Fiction: Group 3
Typewriters with iPhones
King George V School, Qi, Sophie - 14, Fiction: Group 3
uddy “Bubs” Blackshaw took one last crude selfie before he shut down his phone and boarded the
airplane. He was going to watch a few romance films, get to Zhu Hai and hit the “pool partay” in
the new neon green swimming trunks he acquired through a shade game of blackjack last week
from Vegas.
Bubs was on a cultural rediscovery, which in English means going across the world with the support of his
parents while also ignoring all pending papers for college. Luckily for him, his parents were eager to provide
him with financial aid, mainly because of his mother’s transparent biased opinion towards her home town.
After all, it wasn’t every day that his son had decided to acknowledge half of his origins.
And with that in mind, Bubs settled down to watch the Titanic for the 36
th
time, ignoring the lady with too
much lipstick next to him.
***
I was born in the urban outskirts of South Asia, where I spent afternoons embracing my inner agricultural
heritage. By the age of 19, I was all but ready to move out. To not see the Made in Hong Kong logo from
my pen pal in America.
“Hey you with glasses could you get me some of the green stuff?” A random customer said, winking. Well
at least I think he was winking. His eye patch made it difficult to tell.
“Sorry we don’t do trade with animals” I retorted, forgetting temporarily that my job was on the line. (It
was a miracle I was still here in the first place- It takes severe patience not to shove boiled water to sunken
middle aged men who were convinced that the tea house was secretly a drug house.)
Life Lesson: If anyone looks as if they are high on something evacuate to a one mile premise.
***
Arriving off the airport, Bubs took a careful sweep to make sure that there were no dulled out drug addicts.
To his surprise, there was exactly none in sight. Strange. From the tales that his mother had woven, it was as
if the whole place was nothing but damaged souls. Shrugging, he followed the neon signs to collect his 15
bags, 14 of which contained enough clothes to dress half of Australia.
***
But it wasn’t as if Zhu Hai was a complete drug dump. Those who had not succumbed to alcohol formed a
tight knit community. They say it’s impossible to walk a yard down the river. Not because of human traffic,
but because every once in a while you would be stopped by a Jane or Grace who wanted to ask how you
were doing, or if Mary was still sick. The area may have been conquered with tall high rises and factory
smoke, but the people like family. In a way, China was like that. You could go to the most foreign
countries of Brazil and London and still be greeted into loving arms by fellow Chinese.
***
Buddy strolled out of the airport with a considerable amount of razzle dazzle.
“Excuse me, do you happen to know where the nearest taxi stand is?”
“Sorry, can you tell me which direction is this hotel?”
“Do you know if there is a currency exchange area?”
But tragically, Buddy’s simple demands were greeted with either the awkward mumblings or cold silence.
Thanks mom.
Thought Buddy, glaring at a nearby trashcan. Which was rather rude, because the poor trash
can did nothing. His mother had, on several nostalgic occasions described Zhu Hai as a large family. (Or
when she was particularly tipsy a “giant steaming pot of dumplings”) But to his puzzlement, reliable statistics
confirmed that 100% of people had refused to stop to help, let alone a few words of pleasantries. Perhaps
they were cautious around outsiders. Or perhaps as the years flew by, time to stop and gather daisies were
replaced by the busy shuffle between work and home. Perhaps the cost of 5 star buildings was a city’s spirit.
***
Okay, I’ll admit a secret. Growing up, I was embarrassingly devoted to architecture. In my village, there
wasn’t much. We had survived most of the bombing during the war, but that didn’t mean our village was
the highlight of anything.
A few years later, the big “Boom” happened. Suddenly, factories were popping up left and right.
B
