The story of Bak choy and the Great Wall of
China
Bryan Lam, Group 3: Fiction, Creative Secondary School
nce upon a time, there was a bulldog called Bak choy that lived in ancient China. He grew up without
any friends because he was constantly teased and bullied about his size and his lack of physical activity,
but one day he decided that he’d had enough and started thinking of a plan to prove the bullies wrong.
One day when he was strolling through town, he overheard two of the stray dogs’ conversation.
“
Walk the entire length of the great wall? You must be bluffing! It hasn’t been done ever before!” the
first dog said, the second dog said “Anyone can do it, it’s really easy as long as you have faith.” That came as an
inspiration to Bak Choy and gave him an idea – he was going to travel along the Great Wall of China. Bak Choy
thought that this was a great idea because he had heard before that some of the fittest animals in the forest
couldn’t even complete such a difficult task due to different issues. When he got home, he was already bursting
with excitement and he started packing his belongings right away. After he finished packing, he went to tell all
the other animals and he even convinced Hok Him the squirrel to come along on the trip. Even though the other
animals mocked and laughed at them, their spirits weren’t affected in the slightest because they were going to
travel along the famous landmark of China!
It was a cloudy Friday morning when they set off. They made sure to leave early in the morning so the
guards at the wall wouldn’t see wouldn’t catch them. They walked for several hours with the gentle autumn
breeze, enjoying the view, they even talked a little and Bak choy found out that Hok Him used to belong to the
Royal family, but then he had escaped because he wanted to explore the outside world a bit more. After he had
moved out, he settled down in a hollow of a tree and stole acorns from the market for food. Bak Choy said that
this explained why Hok Him always came back home with a bag of acorns and never answered any questions
regarding where he got them.
After a while, they reached a part of the wall, which had been destroyed by the war, so they just jumped off
the wall onto the grass below. But once Bak Choy’s foot touched the ground, a trap sprung up from the ground
and they got tangled in a net. As a few villagers started advancing on them, Bak Choy and Hok Him struggled
and gnawed for all they were worth, but to no avail because the net was made out of pure spider silk! Bak Choy
started frantically panicking “ Oh no! First day of the trip and we’re already in big trouble!” Hok Him tried to
calm him down while forming an escape plan in his head – once they lower the net, they run! At the moment the
net hit the ground, they made for the trees before the villagers even realized what had happened.
They watched from behind the safety of the trees as the villagers scramble around trying to find them
when all of a sudden, they heard a deep growling noise coming from behind them. Bak choy was frozen in terror
as he realized what the creature that was behind them was – it was a black panther, 225 pounds of muscle and
pure evil. It was the same creature that ate his brother and the same creature that demolished a whole family of
wolverines. They reacted the only way they knew how and ran out into the clear. A few villagers tried to chase
after them, but gave up when they ran too fast. They ran for hours, not looking back or stopping in fear of
getting eaten, although the 10 jugs of coffee they drank that morning did help them run faster and longer, they
started getting really exhausted.
Bak Choy and Hok Him were wheezing, but they knew †hat they had to keep running if they didn’t want
to end up as someone’s dinner. They reached a the part of the wall that just lead to the sea, so they turned to face
the monstrous creature together, but there was nothing to face. The growl that they had heard in the jungle were
just they’re empty stomachs and the ‘black panther’ was just Bak Choy’s humongous leather travelling pouch.
As the adrenaline faded, they realized what they had just done, they had just travelled from one end to the other
end of the Great Wall of China on foot! They rested and enjoyed the view and even wrote a poem on their
journey, they were rejoicing until they realized what their next task was. The joy faded as they realized that they
had to travel all the way back to go home, but that tale is for another time.
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