Sunday, October 14, 2007

Outside Reading Homework Section #4 Part 2

Chinese Cinderella

Summary
Adeline's friend, Wu Chun-mei, had been bugging her and wanting her to come over to her house for a long time, so finally she agreed to go over to her house for her birthday party on a special school holiday. Adeline wanted to do it then because she knew that she wasn't allowed to go to friends houses at all, so if Niang thought that she was just going to school like any other day, then she would get away with it. So Adeline went to her house on that Tuesday, and while she was there, they were about to have lunch, so she said that she was supposed to go home for lunch instead of eating there (since she always went home lately because the school can't afford food due to no more rations from America). She went home and she was a little to early and Niang was in her room when she got there, Niang asked her why she was home so early and she replied saying that they got let out of class early, then Niang asked her what she had in her pocket (Adeline had been flipping a silver dollar coin in her hand in her pocket) and she said nothing, so Niang grabbed it and got really mad. She claimed that she had stolen it or that her aunt had given it to her and spoiled her too much, and she didn't like that very much, Adeline didn't tell her that aunt Baba had given it to her in award for her stellar grades and performance in school. Then Wu called her house, since Adeline had absentmindedly given her house number to her earlier, and so found out that Adeline had been at a party and that there was no school that day because of a special holiday, so she made Adeline stay home after that and when her father got home, she got whipped by him with the dog's whip. Adeline was told by her parents that she was going to be moved to Tianjin away from them in Shanghai and to a school. She was very sad and disappointed with herself because she was sure that she would never see her friends ever again, and she would not probably see her aunt Baba for a long time if ever again. She flew to Tianjin with her father and Niang, and while they were on the flight, her father had to fill out a card for her to be on the plane, and he needed help because he had forgotten her name (HIS OWN DAUGHTER'S NAME!!!!!) and her birthday, she obviously knew her name, but she didn't know her birthday, because since she was a step child, her birthday was not celebrated, let alone acknowledged. Then they arrived in Tianjin and they dropped off Adeline at her boarding school. There were very few children because a different dynasty was taking control of China bit by bit, and Tianjin was soon to be on their map, and therefore all of the residents in the areas and towns that they were taking over were being persecuted or imprisoned. Pretty soon, all of the other children at this boarding school had been brought home by their parents and most likely moved away, and so Adeline was the only person there except for the sisters (nuns). One day Adeline was playing outside of the school throwing a ball up against a wall trying to get it to go as far as she could through it up, when Mother Marie said that her ant had come to get her and bring her to hong Kong the following week. Adeline was so excited that aunt Baba had finally come to get her, but when she got to the front door, it was not aunt Baba. This lady was her aunt from Niang's side, Niang's sister. So she brought Adeline to a place where they were to stay until they left for Hong Kong next week. The lady was really nice Adeline thought and she had two kids, a daughter of age 9, and a son of age 10. Adeline asked her if Niang knew that she had gotten her out of the boarding school, and she said no, that she hadn't had the chance to get a hold of her at all. Adeline was so afraid of what Naing might do when she saw her, she couldn't think of anything worse than going back to her family. They didn't want her anyways.

2 comments:

carly said...

week 5: we are reading the same book! good job on the summaries, they're really detailed. i don't really know what you could improve on because its really good!

carly

Kelsey said...

Week 5: I think your doing well, and your summaries are really detailed. I just got a little confused on one part about the whole silver coin thing? how did she get the silver coin?