Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society
Read Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society Online
Authors: Adeline Yen Mah
PUFFIN BOOKS
Chinese Cinderella and the
Secret Dragon Society
Adeline Yen Mah’s family considered her to be bad luck because her mother died giving birth to her. They discriminated against her and made her feel unwanted all her life. After the death of her stepmother in 1990, she felt compelled to give up her career as a physician to write her life story. Her adult memoir,
Falling Leaves
, was published in 1997 and became an international bestseller. Then, in 1998, Adeline wrote an autobiography for children in response to the many letters she received from young people who also felt unloved and unwanted. The result,
Chinese Cinderella
, is the true story of Adeline’s childhood, and has become a much-loved book for children all over the world.
As a child, Adeline loved reading and writing and whenever things were bad she would write stories in order to escape from the tyranny of her stepmother and cruelty of her siblings.
Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society
is based on one of the exciting World War II stories that she wrote to amuse herself and her schoolfriends.
Adeline is a full-time writer and lives in California, USA, with her husband. She spends the summer months in London.
Books by Adeline Yen Mah
For adults
FALLING LEAVES
A THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD
WATCHING THE TREE
For children
CHINESE CINDERELLA
CHINESE CINDERELLA AND THE SECRET
DRAGON SOCIETY
Chinese
Cinderella
AND THE
Secret Dragon
Society
Adeline Yen Mah
Bestselling author of
Chinese Cinderella
PUFFIN
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Afiica) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published 2004
8
Text copyright © Adeline Yen Mah, 2004
Illustrations copyright © Fred van Deelen, 2004
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to die condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-14-192828-9
This book is dedicated to my childhood friend Wu Chun-mei and to all the children who enjoyed reading
Chinese Cinderella
, especially those who are orphaned, unwanted and have nobody to turn to.
I feel a great sense of responsibility towards those children who wrote to me after reading my books. Adults and children read for different reasons and in different ways. Adults read for entertainment and relaxation. Children read to learn about life. I remember very well the books I read as a child and their effect on me. Nothing in my adult life could ever equate to the thrill and excitement I felt while reading
The Little Princess
when I was ten. It is estimated that children (on an average) read only about 500 books before the age of twelve. However, as a child grows into adulthood and old age, no other books will ever affect them so deeply again. I wish to thank those children who have written to tell me that reading
Chinese Cinderella
has changed their lives. You have no idea how much that means to me!
Acknowledgements
A big thank you to Erica Wagner of Allen & Unwin and Helen Levene of Puffin Books. I also want to acknowledge my agent, Jonny Geller, and his able assistant, Doug Keane, for their support and enthusiasm.
This book could not have been written without the love of my wonderful husband, Bob.
Contents
Chapter 3
.
Abandoned and Homeless
Chapter 5
.
Martial Arts Academy
Chapter 7
.
Poster from Marat’s Big Brother
Chapter 8
.
Letter from Big Aunt
Chapter 9
.
Life at the Martial Arts Academy
Chapter 10
.
Yi jing
: The Book of Magic
Chapter 15
.
The Japanese Paratrooper
Chapter 18
.
Escape to the Mainland
Chapter 19
.
A Visitor from Home
Chapter 23
.
The Future Belongs to Us
Author’s Note
During my lonely childhood in Shanghai, books were my only companions. I remember vividly the first book my Aunt Baba read to me when I was three years old. It was colourful and loosely bound like a stack of flash cards. Each detachable page had a picture of an animal on the front and the appropriate Chinese character on the back. This book was special because my aunt had bought it just for me. Even after more than half a century, I can still hear the timbre of her voice, see the life-like, detailed drawings and feel the warmth and comfort of her lap as she introduced me to the world of the written word.
Later, at primary school in Shanghai during the 1940s, Aunt Baba subscribed to a portable library run by an elderly, scholarly looking bookseller. His movable stall was in a public park that I visited on
my way to or from school. Tattered paperback kung fu novels were displayed on wooden racks resembling window shutters. For fifty cents, paid in advance by Aunt Baba, I could borrow five books per week.
The characters in these novels became more real to me than my family at home. They inspired me to write kung fu novels of my own, incorporating stories from my teachers and classmates; especially my best friend, Wu Chun-mei, who liked nothing better than going to the movies. Although I could never accept her invitations, she always entertained me with summaries of the films she had seen.
One of the movies she related from beginning to end was
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson. It was based on a true incident during World War II. Japan had invaded China and occupied many Chinese provinces along the coast. On 7 December 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. In retaliation, American planes carried out a bombing raid on four Japanese cities four months later. The US pilots flew on to China after the raid, planning to land in an area controlled by Chinese troops. Unfortunately, they ran out of fuel and some planes were forced to crash-land in Japanese-occupied territory. A few airmen were caught, but the
majority escaped into western China with the help of the local Chinese people.
I spent an entire weekend writing a novella based on that movie and titled it
The Ruptured Duck
. I remember getting up at dawn on Sunday morning in the dark in order to finish. I held a flashlight in my left hand while writing with my right so as not to disturb my aunt, who was still sleeping. When I finally scribbled ‘The End’ seventeen hours later, I was filled with a tremendous sense of accomplishment and euphoria. I told my aunt that I’d rather write than do anything else.
‘Why do you like it so much?’ Aunt Baba asked.
‘Because I’m free to say anything I wish and nobody can stop me. More than that, I write because I must! It drives away everything that makes me sad. I can invent my own world and make it a beautiful place.’
Back at school I showed
The Ruptured Duck
to Wu Chun-mei. She insisted on sharing it with everyone else. It thrilled me to see my writing being fought over by my classmates. My manuscript was passed from desk to desk until our teacher confiscated it.
After the publication of my first children’s book,
Chinese Cinderella
, I received many letters from
young readers asking for kung fu stories similar to the ones I used to write as a child.
This book is modelled on
The Ruptured Duck
. To my surprise, many of the feelings I had as a child-writer came back as I sat in front of my computer. My imagination transported me to the same magical land I used to roam as a ten-year-old where the rules were always fair and anything was possible.
Let me emphasize that the heroine CC is a fictional character whom I invented. Although there are similarities, this book is not an autobiography and CC is not me. CC never existed in real life. Unlike my mother, CC’s mother did not die in childbirth. CC was an only child whereas I had four brothers and two sisters. CC’s aunt lived separately in her own apartment. CC was a secret agent who was being trained in kung fu. I never had that privilege.
But now let’s roll back the clock and pretend you are Wu Chun-mei and I’m Yen Jun-ling. We are friends at Sheng Xin Primary School in Shanghai and I am showing you my latest story, inspired by the movie
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
. I’d love to know what you think of it! You can write a review and email it to me at
www.adelineyenmah.com
.
