The Wedding

By Jennifer (Age 9.5, Hong Kong International School)

There once was a girl named Clare who was still in high school but already had a baby! This was the night of graduation and she couldn't wait. But that wasn't all there was to be excited about, as she was going to get married right after the graduation! The music started, and she slowly walked forward to the groom. She could feel tears of happiness forming in her eyes. People were watching. Some were weeping, while others were just smiling.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Suddenly, there was gunfire, and everyone screamed in horror as they watched helplessly as the groom collapsed to his knees and then passed away without another sound. Clare looked at her supposed-to-be husband in fright. "Who did this?" she asked. No one made a sound. "I asked, who did this?!" she screamed as waterfalls of tears streamed down her face. Clare's family rushed to her to help her cheer her up a bit. But nothing seemed to help. Clare did not know what to do anymore so she just started to run. Anywhere was fine with her, as she just wanted to get away.

The next day she found herself in her bedroom. "I must have fainted before I even ran a yard," she thought as she got dressed and went downstairs with her Alex Rider book in her hand called Eagle Strike. "I plan to find out who did this, just like how Alex did," Clare thought. So right after lunch, she zoomed to where the wedding reception had been to find clues. But all she found was an empty room with a trash can inside. She searched the trash 20 times, but there was only a candy wrapper and a tissue. Nothing helped at all. But as she was about to give up, she saw writing on the candy wrapper! She squinted at the tiny letters to try to make out what was said, but all she could read was:

Though everyone is excited about my wedding, I do not love this girl, but my parents are forcing me to, so I must kill...

Suddenly, things began to make sense! She quickly ran to the police station to make sure that the police didn't accuse someone for killing the groom. There was a person in jail who had been found with a gun. She told the police, "There is no criminal! The groom himself didn't want to marry me, so he tried to kill me so that he could marry someone else. This person here is the one that saved my life." She smiled at the "criminal" and he smiled back. He was her good friend John. A few days later there was another wedding, for Clare and John, and this one went perfectly.

Is Privacy Overrated?

By Phillip (Age 14, Island School)

Everyone, at least at some point in their lives, has something that they want to keep private and to themselves. It can be something simple like a picture of you and your mom that all your friends will think is lame, or something big like your identity card number or passport number. We try to keep things private and in many cases, those efforts prove to be futile. Technology is evolving, and with it, so are the ways for people to invade our privacy.

Every teen has a Facebook account. Well, every teen that has a computer or has access to one. Facebook has become a big part of our daily lives, and we use it to exchange information like homework, or where we are going for the summer holidays. We also upload photos of ourselves and friends. Many of these photos are accessible even if you are not a friend of the uploader, through your friends. Or, maybe the uploader changed their privacy settings so that everyone can see the photos. But, do we want this to happen? Facebook friends are like a chain. We will have friends who have other friends who are not mutual, and those friends will have friends who are not mutual friends with our friend, and so on. So in the end, our privacy is not just limited to people we know. If you do not protect your information carefully, you can have a 56-year old pervert standing outside your window staring at you while you just sit on your sofa watching some movies, not suspecting anything.

But privacy might seem 'overrated.' Most of us believe that privacy must be protected at all costs, as it also involves our personal safety. But there is actually much more information than we think that we would be willing to share with others, like how many cousins you have, or how many siblings you have, how old your grandparents are.

Not conforming to what everyone else is doing will make us social outcasts, but we have to learn to balance it. Although privacy may be overrated, no one would be willing to share information with strangers, which happens almost every day in our society. Uploading pictures of yourself is fine, but things have a limit. Nowadays a lot of adults also use Facebook, and they could be teachers at your school. Many teens whine about teachers making an unfair decision and let it out by writing about ugly their teacher is on Facebook. But if that teen does not have the right privacy settings, his or her teacher won't be greeted with a hearty hello the next morning.

Protecting your privacy is important, but it is not good to think about protecting your privacy all the time. If you are too caught up with protecting your privacy that you forget about living your life and feel paranoid wherever you go, then that will make your life like a horror game: a horror game where you are being chased by an endless horde of zombies who, no matter how many you defeat, will keep coming at you. It is impossible to live in a society where everything is totally private, and where there aren't at least one or two strangers who know your name.

Many teenagers have parents who have Facebook, or have access to their Facebook accounts. Teenagers start to feel unsafe and feel that their parents have invaded their 'private bubble'. But, teens do not think about how a company might have their ID number or how some old guy in another country halfway around the world may have access to their pictures. It is important to know what the priorities are and set them accordingly.

