Adeline Yen Mah’s Chinese Cinderella was a deserved best-seller, telling an emotional story of a girl’s lonely childhood in a family and society that did not want her. 

Her follow-up story is an unusual choice as a sequel.  Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society is not the next episode in her real life, but a novel based on stories she wrote as a child to escape her loneliness.  

So, once that expectation is understood, you can settle down to a very interesting kung fu adventure during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in World War 2. 

A girl is thrown out of her home by a jealous stepmother, is taken in by a kung fu school of multi-national teenagers, goes on secret missions to defy the Japanese invaders and rescues captured US airmen.  The story itself reflects the day-dreams of a young girl whose real life was the poor, rejected Chinese Cinderella. 

But it is the background that is really fascinating.  Shanghai, at this time, was one of the most multicultural cities in the world.  Japanese invaders mixed with Jewish and Russian refugees, European traders, sailors and drifters from all around the world, and kung fu academies and secret societies certainly flourished in the local Chinese population. 

Doolittle’s 1942 bombing attack on Tokyo certainly happened, and the aircrews had to crash land and try and escape in China.  The struggle of everyday life for the Chinese under military rule is also clearly described, even when it comes to massacres and repression.  All these elements come into the story and, while the actual events might be a little predictable, the scenery certainly brings depth and detail. 

Stories can often give a better impression of history than the dry description of facts.  That is the case in “The Secret Dragon Society” – it may not be the greatest story ever told, but it is definitely one of the most fascinating worlds.

Review by David Beagley

© 2004 David Beagley