Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Book

Falling Leaves is an extremely well-written Autobiography by Adeline Yen Mah. By far one of the best I have read recently BUT before you rush out and add it to your TBR, please be warned, it is as depressing as hell.

Adeline recounts her life from her birth in 1937, she was born in Tianjin, China. A quick mathematical calculation, and yes, that made her four years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and made WWII a real-world war. The Japanese flooded into China soon after and remained until they surrendered after the bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The withdrawal of Japanese troops only opened up China to oppressing civil wars between the Governing body and the Communists until eventually, the Communists won out and so began the reign of Communist China.

Adeline is the youngest of five children, three boys and two girls to her father and mother, his first wife. Taking on the family business with his own father meant that the family became quite successful, somewhat wealthy and owning several properties. Neither the Japanese military nor the Communist Chinese powers liked the fact that he had such wealth at he was forced to flee. After Adeline's Mother died her Father met and married a younger woman with whom he became besotted and she became stepmother to the five children. She also gave birth to two children of her own and Adeline was no longer the youngest, now having a half Brother and half Sister.

What takes place in Adeline's life and that of her immediate family is an absolute mess. The book closes around the end of the twentieth century, around the time Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese by the British Government - July 1st 1997.

The book reads like a suspenseful fictional novel as the family falls apart due to jealousies, betrayals and cold-heartedness only to rejoin in small factions to fight one another. These factions then split again as mistrust is replaced by power hunger and materialism. And just like the best suspense novel, there is a cliff-hanging act of devastating betrayal right at the end, that you won't see coming.

As the family splits, Brothers and Sisters are flung far and wide in pursuit of wealth and education, with dire hopes of happiness and independence but are always under control in some way or another. As China plunges into chaos and Hong Kong opens as a destiny for many there is a terminal split within the family and members fly to London, Nigeria, Canada, Stuttgart and the U.S.A. Feuds last for decades, anger and accusations become commonplace yet Adeline is left striving to one day bring her family back together.

If it is not enough that she must live her life within such a badly fractured family, Adeline also has to tend with personal problems on her own home front. All of this with the backdrop of WWII, the British handover of Hong Kong, the Mao Dynasty and Tiananmen Square. I said before that this is a depressing read but it is truly remarkable and very much worth it. Perhaps some of us don't really know how lucky we have it.