Chinese Cinderella, Post A

The main cultural difference was the fact that during this time period, China was going through a civil war and the communists eventually won. In September 1948, Adeline’s father and Naing sent her to a boarding school to Shanghai, away from Adeline’s home in Tianjin. This was the opposite direction everyone else was going, because the communists had begun to take over Shanghai and everyone was desperately fleeing. Adeline learns all this news from a mom of a student at the boarding school, who said, “‘Haven’t they heard the Communists are winning the war? Soon PLA soldiers will be marching in from Manchuria. When they arrive they’ll probably arrest is capitalists along with the foreign sisters and put everybody in prison’” (129). I think that it was ridiculous that Naing and Adeline’s father would send her somewhere so dangerous.

Another cultural difference was the language differences in different parts of China. Adeline Spoke in a Shanghai dialect at home, while in Tianjin, everyone spoke Mandarin. Also at the boarding school, Adeline, along with the other few remaining students were only allowed to speak French or English, and English was a necessary thing to learn at every school Adeline went to. Lastly throughout the story you can see that there was not much technology used like phones, and there were few cars, but this could just be because of the time period too.