Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 | Page 164

My Voyage
Korean International School, Wong, Adrian - 13
My name is Huang and I am going to tell you about my voyage in early China. I was excited to be on the
ship on 14 July 1405, led by the sailors and captains on the fleet of Admiral Zheng He, I received $1000
from the sailors because I will be servicing the fleet, so I gave the cash to my mum and she bid farewell me.
I need to admit, there were lots of citizens of Nanjing and all came to watch us leave the port, lots of young
sailors as the same age as me cried as we sailed out of the port. Now, off the unknown regions, we go …
The first few days in the sea was quite fine, my job was cleaning the deck of a small ship and
prepare the dishes for the sailors, on the third day, I was sent to the flagship of the fleet to meet the Captain,
the Captain appeared as a mannered man, he said that he’s called Zheng He, and he promoted me as a
captain of a small ship. Which was a dream to some of the sailors! Some sailors started to get homesick after
a week on the fleet, I went to them and said are they ok. But one sailor said he wants to go back home. So I
asked his name, he said that his name was Ran. So I told him ‘Don’t be afraid of the sea, I can be your
friend!’ So he accepted my friend request and always came to the captain’s room to have tea with me.
A week past by, we have visited Fu Chau and Guangzhou and now we still don’t see any land. Yesterday
there was a huge storm and we lost a few ships from our fleet, but it was not a really big matter because
there were no casualties. Finally today we saw land(Taiwan), everyone was excited about it, all the crew
fitted into small boats, some men were very excited, they even ran to the beach from water bare feet! As
soon as that, we met some original inhabitants from the island, they gave us fruits as they were very good at
growing crops, so we gave back items such as silk and pottery, which our country is good at production at.
Then I followed Zheng He to lots of countries, including Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaya. The people
there welcomed us and gave us gifts, but on the fifth leg of the journey, we got attacked by the Maldives
island residence, although they used bows and arrows, it made our fleet of small boats cause heavy damage,
so the Admiral told us to retreat. This visit to the Maldives Islands did lots of damage, in 317 ships, near 30
were destroyed, around 90 were damaged, we lost around 200 men. Which we are very sad of, so Zheng
He tried to negotiate with them, this time, Zheng He lead men with no weapons so that the residence on
the island will not misunderstand us. So this time the leader of the islanders made peace with us and gave
their shells, seaweed etc. And we also gave them the pottery stuff like that. And we traveled to the next
destination.
Our last destination is Calicut, currently, which is in India, the Indians have different skin colours than us, so
some of the sailors are scared of the native people, but the people over there welcomed us on the island and
gave us fruits such as mango, apricots, papayas. As you know, we gave gold and they gave us a giraffe, which
is too tall that it must be on the deck of the flagship. After we went to India, we start to return to China.
During the return leg of the journey, there was an extremely big storm, I said to the Admiral: ‘We must stop
to the nearest island to stop to repair our ships’. So then Zheng He told all ship captains to reverse and head
to Malaya, when the storm ended, we checked our ships, we lost many ships again, we lost around 50 ships
this time and 300 men. Zheng he immediately told us using a full speed back to Nanjing. We were riding
the wind and breaking the waves, after 3 days of that ride which made crew throw-out, which seems more
like a roller coaster, we finally arrived in Nanjing.
And again, lots of citizens came and watch us arrived. People were cheering for us while we were
disembarking, a small escort army came and told Zheng He that the emperor wants to see him now, so I ask
him do I need to come with him. He said he can deal with the emperor, and I can go home and look after
my mother. After I went back to my village, I finally exhausted, ‘Back to home, finally’ i thought. My
mother was extremely excited, she called the entire village and bought lots of expensive food for us to
enjoy, all the village had a great time enjoying the party. Around 1 year later, when I was cooking, I heard a
knock on the door, it sounds very urgent, so I went to the door, and at the door, there was a little child, he
gave me a letter, it said: ”Hi Huang, how is it going? I am having a second voyage, and I want to invite you
to be a middle-class captain of my fleet, if you want to join, then come to Nanjing Port on 15 Feb 1426!
Zheng He. ”I was so excited about going on a voyage with Zheng He again. I told my mum that I am
going to be out to have a voyage, she said a yes and I immediately went to the port. Then I chatted with
Zheng He for a while, boarded my medium class vessel. And now, another amazing, magical, mysterious
journey of mine has just begun, and I hope I will survive this voyage to the unknown countries of the
earth...