Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter

Q: I have read that you spent four years writing this book, and I understand that the process triggered a flood of painful memories. Do you feel better now that the book is finished?

A: I was still a practicing physician in California when I started writing. Between work and writing, I was really busy all the time. There was a hurried quality to what I wrote then, and I often got interrupted. After a couple years of that routine, I realized that I would have to retire if I wanted to write the book properly. So I quit my medical practice, which was going quite well, and started writing full time.

After quitting my practice, I was surprised to find that the more I wrote, the happier I felt. My chronic insomnia went away, and I just kept sleeping better and better. I think it's because I was finally saying things that I had wanted to get off my chest all my life. I'm almost 62, but I feel much younger than before. These have been the happiest years of my life.

Q: Why did you write this book? And why did you choose to write it first in English before rewriting it in Chinese? Are there any differences between the English and Chinese versions?

A: Actually, I had thought about writing it a long time ago, but I didn't have the courage. I thought about it several times when I was in my 30s and 40s, but I just couldn't do it. Both my parents were still alive back then, and I guess I didn't want to offend them. Once they passed away, though, the writing flowed easily, and in fact, I felt compelled to write.

As for writing in English, from the age of 20 my mother (stepmother) never spoke to me in anything but English, so the decision to write in English was quite natural. Still, Chinese is my preferred tongue, and I wrote the Chinese version myself. I'm Chinese, after all, and Chinese is the language I spoke as a child. When I write in Chinese, my childhood feelings and memories come back to me very freely.

Q: You have written that that being unloved, ignored, and abused as a child spurred you to study all the harder at school to prove your worth. But did your childhood experiences have any adverse effect upon you as well? Your first love ended unhappily, as did your first marriage. Did your childhood experiences have a bearing upon these later episodes in your life?

A: My childhood left me with a terrible inferiority complex. They said I was ugly and good for nothing, and I was convinced that no one in this world could possibly like me.

I was very much in love with my first boyfriend, but he was just stringing me along the whole seven years we were together. He never had any intention of marrying me. That made me feel all the more worthless. In New York, when I met my first husband, I knew I didn't love him, but he asked me marry him, so I did. I had never imagined that he would beat our child. I despised him for that, and the marriage naturally failed.

Q: You have said that you looked upon the last wills of your father and mother as a test of whether they had ever really loved you, and you were disappointed each time. Why did you attach so much importance to your parents' wills?

A: Being beaten, cursed, and abused are not the worst things that can happen to a child. The most painful thing of all is to be treated unfairly. If no one in your family has any apples to eat, that's no cause for emotional trauma, but if everyone but you has an apple, then you feel hurt.

All my life I just wanted to be treated fairly, but my stepmother left my share of the family estate to my oldest sister. She did it deliberately to hurt me, and to goad me into suing them. I didn't actually end up suing anybody, but the will showed that they never accepted me, and I'll never have another opportunity to explain anything to them. That is my greatest regret of all.

Q: Did you expect Falling Leaves to be so successful? Why do you think it has turned out to be so popular? Have there been any differences in the reactions of Chinese and non-Chinese readers?

A: I hadn't expected the book to do so well, and in fact, I had a very difficult time finding a publisher. I finally found a British firm that was willing to do it, but the editor told me that even though he liked the book, it was not likely to be a big seller. He said he would be happy if it sold 3,000 copies. I never imagined that it would sell over a million.

I think it has done well because anyone who reads it can clearly see that it's a true story. Chinese and non-Chinese readers have reacted differently in some ways though. Non-Chinese readers who write to me all offer encouragement and support. I have even gotten letters from teenage girls, which was quite surprising at first, because I couldn't imagine why children so young would be interested in such a book. But when I got to thinking about it, I realized that maybe it was because they didn't have anyone else to tell their troubles to. A lot of Chinese readers have also written to offer support, of course, but I also got one or two letters from people who felt like I shouldn't be airing my family's dirty linen in public.

We Chinese have always been afraid to say what's really on our minds, and that's especially true of Chinese women. You could say that Falling Leaves is a "women's book" that finally got somebody's thoughts out into the open.

Q: People naturally make comparisons between Falling Leaves and other books written in English by women of Chinese background, such as Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, and Wild Swans by Jung Chang. Have you read those books? If so, have they influenced your own writing in any way?

A: Yes, I've read them. I thought Wild Swans and Joy Luck Club were fantastic, but my situation is different from Amy Tan's. She's basically American, but I'm still Chinese, and our relationships with our mothers were totally different.

I'm a big fan of Chang Ai-ling's novels. You can tell when you're reading them that they were written by a woman, and I have been influenced a lot by her writing.

Q: I understand that your family was upset by your book.

A: Publishing an autobiography inevitably leads to two results. One is that the writer feels very happy. Psychologists say that writing down your unhappy experiences takes a load off your mind, even if you're not writing for anyone else to read. The other result is that your family will definitely not be happy, and the more successful your writing is, the more upset they will be.

I'm not trying to profit from my family's story. I'm donating all the royalties from this book to Stanford University to fund scholarships for people to study Chinese in China.

My entire motivation for writing this book was to get my anger off my chest. A reader described my book as a long, piercing scream from an unloved little girl. Well, now that I've finished screaming I feel much better.

Q: Do you plan to write anything else now?

A: My second book, Cinderella, has been published in Britain. It's about my life up to age 14. It's a children's book. I'm also getting ready to write a third book. It's an introduction to Chinese culture, history, and philosophy, intended for Western readers. I think that friendship between China and the West requires mutual under-standing, and I'd like to make a contribution in this area.

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Adeline Yen Mah was born in Tianjin and raised in Shanghai before she escaped to Hong Kong. She received a degree in medicine from the University of London before moving to the US in 1964 and establishing a medical practice in California. Mah retired in 1997 to devote herself to the writing of Falling Leaves, which brought her instant international fame.

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Adeline's stepmother (whom she calls "mother") and her tycoon father, Yen Hsi-jung.

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Mah doesn't have many family pictures from her youth. She is shown here with her brothers and sisters. Adeline is on the right.