Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 12 | Page 277

The New Tales of Old Shanghai
Kingston International School, Looi, Isabella - 9
T
he teacher gave us an assignment to research on the development of cities in China, and to make a nice
poster of the city of our choice at the end of this writing project. Shanghai was assigned to my project, but
my problem is this, I have never been there, and I have no idea about Shanghai. This assignment annoyed me
because it is frustrating to write about something that I have no experience before. I wished I could have an easier
place like Hong Kong. I knew this will never happen to me.
On the night of my task, I went online to search for information on Shanghai. My Goodness!!! There were so
much information and I didn't know where to start and how to organised the information. This caused my head to
became heavy like my school bag. This made me drowsy and sleepy, which triggered a scolding from my mom
who thought I was being lazy. Silently, I responded to my mom, “this is not my fault. My head is making me
drowsy and sleepy”. Luckily, my mom cannot read my mind or she will scold me more for talking back or punish
me for that. Woof!
Just when I was being disconnected by my mind, I saw a shining thing that appeared out of nowhere. It was much
bigger than my father’s car. It looked like a spacecraft from the movies. I was very curious and scared. I entered the
spacecraft door and I was so nervous. There was a loud “Di Di Di” sound coming out from the inside of the
spacecraft. Suddenly, the door behind me slammed shut with a BANG!!!! And then it started to fly by itself.
Where am I going? Help!!!!
After 40 minutes of bumpy flying, the spacecraft finally landed,.The door opened automatically. I look outside
to see where am I. There was nothing familiar that i could recognise. I panicked!!! Where is this place? How can
I go back home?
Suddenly I heard a warm voice from outside. “Hello little pretty girl, my name is Lily. You don’t need to be
scared. This place is called Shanghai. Please come out. I want to show you around.
I took a peek outside. Lily have a beautiful face that was topped by a bunch of wild yellow coloured hair (that
reminded me of a dyed monster in a cartoon movie), and wearing a pretty pink dress (which is my favourite
colour).
The first place that Lily brought me to was the famous Shanghai bund. There were so many people buzzing
around the place, and the buildings were so interesting and pretty although they looked very old. I learnt later that
the various architectural styles are called gothic, baroque, and neoclassical. Please don’t ask me to tell you the
differences of the various styles because i still don’t know. All i know is they just look so spectacular and pretty.
In total, I counted 52 ones. It was like a “museum of buildings”. The buildings there was wonderful, there is so
much style that I can’t look them all in 5 minutes.
And then Lily and I went to Duolun Road, Lily said that there were a lot famous writers such as Lu Xun, Guo
Moruo, Mao Dun and other peoples. I felt tired and thirsty, and so did Lily, so we went to a old style Chinese tea
house , and we drank some tea. The tea house’s decorations and the costumes of the workers let me feel like I am
in 1900’s old shanghai. It was very quiet and peaceful inside there, and some relax music was playing in the
background. I felt relaxed and very comfortable.