The modern society is a place where no one can be 100% safe, and since the start of mankind, every community and society has been like that. Privacy is something that should definitely be protected, but only to some extent. If we get so paranoid about protecting our privacy that we block ourselves off from the outside world, what's there to protect your privacy from?

Our City's Reading Habits

By Kelly Yang

Professor Harry Lewis's recent op-ed in the South China Morning Post suggested that e-publications are the way of the future and that Hong Kong is the best place to cash in on that future. I am not convinced that e-publications are the best way to go nor am I convinced that this city will go that way.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Matt Steele of Dymocks Books. According to Steele, our city's bookstores are not slowing down. Far from it, most bookstores are doing well and they are even expanding. There are now 13 Dymocks, 8 Bookazines, 3 Kelly and Walsh, and countless other medium and mega sized English bookstores in Hong Kong.

Perhaps it is because at present, there is still no quick and easy way to get publications from e-readers in Hong Kong. iTunes is not available in Hong Kong. Amazon Kindle ships to Hong Kong now but certain books and periodicals are only available to US customers (those having a US billing address), mainly because of licensing restrictions. Still, I think that even when we solve the e-publication licensing problems, our bookstore days will not be over.

Indeed, there's something magical and special about going to a bookstore that clicking on Amazon or iTunes can never replicate. In a city where shopping is the official past time, browsing in bookstores is at least a slightly more respected and intellectual form of shopping. Thus, bookstores can be found in major malls, occupying coveted retail space. The fact that landlords of new malls routinely call up Dymocks to request that a bookstore be opened in their mall shows how much our city and its residents need and love books.

Surprisingly, the highest grossing items sold in Dymocks are not books for adults. They are magazines, followed by children's books. These two items far outsell adult novels and nonfiction. During the economic downturn, bookstore sales remained surprisingly stable. Steele says it is because no matter what the economic climate, Hong Kong people are always eager to spend $100 on a celebrity magazine or on a Thomas the Tank Engine book for their children. What that says about our city, I really don't know. But hey, at least they're reading.

If we are mostly buying books for our children and for short-term entertainment, perhaps it is a good thing to keep e-books at arm's length. After all, most children I've talked to have said that they much prefer reading a physical book than an e book. No reader is as light on the eyes as an actual book. With an actual book, kids can trade it with their friends and sift through the pages more easily.

To promote reading, our city's bookstores also frequently sponsor and hold reading events. Dymocks routinely invites authors to give talks at their bookstores. This year, Dymocks and Hong Kong Book Centre are among the main sponsors of Spellbulary, our upcoming city-wide spelling bee. It is simply not possible to get from a website the sense of community that a bookstore provides. Not only is this sense of community great for promoting reading, but also for teaching and shaping our young.

Finally, a key reason physical books trump e-books has to do with vanity. You can prominently display a book but you cannot prominently show off an e book. Steele says that he suspects some books sell well in Hong Kong primarily because they look impressive on bookshelves.

Whatever our reasons--be they purely vain or completely legitimate--bookstores, at least for the short run, are here to stay and thank goodness for that!

Some Privacy, Please

By Justin (Age 13, French International School)

It is 2020. The word 'privacy' does not exist anymore. Everything that I write or do could be accessed by anyone. Nowhere is safe and secure.

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Photo via Wikimedia Commons

School just ended and I decided to hang out with my friends for awhile before going home. We were walking along the street when I got a text message from my mom asking why I was hanging out with my friends. She told me that she tracked down my location using her phone and found out that I wasn't in school. I wasn't skipping school. The teacher who was supposed to teach me wasn't there so we were allowed to leave earlier than usual. She then asked me why I was hanging out with Antonio and Joshua. I thought to myself, "How is it even possible for her to know who I was hanging out with?" All she told me was that she accessed the street camera and saw a few photos whilst I was accompanying Antonio and Joshua. She asked me to come home right away but I didn't. She called me again and yelled at me, asking me to come home straight away. She was stalking me the whole time. I decided to obey what she said and went back home.

On the bus, my friend Joel called me and asked me why I wasn't with Antonio and Joshua. He wasn't stalking me but he saw a notification of my texts with my mom. It started to drive me mad. He asked me if he could play on the PS6 with me that night. Right before I replied, I heard my mom saying "No!" for me. Mom was listening to my conversation with Joel the whole time! I thought to myself, "How can I get rid of these people stalking me?" So, I decided to go to the harbour front and threw away all the electronic devices into the ocean. I thought no one could stalk me anymore, but I was wrong.

