Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen-Mah

As a daughter in a Chinese family, Adeline Yen has been left out by her family in most occasion. And what’s more, she was born in the 1930’s and at that time Chinese girls still bind their foot (at that time, men find women with small feet attractive and they are considered marriagable) and sons are most prized in Chinese families. As such, the females are often deprieved of higher education compared to their male counterpart.

Adeline’s mother died when she gave birth to her. Because of this fact, her family began to shun her and think of her as bad luck and her father married a woman much younger than him (it was a common practice those days for men of high ranking to have concubines). The woman in question was Jeane Proseperi who’s of French descent (French dad, Chinese mom). She was referred to as Niang (another term for mother in Chinese) by Adeline and her siblings…and yes, she’s the classic evil stepmother as you have read in storybooks.  

Fortunately for her, her Aunt Baba (her father’s sister) is kind to her and constantly nurture her and to Adeline, her Aunt Baba is the kind of mother that she never had and was her role model even to this day. She kept Adeline’s report cards and whenever Adeline’s down (thanks to Niang), she will brought out those report cards to remind her of her great achievements. Mind you, Adeline’s one of the brightest in the Yen family. She even won an English essay competition or some sort and won a scholarship to further her studies in London. And yes, she’s fluent in English as a primary school kid in Shanghai. Her other role model was her Grand Aunt whom she called Gong Gong.

As a child, her Gong Gong rebelled against her father when she was to bind her feet like every other Chinese girls at that time. Her rebellion proved to be a success and her feet were never binded. And few years down the road, she became one of the most successful banker in Shanghai and she bacame the president of Shanghai’s Women’s Bank which she founded in 1924. And that was why she was referred to as Gong Gong rather than Grand Aunt.

Her childhood wasn’t a happy one. She had live under Niang’s “dictatorship”, war and even betrayals by her close ones and this well-written memoir that she authored tells it all. This memoir describes Adeline’s hardships and how she overcome it all even when there seem to be no hope at all. Read on, to know the real meaning behind the term Falling leaves or Luo ye gui gen in Chinese.

P.S: I’m one of those “bananas” and I’m not very familiar with Chinese terms. The Chinese terms mentioned above are from the book itself.

Note: Adeline Yen-Mah is now a physician and author now living in the States. For more info, click HERE.

The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

Completed the book yesterday…finally!!!! Was on the way to work and seeing that the journey to work takes about 20 mins, I might as well read. So anyways, here’s the gist of what the story is all about.

Basically, a widow whose husband has died of lung cancer and she’s filing a lawsuit against a tobacco company for supposedly causing his untimely death and this Rohr guy who represents the tobacco company is doing whatever he can to win the case even if it means going as far as bribing or plotting a conspiracy against the members of the jury to get their vote in the favour of the tobacco company. Then comes a certain Nicholas Easter who skillfully worm his way into becoming one of the member of the jury. In the beginning of the story, one would assume that he’s just a charming ex-law student who for some reason is trying to gain the confidence and trust of his fellow jury members. Little did they know, he’s working with his girlfriend, Millie-something holding the juries’ votes “hostage”. Rohr was to give him this sum of money given a period of time or else Easter will sway the juries’ votes to the opposing side. Desperate to win the case, Rohr paid some million dollars to Millie and unbeknownst to him, both of her parents had died from lung cancer several years ago from smoking; that simply means Rohr’s been screwed, if you get what I mean.

My thoughts:
Yes, smoking is the main contributer of lung cancer but in the end it’s the consumer’s choice of whether to smoke or not and if one choses to smoke, he/she will have to live with the consequences later on. And regarding the tobacco company that promotes smoking - it’s just business and to inform teens about the consequences of smoking, it should start from school level…but I have to admit that so far, I doubt that it’s even working at all as we can all see teens these days smoking a cigar. But really, smoking is bad for your health and like the government says, say TAK NAK to smoking and you will probably live a longer life.