Module C
Part A - 12 marks
“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there’s no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”– Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Use the ideas in this stimulus above for a piece of imaginative, discursive or persuasive writing that expresses the transformative power of literature.
The skyscrapers and erratic emerald green and bloodied lights reflect off the dampened streets of Fujian. They neglect the pungent smell of decay an hour away. They neglect the whisper of a family's past in the trees.
***
Wendy nudges the towering mahogany door open in the apartment towering over Fujian. The bitter aroma of lemongrass laced with Chinese herbal remedies wafts to her nose: Ginseng, Rhubarb Root and Ma Huang. It makes her cringe. Mrs Hu (her mother ) believed they had medicinal benefits, but Wendy knew that they were just from dodgy articles that her mother read on WeChat.
As she hobbles out to the living room where a single conical hat is locked away in a glass box that has a single stripe of pearly white paint on the side of it. It is well protected from the dust and humidity of the air around. Wendy could not understand the importance of a simple hat. Why had her mother kept this hat for so many years? Why was it secured away? What treasures did it hold? What stories did it tell? Her mind was full of questions.
“Why do you keep that hat?” questioned Wendy as she sat on the bright red leather couch of the living room.
Mrs. Hu’s eyes fall as she recollects the time where the book of her life fell on a dark chapter.
She had heard the rusted hinges of the splintered wooden door creaking in a dark omen. A rampage of 5 boys ran out of their cold, stone house followed by 3 girls. They had worn tall conical hats and held woven baskets as they waved goodbye to their parents. Their faces were lined with wisdom and age.
Huian, the youngest of the eight clutched tightly on to the hand of her elder sister as she gripped the oversized basket to her chest with her eyes fixated on the distant Ting River ahead of her. The Ting River is their cafeteria for the night. Mrs. Hu can taste the salted clams, fried ham yu fish and scallops (it makes her mouth water). They were going to fill their baskets that night.
In the muddy fields of the Ting River, they scavenged in knee deep water in search of any small creatures to eat. They hadn’t found much. Just a 2 small ham yu fish. The sun had fallen beneath the horizon.
“There’s no fish here, I'll go look further out. Stay here Meimei.” Jiayi utters to Mrs. Hu, handing her conical hat to her.
Where is she going? What is she going to do? Why couldn’t she go with her? Her mind was full of questions as she clutched onto her jiejie’s conical hat.
Hours ticked by. Ink splattered across the sky. The tides had risen and the wind whistled through the trees urging her to go home. Still Mrs. Hu waited for her jiejie. Her stomach was growling, yet she refused to leave the banks of the Ting River.
When she finally returned, her parents had splattered snow white paint on their doorpost with a solemn look on their face. The cheap incense burnt throughout the night as water crashes on the river banks of the Ting River with empty returns.
Now, decades later, Mrs. Hu gazes out the apartment window through the trees that whistle in the wind and the rain that blurs the city’s view.