The moment I got home, my mom asked me why I threw away all my devices into the ocean. She saw some photos of me on Photobucket. Some random person probably took a picture when I threw away my items. I thought to myself, "Where am I going to be safe when there are random stalkers on the street too?" I was extremely confused. It came to my head that if I disguised myself, nobody would recognize me.

I went down to the mall without my mom noticing and when I got home, my mom asked me why I went to the mall without her permission. Do I have any privacy at all? Plus, how was it possible? My mom said that she got samples of my fingerprint and found my exact location after I had left.

I got home, went into my room and stayed there since it was the only place with privacy and the only place where nobody could stalk me. My computer buzzed. I got a message from my friend asking me why I was looking so sad in my room. It was weird, since I hadn't even turned on my web cam. He told me that my web cam was on all the time since last week and everybody was able to see me live for the whole week.

I asked myself again, "Where can I get some privacy?"

A Dragon in Hong Kong

By Ryan (Age 10, St. Paul's)

One hundred years ago, in ancient Hong Kong, there lived a boy named Paul. Paul was very interested in dragons because he thought dragons had cool magical powers. Paul loved cooking and helped people cook a lot. He also had an astonishing talent that he could be invisible anytime he wanted by wearing an invisible ring.

But unfortunately, one gloomy night when he was in his car coming home after playing basketball, his car crashed directly into a tree. The icy, damp road of that long winter night made his car lose control and crash. The car was dented and Paul had just passed away from losing too much blood. The next day, his devastated family buried him in the ground beside Repulse Bay.

Two weeks after his death, the residents of Repulse Bay heard a strange sound while they were swimming in the ocean. They saw a glimpse of a shadow of a dragon swooping down from the sky. They were petrified and they told the police what they had just seen.

The next day, a resident saw the dragon again but this time, the dragon muttered in a clear voice "I am going to cook with you and it would become a delicious meal." Then, the dragon grabbed the resident and disappeared!

They arrived at the resident's home and cooked a dinner together. The dragon ordered the resident to wash the food and cook a delicious Japanese meal consisting of tempura, udon, and sushi. The person was shocked and quivered with fright. While he was cooking, he saw that the dragon was eating the seaweed!

From then on, the residents of Repulse Bay who have seen the dragon thought he was as funny as Paul and so they named him after Paul. They called the dragon Poolala. The people were no longer scared of Poolala because they realized the dragon was very kind. Every year, they could see Poolala during our dragon boat race. The dragon will appear to cheer them on. Poolala also likes to swim in the ocean every day. One day, it found a pearl on the sand. It was the King's valuable pearl. So Poolala always kept it carefully in his paw and the pearl always stayed with Poolala.

Now, one hundred years later, Repulse Bay has many beautiful buildings. One of the the buildings was built right near Poolala's home. But the residents told the developers to leave a hole in the building because of the brilliant dragon living near it. They wanted to let him have a hole so he could fly from the mountain to the ocean every day. Tourists come from different countries to sneak a look at the magnificent building of the dragon's home.

Follow Your Dreams

By Andre (Age 10, Diocesan Boys' School)

Jack wanted to be a pilot who could drive an A380 when he grew up. He thought that he should be a pilot because he thought he could earn a lot of money and he was good at controlling mechanical things. He also thought that being a pilot would be comfortable and he would have much time to play.

His parents said no to his dream because they said it was extremely expensive to go to pilot school and only very famous pilots had high salaries. If Jack were not famous, he would waste the money that they had paid to get him into school. He would have a "cheap" salary: not even one dollar a month! They wanted him to be a businessman.

Jack's parents took away all of Jack's books about piloting and airplanes, his airplane models and toys. They also forced him to read business books and watch business movies on television. They would ask him questions about business, and if he couldn't answer them, they would hit him.

Jack didn't think being a businessman would be interesting or fun. He was never concentrating on the books and TV. He didn't give up his dream of being a pilot and went secretly to the library and read books there. Sometimes he was caught in the library when his parents were borrowing books about business. Then they would force him to read two books instead of one book about business.

Finally, he went to the pilot school after his parents died and learned how to be a pilot. At first, when he first drove an airplane, he was not good at driving it. But when he drove it more and more, he got better and always landed earlier than the estimated time. So, he got the fastest pilot award! He thought, "If my parents knew that I am so famous now and have a high salary, they would be proud of me..."