Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 3

Unbelievably, we were allocated to the commander’s ship, which was the biggest ship in the whole fleet, nine-masted,
417 feet long and 171 feet wide. We hurried to the harbour to take a look at the fleet and especially the commander’s
ship before it went dark. It looked magnificent! Admiring the fleet in sunset filled us with awe and for a moment, eased
us of the uneasiness and nervousness of spending time in an estranged era. We attended the banquet thrown by the
Emperor. Everybody was in high spirit at the banquet, clamorous, boisterous, rumbustious. There were some really
strange dishes but they were scrumptious and Eddy stuffed himself with a lot of Osmanthus jelly! I hope he won’t have
a stomachache later tonight! After the feast, we boarded the commander’s ship and Eddy and I got to have a cabin to
ourselves.
After checking our cabin, we headed out to the deck where the Admiral Zheng He was giving a speech to all crew
members. He was really tall – even taller than us – robust, sun-tanned. His demeanour emanated confidence and
authority. Surely he is a man who has been through tumultuous times. He feels invincible. Does he really need our
help? Will we be able to accomplish what we are tasked with?
The ship was full of untrained men, so Admiral Zheng told every person on the ship to be ready for the hardship in the
coming 6 months. In other words, it meant that we would have to undergo serious military training for 6 months.
Urgh, the equipment was so out of fashion. In our generation, a pocket-size laser pointer is enough to send every soul
on the ship to hell! What a waste of time! :<
It’s late already, I have to be ready for the training tomorrow. Good Night!
15 July 1405
Saturday
We’ve been through a few days of training and my limbs feel like lead. I wanted to escape from the ship, but it was just
a wild imagination hovering over the vast ocean. I wish I had brought them the Anywhere Door, which I purchased a
few months ago. How unthoughtful!
I shan’t dwell on fruitless thoughts and useless groans. I have encountered some urgent issues.
First of all, the intensity of the military training is too much for teens like us. We have to practise for 12 hours a day.
200 sit-ups and push-ups are the basics. And not to mention we have to lift a 20 lbs gun and learn to operate a cannon.
Every day after the training, we are so exhausted as if we are going to die, only our soul survived in this torment. Thank
god that today is a day off!! And we could walk around the ship. But we got to regenerate our physical strength before
Monday, which is the start of another rigorous training week.
Secondly, the difference between old Cantonese and Cantonese nowadays is astounding. It’s easy to spot you are not a
native Ming Dynasty person cause the phonological differences are too noticeable. Also, there are many obsolete words
and expressions which we have no idea what they mean. I am afraid of being spotted and picked on when our
peculiarity catches attention, and worse, being seen as spies or as a potential threat. We try to speak as little as possible,
and we mumble if we need to reply to anyone. But there’s gonna be one time when we’ll need to speak.
Hope these issues can be solved perfectly. At least find a solution for that?
29 October 1405
Sunday
After sailing for a few months, it seems that the phrase ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ is true. We finally figured out
how to solve the problems.
We thought that the intensity of military training is outrageous. But after training for a few months, we are acclimatising
to it so the daily training is becoming easier to cope with. It’s obvious that our stamina has grown, so doing a few
hundred sit-ups and push-ups is no longer a difficult task.
Regarding the problem with language, we finally figured out that the main difference between their Cantonese and
Cantonese nowadays are the ambiguity of tones. As you know, Cantonese has 6 tones, but the tone no.1 and no.4 are
reversed in the language. That’s mean the word poem which is read as ‘si1’ in Cantonese nowadays should be read as
‘si4’ in the old Cantonese, which meant ‘time’, vice versa. That means we only have to interchange tone 1 and 4 to
sound like them. And we have acquired a lot of vocabulary by listening to the people around us. So we need not be
afraid of being discovered as strangers to the land.