers after several weeks, taking a week to rest at home. During a conversation with Third Brother and Ye Ye, Adeline finally expresses how sad and frustrated she is, how she feels like she has no future, and how low her self-esteem is. Ye Ye rebukes her for this, telling her that only she can have control over who she will be and what she will achieve. Realizing that her own self-loathing and defeatism also hurts Ye Ye, Adeline promises him that she will make something of herself. Father and Niang send Adeline back to the boarding school a week before the next term starts. With nothing to do, Adeline decides to enter an international playwriting contest. She writes a play with a heroine who is similar to herself, and expresses all of the painful repressed feelings of her childhood through the character. She dedicates the play to Ye Ye and sends it to be judged, but does not hear anything about it for over six months.
Ye Ye dies that year and Adeline attends his funeral. She is the only member of the family who cries at the loss. Niang also announces that Father will no longer pay for Adeline’s schooling after this term. Adeline falls into a heavy, anxious depression for several weeks. In the midst of this, however, Father’s chauffer takes her to discuss something with Father. She is initially fearful, but when she speaks with Father, he reveals that she has won the playwriting competition and brought Hong Kong and him great honor. As a reward, Father agrees to send Adeline to study in England with Third Brother, where she will study medicine.
The last chapter is a letter from Aunt Baba, responding to a letter Adeline had sent her from Singapore, on her voyage to England. Aunt Baba is proud of her for enduring her difficult childhood and compares her life to the story of Ye Xian, a character from Chinese folklore who seems to be the original version of the English fairytale of Cinderella.
