The School Carnival
By Lo Hoi Lam

Today is Saturday, my school has a wonderful party on this day. It's called The School Carnival. There are games stores, food stores and the lucky draw. I with my friend, Reddy, go to the party on this day.

First, we go to the game stores. The games are very interesting. After, we go to the food stores. The hot dogs are very yummy. Then, we want to have a lucky draw, but we get lost. When we look outside, there is a Garden Maze! We try to go there. We see a paper on the ground. I look at my watch. It's six o'clock. The lucky draw is started. "We must go out of this maze" I say. Then, I pick up the paper. It writes that you can't go outside of the maze. There has a treasure in the maze. But everyone can't find it out. Can you take the treasure? Surely it's impossible! We feel very angry after looking at the paper. We decide to go through the maze to take the treasure. After walking to the front of the maze, we see a statue. Suddenly, the statue opens his mouth. He says "Hello, children. You must go away. Here is very dangerous. Go away quickly!"

"But we must get the treasure. Although we miss the lucky draw, we must get the treasure first!" I say. Reddy also agrees my answer. The statue says it frightenly "OK! But I tell you two first. Last day, there were some detectives going inside of maze. Then they saw me. I told them here was very dangerous but they didn't hear my voice. When they went to the middle of the maze, suddenly, I heard a long scream. I don't know why until now." We still want to get the treasure. The statue only tells us how to get into the maze. at last, we say good bye to the statue and get on our way.

We go to the middle of the maze. We see a monster, Robby. He is very large. He eats people every day. "I remember it! I remember it! The detectives are here already." Reddy says it excitedly. "Oh! My goodness!" I say. The monster is sleeping. "He sleeps so sweet! What shall we do?" Reddy says. I say "You hide behind the tree. You can call me if you need help and I will hide behind the monster. If Robby wakes up. He can't find us. After, Robby wakes up, I put up my long knife quickly and strike to his body! Then, Robby is dead. Then, I see a thing inside Robby's mouth. Oh! It's the treasure! We feel very happy. We take the treasure to show to the statue. Reddy and I say "Our dream comes true!" When I wake up, Oh! It's just a dream! I will tell to my friend on the next time.

Kathryn Kelly's Comments

Thanks for this great little adventure story Lo Hoi Lam – your school carnival is a lot more exciting than the ones I have been to. It’s a great idea to do this – use an everyday event which people can relate to – to create the situation and backdrop for an adventure. I also think it’s a clever thing to use a dream sequence to allow you to write about a crazy situation and then bring your audience back to normality with a bump. My only word of warning is – don’t use dreams too much. They work once but readers might get a little annoyed if you use them too often.

Big Bowl Feast
By Lo Chun Lok

Every Chinese New Year holidays, over thousands of people join the big bowl feast. They have this kind of gathering in public playground. They love the big bowl feast because it is a traditional celebration and they enjoy good at atmosphere.

Although big bowl feast is a good gathering for people, It may cause food poisoning. People who are at the same table would enjoy a big bowl feast, so all of them put their chopsticks into the big bowl and get food. If people forget to use the public chopsticks, the germ will be transferred to everyone. It is unhygienic and dirty. Secondly, people who provide the food don't follow the procedures to ensure and use unfresh food. It damages people's health. Also, people usually join the big bowl feast in a public playground which is near the street, buses and private cars pass around. Dust goes into the food and enter into our body.

The solution of above problems is to foster the public health concerns. Providers must follow proper procedures to ensure. Then also sterilize the kitchen utensils regularly. I suggest the big bowl feast should be placed indoors. I believe the number of food poisoning will decrease if the rules cover properly.

Kathryn Kelly's Comments

I don’t know when Lo Chun Lok wrote this story – but how timely!. With the frightening spread of Swine flu around the world, it’s excellent advice to remind people to be careful with public health issues. I am from the UK so I don’t know much about the history of the Big Bowl Feast – I do know, because I have been living in Hong Kong for a few years, that local people love food and they thoroughly enjoy celebrating all festivals with some kind of traditional food. It’s a great idea to write about traditions for lots of reasons. Thanks for reminding us, Lo Chun Lok, to be careful.

Kathryn Kelly's Writing Tips

It’s a great idea to write about events, traditions, family parties, special school days, local festivals – things which not everybody celebrates. The first thing you can do is draw on something which you know about and write about it in a way to tell other people what they are missing. You can also choose to write about an old tradition in your community which has been happening for a long time – if you do this properly, you could interview some older people about the event and get some lovely background. And then by writing about it, you are not only bringing the tradition to a wider audience, but in your own little way, you are contributing to keeping it alive. I love reading stories about local history – I love to read stories about the people who have been living and working in the area for a long time. You could even start by interviewing a grandparent or older relative – ask them what Hong Kong was like when they were your age and get them to tell you how they think it has changed. If you ask the right questions, I bet you’ll find out some fascinating things you never knew – and that will make a great story.