Fiction: Group 4
A Letter from the Pearl River Delta
Maryknoll Convent School (Secondary Section), Wan, Gabriel - 17, Fiction: Group 4
ear Shang,
This has to be one of the hardest letters to I have ever had to write. You have no idea how I
wish, after all these years, this letter would finally be one that would bring good news, one that would
contain, at the very least, a shimmer of hope for the future. But please forgive me, for this is not the case.
Leaving you was the greatest mistake I could ever have made, and no words can describe my ardent
yearning to come home, but you have to understand that I had no choice back then; I was never given one
to begin with, and I still have none to this day.
*
I pause. My pen falls to my lap as I look up from my letter and stare blankly ahead, unsure of how to
continue writing from there. How exactly do you put your feelings into words anyway? It is simply
impossible to do so, for how can language invented by man aptly express the deepest, most heartfelt
sentiments of the human soul?
I close my eyes, feeling the gentle touches of a light autumn breeze softly caressing my face and
trying to sooth away all my sorrows, but all is done in vain. There is a subtle whiff of smoke and dirt that has
drifted from the city streets down below in the otherwise refreshing zephyr, travelling all the way up to the
rooftop and attacking my senses. This is almost an exact depiction of how Shenzhen is - a mixture of beauty
and destruction.
My eyes flutter open at the thought, and I drink in the magnificent view of the city from the factory's
rooftop. The quietly flowing river sparkles with the luminescent reflections of the city lights, and on the
other bank, ostentatious cars dash about in the streets, and the lights from glass skyscrapers outshine even the
moon, illuminating the night, albeit blindingly so. A thriving city buzzing with life, and one of the most
economically successful places of the Pearl River Delta. Yet today, no amount of stunning city lights is
going to console me. All I can see are memories flashing before my eyes, memories lost and never to be
relived again. All I can hear is the sound of forfeited youth and dreams, swishing and swirling as they drifted
downstream along with the water. All I can feel is morose, with a hint of madness slowly creeping up on
me, feeding on my sanity like a parasite.
I take a deep breath, and pick up my pen once more.
*
You must have thought that my life is all flowers and rainbows, with the way I described my time here in
Shenzhen in my previous letters, and you must have hated me for giving up on my family to seek wealth
elsewhere. But you must know that if I were ever given the choice to stay behind and live a simple, peaceful
life with you back in our village, I would never have left for Shenzhen. I would have stayed with you and
Xiaobao, and I would have been happy and content. But with Xiaobao so young and our fields taken away
- sans compensation - in the name of urbanisation, fate has taken away any sort of choice I might have in
life, and I simply had no choice but to come and work in this strange, unfamiliar city of the great Pearl
River Delta.
The Pearl River Delta
. Such a grand, opulent name; one that speaks of opportunities, of prosperity, of
hopes for a better life. But that is all it is - a name, and nothing more. True, the cities in this area has most
certainly lived up to it, becoming one of the regions in China to experience the fastest economic growth
since 1979, and once upon a time, this was the San Francisco to us - a land whispering promises of wealth.
This illusion was what fueled me in the beginning, thinking that with my hard work, I could one day earn
enough for all three of us and come home to you.
I had been thrilled about the beginning of a new life. A senior colleague of mine taught me to read
and write when I got my first job at the printing factory, and she showed me around the city, which, back
then, had just a handful of new factories that have moved from Hong Kong. I worked religiously around the
clock, and for over seven years, I never even so much as took a single day off. I had dreamed that with hard
work, I would reap the reward I rightfully deserved, and finally be able to build a new life for the whole
family. We would be worrying about which university to send Xiaobao to, instead of worrying about where
to get our next meal. We would be having a good life together in the city, instead of separated by the cruel
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