Falling Leaves

“In order to explain our collective docility that afternoon, I have to go back to the very beginning. A Chinese proverb says that duo ye gun gen (falling leaves return to their roots). My roots were from a Shanghai family headed by my affluent father and his beautiful Eurasian wife, set against a background of treaty ports carved into foreign concessions, and the collision of East and West played out within and without my very own home.”

Adeline Yen Mah reflects on the emotional background of her family’s “collective docility” and submission to Niang, her French-Chinese stepmother. Niang claims all of her deceased husband’s assets and disinherits all of her children. Adeline gestures not only to Niang’s psychological reign of terror over her children—which she has carried from their childhood to their adulthood—but to the ways in which Niang mirrors the West’s entitled seizing of Chinese resources. Niang is tellingly described as a “beautiful Eurasian” woman, implying that her sense of power over her Chinese family derives from her half-European status. Thus, Adeline aligns her family’s troubled history with the historic “collision of East and West.” Just as “falling leaves return to their roots,” Adeline’s memoir reflects on the ways her childhood “roots” have affected her development. She positions Niang as a symbol for the imperial cruelty, prejudice, and racism she both witnesses and experiences throughout her life.

“An invisible silken handcuff was thus slipped around her willing wrists, evaporating her chances of marriage and a family of her own. In those days, women in China were expected to sublimate their own desires to the common good of the family.”

Adeline’s aunt Baba was expected to “sublimate [her] own desires” to become a surrogate mother after Adeline’s mother’s death (25). With this passage, Adeline highlights the important role Aunt Baba played in her life: Aunt Baba not only serves as a nurturing parent in the place of Adeline’s deceased mother, but she also attempts to heal the psychological wounds left by her father and stepmother.