New Tales of the Great Wall
Maythavee Liu
story of how constructing the majestic Great Wall of China cost many blood, sweat, and tears; and
some to run away from it all.
wat
whe
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Group 4: Fiction, Singapore International School Secondary
As dawn broke, and slivers of light started to light up the vast hilly countryside, I ladled
er vigorously into my bamboo bucket with one of the tin cups that I always carried with me, and
n it was full to the brim, I pushed it aside and started filling up another one. And when that was
full, I carefully slid both onto opposite ends of my long bamboo stick, taking extra care to make sure that they
hung on the little nooks that I had carved out with a shard of metal to make sure the buckets did not slide off. I
then crouched on the ground, making sure my back was straight before slowly standing up with the stick
pressing against my right shoulder blade. It was not back-breakingly heavy; one of the men around here would
easily be able to carry twice this weight and still have his hands free for a few sacks of rice, but I was petite and
relatively young, even around here, being only fifteen summers old and weighing five stone. I took a deep
breath, and took a few steps forward, forcing my back not to arch towards the right, and wavered for a while
because of the imbalance in weight.
A
I carefully made my way through the cobbled path, trying not to slip on the bricks, wet from the
morning dew. I took a deep breath, trying to get the most out of the fresh morning air before the men started
work and made the air thick and hard to breathe. As I picked my way through the bricks, I occasionally stopped
every now and then, to give workers a cup of spring water before they started their day’s work. When I first
arrived, I was awkward and extraneous. Well technically everyone was, because no one lived in this part of the
great kingdom, but others could fit in, and I, well I had a hard time. I used to stand there awkwardly, leaning my
lanky frame on the brick walls, until workers stared at me long enough to give up and come over to ask for a
drink of water. But after two winters, I grew accustomed to my new ‘home’. Now, I’ve learnt that even though
they were convicted of crime and shamed, even though they are forced to wear thin, cheap cloth sewn
haphazardly together, even though they work 7 days a week, for 14 hours, they still have pride and shards of
dignity left; they do not like to ask for things, not even water. And so, I’ve learnt that in order to not carry two
buckets of water for hours on end, I should politely offer the water to every single man working in the area I
was put in charge on. I slowly move from man to man, walking with extra care to make sure I do not fall, when
finally I get to him. My heart skips a beat, and even though I’ve seen him a hundred times before, I don’t think
I’ll ever get tired of it.
I tried to arrange my long and excessively thick hair a little so that it did not stick to my sweaty
forehead, and made sure that my hair bun did not look like a circle of dead grass. This proved to be a hard task,
when one is trying to balance two half full buckets on one shoulder. Before I could even try to fix anything, he
looked up and smiled. My left hand immediately dropped to its side, and caught off guard, I nearly lost my
balance. I steadied myself, and smiled shyly at him, while all the other men around us started grunting as they
began hammering the walls. He mouthed, ‘Are you okay?’ and looked around quickly just in case his supervisor
was around to reprimand him. I nodded, and stuck out my index finger, forming a ‘one’. He smiled back and
quickly lowered his eyes as heavy stomping indicated that his supervisor was heading towards us. I continued
making my way through the lines of men working, concentrating on filling the tin cups when a large beer belly
appeared in my line of sight. A pudgy hand, fat from eating meat stolen from hardworking rural farmers, lifted
my chin up, forcing me to looking up into the face of the supervisor. Just the look of his face, red and sweaty
despite the chilly weather, made my stomach turn. He smiled, revealing his set of yellowed and crooked teeth. I
shuddered on the inside, and tried to give him a smile that probably turned out to look more like a grimace. In
his hoarse, yet tinny and high voice, he cooed, ‘Oh, you’re wearing a different dress today! I like it. See you at
dinner…’ he trailed off a suggestive wink. I felt nauseous, and even though I really wanted to run away, I knew
I could not do anything. In this part of the kingdom, it was different from all the other places. There was not
much law, since everyone here has been convicted of breaking a law. Men often prey on women, sometimes
more than one at a time, and the supervisors and the Emperor’s man just turn to the side and turn a deaf ear. I do
not blame them; I understand. There are tens of thousands of workers here, and only so few of them. There was
no point in trying to enforce discipline and manner. However, this also made life difficult for the women around
here. Nighttime was dangerous, and we often slept with our tent door bolted and something sharp within reach
just in case there was an intruder- it was better to be safe than sorry. The supervisor released me with a flick of
his finger on my chin, and I scrambled back to work, nearly slipping in the process. For the rest of the day, I
kept my eyes on my feet as I did my rounds, offering water to quench the thirst of several hundred sweaty and
grimy men.