New Tales of the Gobi Desert
St. Mary’s Canossian College, Jamie Lai, Fiction: Group 3
P
lease give me a chance!” Fred desperately asked for a last chance from the supervisor of
the advertising company.
“Honestly speaking, your design is colorful and creative. It can relate the products
to our city life. However, you know it is very hard for me to convince our client to use
a designer who is not famous. They spend a lot of money on the promotion and employ the top
singing group as their brand representative. Can you imagine how they would feel if I suggest
a debut design from a freelance designer for their annual promotion campaign?” The supervisor
explained his difficulty to Fred.
“Fred, it isn’t your problem. You have to understand the commercial world is like a battlefield.
Our company has to fight against our competitor everyday in order to survive in this harsh world.
I thought our clients are facing the same. Their fighting may be even more unsympathetic.” The
supervisor tried to comfort Fred.
Fred walked out from the supervisor’s office sadly. This design was his fourth presentation.
All of them were rejected. He began to think what was going on in this city and his life. As a
graduate from the design school of the most famous university, it was hard to imagine he was
still jobless for nearly six months after graduation. Unlike his schoolmates, Fred did not choose to
start his career as a design assistant in a large art design company, where he would spend a lot of
time preparing paper for meetings, jotting notes or organizing appointments for his seniors. Fred
liked drawing. And it was the reason he entered the design school. He wished to present his ideas
through his drawings, especially those related to this modern city where he grew up and lived
with his family and friends. Today, he found this place no longer colorful. The sky looked grey
and the street was pale.
Fred stopped at the bus stop and waited for the bus. He was still thinking where he should go
to forget about the frustration. His sight was suddenly caught by a poster. “Gobi Desert, a Place
of Mysteries!” It was an advertisement poster from a tour company. Fred knew Gobi Desert, but
had never wanted to go there. The Gobi Desert was now in a bright yellow colored picture. It
was so real and close that Fred could feel the hot sun and the strong wind from it. Fred began to
search the information of the Gobi Desert from the internet. So it was where the first dinosaur’s
egg was unearthed, where there were stories of the disappeared civilizations and the problem
of desertification. These were all fascinating to Fred. Fred wrote down the address of the tour
company and he knew where he should go.
Though he was alone in this journey, Fred was never short of excitement. He remembered the
first day when he passed through the Green Wall and went into the Gobi Desert. He was amazed
by the big contrast between the two sides of the world, represented by the trees and the sand. On
the second day, he even got his first experience in watching the mirage with his naked eyes. The
scenes were so shocking that he almost cried at that moment. Fred took some pictures and drew
some sketches. He thought he could develop some nice drawings after this journey.
“
* * *
