Fiction: Group 3
The Pearl River Delta
Island School, Measures, Zachary - 13, Fiction: Group 3
m a fisherman; I’ve been a fisherman for 27 years now. I’m getting old I’m 64 now and I’m planning
to retire at 65. I’ve done many jobs in the past where the Pearl River Delta flows but this has been
by far the best one. This is my story.
I was born on June the 16
th
1950 to a rich Chinese father who had recently moved to Hong Kong, he had
already made money and he was old for a man who just had a kid at age 50 years of age. So his plan was to
move here to retire and fish, this is when my current passion began, I would go out every weekend with
him to fish. Everything was going well apart from school I was falling behind in school, and eventually
when I was ten my Father decided that he was wasting his money on sending me to a private school. So I
finally, at age eleven, moved to a local school, I still wasn’t succeeding, but my Father didn’t care anymore,
as he wasn’t “wasting his money on it”.
I then started to notice my parents fighting a lot and this made me feel … not safe in a sense; and eventually
at age 14 my parents divorced. This hurt me so much, I might’ve not shown it on the outside but on the
inside I just wanted to go somewhere no one could ever find me and never come back. However with time
I got over this and I felt all right, this was affecting my grades massively even more badly than before I was
only getting F’s, E’s and the occasional D.
When it came to my GCSE’s two years later I did just bad. I got a D in every subject, this saddened my
Father so he decided to practice something that I was good at and I could make a living out of – fishing. I
practiced every day for two weeks and then gave up.
At this point in my life I was very depressed and I didn’t have any confidence in myself. So in an act of
sadness I decided to drop out of school, at age 16. My father never wanted to see me again, so he kicked me
out of the house. I considered living with my Mum, but I decided to fend for myself so I started a long trek
to Shenzhen where I thought I could find work.
I had finally got there after 4 days of hiking from The Peak; I had to sleep in hotel lobbies every night. I
went searching for a job in the fishing industry but there were none available as fishing in Shenzhen at the
time was limited. So I decided to go and work in a factory where they make sports products for Adidas, I
worked there in terrible conditions until I was 21 when I had enough money to buy a very small property,
(while I was working there I slept in the factory).
So now that I had my own apartment I decided that I needed a “promotion” so I decided to work at a hotel
in a rich area in Shenzhen, this meant that the commute to work was around an hour. I had to get up at
5:00am every morning just to get to work in time. I served some of the most famous people in the world in
this hotel, such as Michael Jackson, Will Smith and the whole French national football team. I worked in
the same role in the company until I was 33. Then I got a huge promotion to manager of the hotel, I was
extremely proud of myself at the time, because this meant that I was making triple the amount per month;
with this money I bought a place in the rich area that was massive and I ate well every night unlike before.
However after a while this wasn’t satisfying me, I needed to do something that I loved and for me that thing
was always fishing. So at age 37 I decided to find a job in fishing. This meant that I didn’t always eat well at
night because my wages were halved but if it was for something that I love I didn’t care.
After two years I thought that maybe I was too good for a job like this so I decided to set up my own
company, and effectively I was putting myself back to square one, for the first three months it was just me, a
boat and a fishing rod. But then some young people were looking to be in the fishing industry so I had six
people fishing with me. Everything was going well as each year went by I had more and more people
joining me and I was earning triple the money I was earning as a hotel manager. By the time I was 49 I
started actually fishing less and managing the company more, so I decided to manage the company from
Hong Kong, my hometown.
Soon after moving there I met a lovely woman called Jenny and after only six months we decided to get
married and have a kid. Soon after having this kid I realized that I was my father - a 50-year-old Chinese
man, with a newborn baby, here to fish. This saddened me because I didn’t want to be like him at all,
because he was never there for me and was a horrible father.
But now 14 years down the line my son isn’t failing school, he is a very good student, and he is going to the
best school in Hong Kong. His mother and I are still together and Jake and I are fishing every weekend.
I’
