The New Tales of Old Shanghai
Ying Wa Primary School , Kwan , Chin Man – 10
I n the old days , Shanghai ’ s economy was less developed comparing with its nearby city Hong Kong . Some entrepreneurs who wanted to build up a more prosperous city invested huge amounts of money in promoting tourism . To this end , they thought of bringing in a theme park from overseas , which is called Shanghai Disneyland Park .
The person-in-charge of this important project was called Mr . Robertson . He wanted the theme park to be different to the one in Hong Kong so as to attract more tourists ; therefore he made a tremendous area in the theme park called Jurassic Park with many different kinds of dinosaurs ’ models in it . These models were specially made to be vivid that were able to communicate and interact with people as well as perform shows .
Thomas is a cheerful and curious boy who has devoted much time to understanding traditional Chinese culture since his last visit to Beijing . And coincidentally he was chosen by his English teacher to participate in a writing competition titled “ The New Tales of Old Shanghai ”, so he and his family took this opportunity to go there at once in the hope of exploring Shanghai . During the course of his trip , he discovered that the natural landscape of Old Shanghai was very fascinating and there were plenty of old buildings , to name a few , Tianzifang , the Xujiahui Catholic Cathedral , the Qibao Old Town , Dajing Ge and so forth . They are all very famous with beautiful scenery and have their own inside stories . Today was the third day of Thomas ’ trip in Shanghai , he and his family were going to the newly built modern tourist spot – Shanghai Disneyland Park . They spent most of the time in Jurassic Park to see how unique it was .
While they were watching dinosaurs performing show , all the dinosaurs suddenly came to life and went wild ! All kinds of dinosaurs such as Stegosaurus , Tyrannosaurus , Apatosaurus and Triceratops were stomping and flying everywhere . Thomas was frightened terribly , but out of curiosity , he followed the dinosaurs after shrinking into micro-sized by pressing a button on his watch . He saw the enormous dinosaurs damage everything . They were kicking the Former Residence of Sun Yat-sen and its statue ; holding the Old God ’ s Temple and playing with it ; stepping on the Yuyuan Garden and Old Shanghai Wall in the Old City . It ’ s sad to witness that only two short sections of Old Shanghai Wall were stayed intact . People on the other hand were running for their lives . The city was in chaos . Thomas was shocked by the huge destruction brought by the dinosaurs . It was really horrible . He wanted to stop them from further destroying the buildings in Old Shanghai but it appeared to be impossible to do it on his own because even though the military troops could do nothing for the time being .
“ Oh my goodness ! The Buddhist ’ s head in The Longhua Temple , an ancient building built in Ming Dynasty , was torn apart by a big swing of a dinosaur ’ s tail .” Thomas looked up and sighed .
While his mind was racing , he was almost stepped to death by a Tyrannosaurus . Luckily , at the very last moment , a man called Dr . Kwan spotted him and saved him from the dinosaur ’ s foot . Dr . Kwan immediately took Thomas back to his research base hidden under the city . The reason for it being underground was to avoid Mr . Robertson from discovering it . Dr . Kwan strongly believed that Thomas was wise and brave enough to help him sort out this disaster .
When they arrived at the research base , surprisingly Thomas found that it was located inside the Fairmont Peace Hotel near The Waitan Bund , Dr . Kwan asked Thomas , “ Why were you wandering around the dinosaurs ?”
Thomas explained the purpose of him coming over to Shanghai and how sad he was seeing the dinosaurs wrecking the valuable old buildings . Dr . Kwan told Thomas without hesitation that he was suspicious of Mr . Robertson ; hence he tracked him since the Disneyland project began . Reliable information proved that Mr . Robertson was indeed a genetic modification specialist . He has dedicated his life to scientific research . Dr . Kwan added , “ It was his first time to use his newly developed medicine on dinosaurs but accidentally he injected too much into them leading to the dinosaurs coming alive .” Unfortunately , Dr . Kwan got to know this too late , he did not even have any contingency plan yet ! Both of them now discussed all possible ways out of the current situation in the research base .