This is the story of a Chinese woman who suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong in the 40s and 50s, and of its consequences in her adult life. Above which she rose to make a happy marriage and become an extremely successful doctor and business woman in the USA. It is also a story about Hong Kong: of middle-class life at the time of the European concessions and thereafter.
When Adeline Yen Mah's mother died giving birth to her, the family considered Adeline bad luck and she was made to feel unwanted all her life. Chinese Cinderella is the true story of her struggle for acceptance and how she overcome the odds to prove her worth.