Fiction: Group 4
Dongguan stood up and ran away, tears coming out of her eyes. She decided that this wasn’t going to show
Mother China anything. She wanted to show Mother China what she was really capable of. She decided to
take a rest, not do anything, shut down her city for a while. Make Mother China payback for what she did
to her.
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For the next couple of days, nothing seemed to happen. But soon, complaints started to come in.
Companies from all around the world began to call Mother China, telling her how much their business is
dropping without Dongguan’s factories to support it. At first Mother China was ok, she managed to
convince companies to resolve the problems another way but soon it was out of control. Every minute or
so, the telephone would ring and she would yet have to convince the company of using another way.
Mother China immediately calls on her dearest sons Foshan and Hong Kong to attempt to convince
Dongguan of going back to work. They immediately went to visit their sister but even with the help of her
admirer Hong Kong, nothing seemed to work.
She was actually beginning to enjoy her time laying back and not working. It was none of her business
anyways. When the companies complain, she’s not the one receiving all the complaints, it’s all up to Mother
China. It was also nice, seeing her siblings one by one come by, obviously sent by their mother to attempt
to beg her to get back to work. It was funny actually, she was usually the one begging not them. She finally
felt happy and her heart began to soothe from the pain she was given by Mother China.
However on the other side, Mother China was struggling. None of her children were able to fulfill her
requests so the only other way was another meeting. She flew up to the round table once more, and
knocked on the mahogany table. The children immediately gathered once more, with Dongguan walking in
last.
“Dongguan. I know you are trying to seek revenge, however you are going too far. You must stop. This is
not only going to ruin your future to be like brother Hong Kong, but you’re also ruining the reputation of
China, do you even know how long it took us to build that?” Mother China said in a soft yet aggressive
voice.
Mother China took a deep breath and let out a long and gentle sigh. “I know you all think like me and
believe in me. Our dream together is to make China the best country. But do you think we will be able to
do that with all this? This dream will never country! We have to work together!”
Everybody began to talk at once, some disagreeing, some agreeing. Mother China closed her eyes and stood
still. All the children began to quiet down. She opened her eyes and in front of her stood a bundle of sticks.
She passed it around and said “Let me ask you children, do you think you will be able to break these sticks
by yourself?” All the children tried, but no one seemed to even break half of the sticks, not even the might
Foshan. Mother China then unravelled the piece of rope tying all the sticks together and passed out one
each. “There you go, now try breaking the stick.” Everybody snapped their stick in half in just seconds.
Mother China smiled.
“See what I mean? Individually you can’t break the sticks, but together, when you split the work, you can
succeed. Dongguan, I’m sorry for taking your business away and I understand you’re upset, but you cannot
just abandon us, abandon the country. Even though you may not be one of the main cities which are
known when spoken of China, but you make a great impact among us. Without you we cannot succeed to
fulfill our dream. United we stand, divided we fall.”
Dongguan stood there, suddenly feeling a pang of guilt within her. Even though her mother took
everything away from her, she now understood that she still shouldn’t have done what did. It was bad, she
caused great pain towards her mother and her siblings. She kneeled down and said in a quiet voice, “Please
forgive me mother. I am sorry and I will reflect upon my wrong doings.” Mother China immediately
