Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 12 | Page 414

The New Tales of Old Shanghai
Singapore International School (Hong Kong), Cheng, Yi Shien – 11
I
am lost.
It should have been easy. It should have been hard. It should have been white. And it should have been
black. The way the white, seemingly empty space fills up with its elegant purity, and leads somehow the way into
the darkness in my heart. Because the white defines the black, the way light defines darkness, the way rich defines
poverty. It is yin and yang all over again in my mind, the way life dances and parts with death.
I am plunged in darkness, bathed in warm trickles of depression. There will be no salvation. Scars run deep
down my timid figure. Scars that will never heal. Not that it will matter.
I am strongest in the bitter wind of isolation.
Once found standing under the glaring light of a spotlight. When one is a beautiful woman, they are used.
Despite being rich. Intelligent. Capable of interfering in an international trade. All my life, I’ve been summoned to
three words.
Pain is good.
I don’t want pity. I don’t want to beg for mercy, beg for help. To be helpless, to lay my pride on the floor.
I am weak, weaker than weak in the warmth of empathy.
Bow down to men. Show respect to people who deserve none. Receive directions from the less capable.
All my life, I’ve been living soullessly. There is no reason to live, when I am living this life.
The life of a woman.
I let my hands reach out, as they grasp for twirling snowflakes. And the cold embraces me, a mother to its
child. I am naked in this snow. I am bare, a beggar, but I dress in a mask before exposing myself to this world. I
used to wear real masks, burying myself in luxuries. Now, I wear true masks on my face, the ones engraved by age
into my skin. No makeup, no luxury, no trace of the past here.
This is old shanghai, my home. Though, I have forgotten what it means to have a home. I have forgotten
what it means to feel free. I am trapped, trapped in the wings of freedom. I fly in my mind with thoughts, as my
footsteps rise with momentum.
My feet sink into the snow, and dusk sweeps in with a gale. The fragile, graceful snowflakes are dancing in
the wind. I pass by a street, streamed with a line of shops. Filled in the shops are customers, all wealthy ones. The
only thing that separates them from the unrelenting hand of bitter coldness is the panel of glass.
Glass. Twelve panels. The only separation between warmth and cold. The only difference between poverty
and wealth. The only thin line between dream and reality. The way I can never have any profound effect on
anything, as if there were panels of glass between me and my life.
I will face myself, and find a way to break through the glass. I have to.