This safe haven affords Adeline the opportunity to win a writing contest and eventually attend medical school in England. When Mao’s communist revolution proves a success, the family escapes expected persecution by fleeing to Hong Kong. While away at school, she receives exactly one visit from her father. Not long afterward, she is sent away to school and things go from bad to worse when she falls so ill that she nearly dies. One day Adeline receives a beating simply because friends stopped by to visit. The relationship suffers all the more when Adeline interferes with a beating she is giving her biological daughter Susan.Īdeline’s Aunt Baba is mercifully kinder to her than is Niang the stepmother, the suffering begins to extends to everyone due to the new wife’s almost obsessive need to control the family finances. Like something out of a Western fairy tale, Adeline’s childhood is stolen away and replaced by a stepmother who-while not evil-is most definitely not Carol Brady. The remarriage was a direct result of the intense grief experienced by her father after losing his wife.

When Joseph Yen Tse-Rung remarries, his new wife decides to change the names of the children he brought into the marriage and so Jun-Ling becomes Adeline. In 1937 in China, a little girl named Jun-Ling is born and shortly thereafter her mother dies. Written by Timothy Sexton, siddhant jain and other people who wish to remain anonymous We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

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