Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 642

New Tales of the Ming Treasure Voayages
St. Paul's Convent School (Secondary Section), Leung, Cherian Tin Mei - 16
4:45AM 5 th January, 2026
Foshan, China
“Come on Sha-Sha, we’re running late!” My mother was being extra pushy this morning, and I couldn’t
tell whether it was the excitement or the anxiousness of moving to another city, or maybe, it was both.
I flew from my room out the door, and my mother was mumbling about rushing to pick my grandparents
up as my father slammed the creaky wooden door shut before I could take one final look at the place I’ve
called home for fifteen years.
This tiny little hut on the tip of a hill, where paint peeled from walls and decayed plastic exposed the rusted
sewage pipes, where the back was a mud path hardly noticeable under the wild weeds and ferns extending to
a broad farmland, had been my whole life for the past decade. I remember my father working long hours in
the farm, sowing and harvesting as a skilled farmer should be, but it was also a quarter of land left idly to sit
in the sun when my father earned a job at the factory, and I know deep inside that it was going to be even
more desolate after we leave. I would really say this was an aspired tranquillity though, a longed liberation
from the city so delayed without our leaving in search of outside treasures. It was time, time for my father to
work in the advanced prosperity of a city of dreams, time for my grandparents to receive the healthcare they
deserve, and time for me to breathe beyond the stifling air cleared by the fragrance of books and furnished
classrooms of polished tables.
I hopped into my father’s worn-out truck, eager to ditch the cramped seats barely held together by prickly
wooden planks. I was used to long car rides- it took an hour to get to the city from home, and with every
metre came the feeling of nausea, but this time I quite look forward to the ride, for the imagination that the
bus after the interchange would be rather comfortable, its leather chairs much too spacious to sit one person.
If I could only bear the pleasure that for the days and years in my future, I would be offered these luxurious
seats, all in the promising land of Hong Kong…
7:20AM 5 th January, 2026
Shenzhen, China
I had been so jittery all morning my heartbeat feels like a flutter in my chest. It was my first day going to
work in Hong Kong, and I woke up extra early to make sure I had enough time to go through customs.
“Yang Xue-qin,” I said as I handed my two-way permit to the customs officer. No, remember, it’s Joseph
Yang, I thought to myself, this is how I need to introduce myself to my colleagues later on. Throughout the
years I have heard countless stories of people being more welcomed because they presented themselves as
more internationally cultivated rather than being Chinese-based, and as much as I got this from a random
name generator, I knew I had to embrace this culture if I were to work in a foreign place regardless of it
being close to home, and getting used to an English name would probably help in this department. Still, I
know it won’t be long before I make myself comfortable in the cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong, especially
with the help of my mentor, formerly a senior manager at the corporation back at home in Shenzhen, who
had come a few years ago to start his own business. He was a talented man, and his firm had expanded so
quickly in the finance industry I was tempted to have my share in the market Hong Kong has for both
mainland China and internationally.
Ever since Shenzhen and Hong Kong have been named as areas of the Greater Bay Area, where parts of
China cooperate in developing their economic and social potentials, more and more people have moved to
other parts of the country or shifted from their previous jobs in the hopes of having a more promising future.
Property prices have been on the rise throughout China, and inflation has bothered the lives of many, and it
is more than important for the younger generation to be upwardly mobile. The flow of capital in the Greater
Bay Area now is larger than ever, and the possibilities this has opened up are endless. I have always wanted to
not just earn a living, but to have a career in finance, and here I am today, going to work in the city of my
dreams. Who knows? Maybe in several years I would have saved enough to open my own finance company,
and thrive to eventually become the man in pyjamas that the men in suits work for.