Playtimes HK Magazine September 2018 Issue | Page 25

judges during this academic year. Over 100 top entries
will be published in an anthology and recognised at our
awards ceremony in March 2019.
Every school in Hong Kong has been sent an
invitation to register, so please get in touch with
your English teacher to make sure your school can be
involved this year!
Playtimes is thrilled to sponsor the awards for
Different Learning Abilities. We can’t wait to review
this year’s exceptional and innovative submissions!
New Tales of the Ming Treasure Voages
Pirates usually travel the seas looking for gold to steal.
But in the early 1400s, a fleet of ships set sail from
China which did the exact opposite!
It carried cargoes of gold and silk and other precious
items for the captain and the sailors to give away as gifts.
There were seven voyages by the Ming Treasure
Fleet—and the people on board had many adventures.
Sometimes they met peaceful people and did give
away the wonderful presents they had brought from
the Emperor, making new relationships with a variety
of countries.
On other occasions, they had to fight battles with
hostile armies, or deal with nasty pirates of the more
usual sort. Luckily, the ships also carried military forces
and weapons.
But this group of travellers also did something
wonderful: they won for themselves a place in history as
some of the first great explorers of planet Earth, reaching
India and Africa and Arabia. Historians looking back say
China truly “ruled the seas” in those days.
What sort of adventures do you think they had? What
would it be like to have been a young person on such a
journey?
What sort of jobs would have to be done on the ships,
and what sights would you see that you would remember
for ever?
We hope this rich topic will get the imaginations of
young writers’ floating into whole new waters!
Venue Sponsor
Organiser