Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 2 -1 2019 | Page 191

Diary of an Explorer
Kingston International School, Chan, Venus – 8
One day, I was in my grandma's attic, finding things to do. Then, I found a small book.
On the cover, it said, <<鄭和的日記>>. Translated, it says “Zheng He’s Diary”. This
book was Zheng He’s, the captain of the “Ming Treasure Voyages”? I decided to read it.
I translated it from Chinese to English.
……………………………………………………………………………..
1405 June 19
The Emperor of China made me the leader of the “Ming Treasure Voyages”! It
happened this morning. I was asleep, and there was a knock at my door. I opened it, and
there was a messenger at my front door. The messenger told me: “You, ‘Zheng He’, has
been selected to be a captain of the ‘Ming Treasure Voyages’, by the emperor, ”. I was
like, “Sure!” (The “Ming Treasure Voyages” is about exploring the world.)
1405 June 20th
So, I guess I’m in charge of having a trade between countries. I’ve decided to go
next week. I brought a boat called “Bao Chuan”. But first, I need to pack stuff to go on
our trip. Cannons? Maybe I’ll decide tomorrow…... We also brought presents from the
Emperor, like silk. We need to prepare items to go on this trip. These are called the
“Ming Treasure Voyages”. We have military forces and weapons, in case of attacks.
1405 June 29th
Today, we visited this place called “Frosty Island”. What did they had? Ice, silk,
and food. (The food was mainly frozen eggs.) They also wanted to make peace, so we
traded items. We gave them gold, and they gave us silk. We decided to stay at “Frosty
Island” and then go somewhere else tomorrow.
1405 September 30th
3 Months Later
We’ve been drifting in the sea for 3 months. We are in this place called “Kinda
Amazing Island”. When we arrived, they started shooting arrows at us! We told them
why we were here, but they ignored us and kept on shooting arrows. So we had to shoot
bombs from our cannons, too. We called a truce, and traded items.