Essay

A story to share

It’s a winter a few years ago. I joined a camp to go to Huang Pu Soldiers’ school, where I experienced the life style of a soldier in China.

It’s a very hard camp for Hong Kong teenagers to experience the life there. Each day, we had to wear the soldier’s uniform, a hat and a pair of green simple shoes, like the ones in HK called ‘white fish’. In the cold days, we had to do everything exactly what our captain, a real Chinese soldier who we called ‘Pai Zhang’ (means captain), instructed, for example to stand straightly, patrol like in the army. This kind of patrol lasted for 2 hours and NO REST until it’s finished. Tell the truth, we had to practice repeatedly and repeatedly for a whole day. Somebody said it’s really a dull-thing. Some of the girls who were physically weaker felt uncomfortable and pain in their legs after a long time standing on the floor without a break. They wanted to sit down even on the floor. Strict our Pai Zhang was, he shout at them, ‘ What do you think this place is? It’s not a place for you to play. If you want to play, go back home now! You are here to learn the discipline of a soldier…’ He was so cruel at that moment that no one dared to say a word of objection. Finally, we finished the task he asked us to do. Only then did he talk with us and show ‘smile’. Actually, he was very kind most of the time, except…

He taught us how to tidy up our bedroom. How amazing! He made a quilt to a shape of a cube, a hundred per cent cube. This was what we had to do after waked up every morning. I didn’t believe I could do so, but I did! Some of my roommates said, ‘It’s no human’s life!’ Yes, that’s true for the people living in a city. What’s more we had to take our bath with COLD tape water, not even a shower. You have to know that was a winter with a temperature of about 10 degree Celsius. I just remembered when the water, as cold as a piece frozen ice, .splashed on my naked body, I screamed. Some body even sang at the bath (maybe they became crazy by the cold water!). You may not find that when we are taking bath with extremely cold water, our body temperature will turn the water into vapor, which was what we seen during the bath, like in the sky with fairies.

There’s also one thing I won’t forget that was the food provided by the school. That was really ‘great’ . We ate up all the food every meal. The food included ManTau (white bread), BallLallBau, fried noodles and congee for breakfast. You can never find such a congee in HK, as it contained a unique ratio of ingredient, about one bow of rice to twenty bows of water! The food for lunch and dinner was also very special, very little meat but tons of vegetables. All of these would be finished in fifteen minutes. How awful! Do you believe that we are soldiers or prisoners?

This is really a nice camp, I miss it very much. It broadened my horizons, trained me fit and more discipline!

November, 2001