Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 224

Last days in Wujiang Lu
Island School, Jain, Ravi – 12
A
stack of empty bags of flour lay on one side of our small stall, fluttering in the gentle breeze, secured in
place by metal weights. A small plastic fan for cooling hot food, decorated with oil stains, lay on the collapsible
table with cracked enamel coating. A red tarpaulin, once protecting food from the rays of sun, now waltzes
with the warm summer wind, only a short string holding it from flying out into the clear skyline of Shanghai.
Living in Wujiang Lu hasn’t been easy. Here in the inner belly of Old Shanghai, my father and I work day and night
serving xiao long bao, barely squeezing out a living. Many of us dream of the glamorous life that lies across the Huangpu
River along the Waitan , but I suppose I’m different. I like it here.
A wok lies abandoned in a corner along with porcelain plates with intricate patterns, now hardly visible after the
wear and tear of everyday abuse. All of a sudden, my father’s tired and husky voice calls for me from the back of the stall,
where I find him sitting on a red plastic chair, fiddling with a broken bamboo basket.
“Son,” my father says, coughing a little while adjusting his small, metal-rimmed glasses further up his nose. “Can you
carry these metal pots outside?”
“Sure!” I eagerly reply, taking the large shining pots outside, leaving behind a tingling melody of metal bumping into
tables and chairs, dampened by the pounding footsteps of pedestrians on a hurry. At one side of the stall sit two old men
on red collapsible chairs, shouting and laughing with each other. They start a game of Chinese chess, using pieces that
look as if they were carved from soap and a wrinkled piece of graph paper as a substitute for their long-lost board.
“Hey, I also heard there are some good public high schools nearby,” father says from the back of the food stall. “You
should study to get accepted.”
“But father,” I quickl