A Tale of Old Shanghai
S . K . H . St . Peter ' s Primary School , Ng , Paco – 10
Ican help you !” said Alex . “ No ! You are too young for me ! I will let you help me when you are old enough !” said Dad . “ For you , huh ? Why do I need to listen to you ?” said Alex . “ If you want to help me , make a million dollars alone in Shanghai . Can you ? Come back if you can !” said Dad . Once upon a time , there was a rich family in France . There was Alex and Alex ’ s dad . Alex ’ s mum died in an accident . Alex was smart and he wanted to help his dad So he ran to Shanghai . Shanghai was very strange for him , because he was from France . It was lucky for him because many of the shop ’ s products been had translated to French . Alex found a job very quickly , the job was selling buns with Aqiang . Aqiang hired him because he wanted to sell his buns to French people , not only Shanghai people . “ BBQ pork buns ! Very cheap ! Only 5 cents !” They worked together happily . One day , the oven broke suddenly . They had no money to fix it because they just bought a new set of tables and chairs to serve customers . They didn ’ t know what to do to get money to hire someone to fix it . Alex went do a lot of part-time job for money to fix it . He did everything for money . He became a salesman , a driver , and more . He didn ’ t sleep for a few days . He finally earned enough money to get it fixed . Unfortunately , the fixer was a scammer . They lost most of their money . They were sad . They cried on the street . “ We can make the money again ! Can we ?” said Alex . “ Yes ! We can !” said Aqiang . They thought why not to sell some pork ? Everyone in Shanghai liked to eat pork ! They bought some pork from the money that Alex earned . They put the oven and tables out . They decorated the shop like a butcher ’ s shop so it looked professional . They earned a lot of money and tried to sell pork and buns at the same shop . It became famous of this design , so many people including French and Shanghainese came . They hired a lot of helpers because both Aqiang and Alex were so busy and it was still not enough to handle all of the customers . Since they earned so much money , they thought opening more shops was a good idea . This made their shop earn more money than only one shop . He bought a lot of shops and sold his buns everywhere in Shanghai . They earned a lot of money . They did this again and again . He built a factory using his ‘ pouch ’ of money . He helped a lot of poor people by giving them buns and cooked pork . Alex and Aqiang were famous at Shanghai . His business got bigger , bigger , and bigger . They started to do a lot more business , such as selling clothes , houses , etc . After that , they thought only selling things in Shanghai was not enough . They went to France and look for possible shops . They met Alex ’ s dad on the street . His dad asked him how Alex was doing in Shanghai . He was surprised at his reply . Alex reply , ” I am looking pretty good , you know ? I ’ m having a wonderful life with a bunch of money .” They saw a nice shop and bought it . It was surprising because of French were curious about the buns . They bought one and tried it . They said that it was yummy and they would bought some next time . They did the same thing in the rest of France , but there was one thing different , that was Alex and Aqiang didn ’ t want to sell pork in France because if the pork was transported from Shanghai , it would not be fresh and they didn ’ t want any people to eat non-fresh pork . They surprised Alex ’ s dad because he did what he asked . As the time passed , Alex and Aqiang became the best friend ever and got richer and richer .