Fiction: Group 4
book clearly battered from being jostled in bags and flipped through during last minute cramming.
Pages
were torn in some places, hastily put back together with tape, like her family.
Torn apart and broken but
still one piece.
Like so many families out there with parents away doing work whilst kids stayed by
themselves.
Forgotten elderly, tucked away and hidden in the confines, waiting.
Wealth disparity - the definition of Hong Kong.
The former Pearl of the Orient.
A dire problem.
An
issue that no one can hear, no one can see and one that no one cares about if it doesn't influence them.
The
petty arguments thrown through the Legislative Council.
Confusing policies whilst parents worked so hard
and children grew up in enclosed spaces.
People felt sorry.
There were television programmes, talks on the radio and on the Internet about Hong
Kong's subdivided flats and cage homes.
Yet there just wasn't a voice, someone to help or listen.
A person
who knew what it was like to suffer, to try and to be poor in a place where the difference between poor and
rich was a deep, dark abyss.
From the quaint fishing village it had once been, Hong Kong had grown into an international finance
hub.
One of the wealthiest and fastest-developing cities, yet behind the soaring skyscrapers, glamorous
brands and snazzy shopping centres, there was more.
So much more.
~~~
"Sophie."
Sophie spun around to see her English teacher walking towards her.
"Yes, Ms Leung?"
"I've been meaning to ask you if you'd be interested in joining a writing competition.
The school plans to
send ten representatives and we'd love for you be one of them."
"What's the topic?"
"New Tales of the Pearl Delta River.
The limit is three thousand words for your grade.
Will you consider
it?"
Stories about Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
The possibilities were endless.
Maybe she could attempt a steampunk story of a post-apocalyptic future where pollution had ruined the
environment in return for the region's economic success.
That would be unique.
Perhaps...
"I'll do it."
"Fantastic!" Ms Leung's face split into a grin.
"I'll give you the details later in class, alright?"
"That's fine," Sophie replied, her mind whirring.
When she arrived home, Sophie climbed up the bunk and put down her bag.
She'd write what she knew, what she'd seen and experienced. She'd write about her struggles.
She wasn't a
politician.
She wasn't an activist.
She was a kid who'd grown up in Hong Kong.
One who'd grown up with a single mother in a sub-
divided flat.
A teenager who wanted to tell her story, for herself and for others.
She wanted to stop seeing neighbours turn their backs on each other.
She wanted to stop seeing kids getting
left behind because they had less money than others.
She wanted to say something.
