The New Tale of the Gobi Desert
American International School, Ming-Hin Cai, Fiction: Group 1
L
ast summer, my dad took us to the Gobi Desert for a tour. We arrived in the middle of
the desert at night and we spent the night in a herdsman’s family ger. It’s not a hotel, but
just a traditional Mongolian tent. As we were getting into the ger, rain started to fall. The
next morning, we heard the herdsman’s boy say that his horse was gone! Dad asked the
tour guide what he had said, and the tour guide replied, “His horse had eaten a big worm’s eggs,
then it ran away.”
Later on, we found out the horse was a gift from his uncle who lived in the north. The boy
started to cry, and his father tried to comfort him. He said that perhaps the horse was going to the
north to his uncle. The next day, we ate breakfast and continued our journey to the north. It was a
long ride. When it was mid-day, we saw a horse with a flag that was traveling the same direction
as ours. I wondered if that was the kid’s horse. The tour guide interrupted my thoughts and said,
“That is the kid’s horse! He told me that his horse had a yellow flag on it.”
We kept chasing the horse for a few days, but something unusual had happened. It didn’t take
a break at all! Finally, as we settled into the ger for the night, I suddenly remembered something
my dad told me back at home about the legend of Mongolian warriors and horses in the old time,
as well as the Mongolian Death Worm I read on the Internet.
The legend said that the Mongolian horses could travel for days without eating or drinking.
They could travel a long, long distance. For the Mongolian warriors, the legend said that they
were fearsome warriors that drank their horses’ blood before they went to war. Then I thought
about the Death Worms that only came out after rainy days. Then I asked myself, “Is that how
Mongolians make their super warriors and horses? They fed the worm’s eggs to the horses so that
they could run for days and the warriors drank the horses’ blood before went to battle?”
Then I realized that I have to write this and show it to my teacher, which I am doing right
now!
