Choice
Hi, my name is Lan Taylor, and I went back in time to the year 220 in imperial China. It was really cool looking. Everybody was wearing robes, maybe not everyone was. It was a lot of fun exploring for a while. It all started on a school field trip, I was getting teased by mean girls for being adopted. My history class was at a museum because we were learning about ancient chinese religion. I am Chinese and my family is taoist, so I went to learn about it because I knew nothing about it. I went to read a plaque in chinese. When I did there was aZAP, BOOM, CLASH!
I opened my eyes and as I said I went back in time to the time 220. It didn’t look like I was in 2015 any more. It looked like……an old place a nice old. It smelt like a field and antique store, I found out that I was in the time my family turned into taoists. I saw my ancestors, they are Mei Kang, Ling Kang, Jun Kang, and their mother Far Kang also Guang Poon while I was exploring this morning.I know my ancestors names, I have read a book with my ancestors names in it .
This is the story of Mei Kang’s family and her turn into taoist. Mei Kang was the youngest and the prettiest of the three girls. The two older girls had to get their feet bound and Mei did not. The family counted on Mei to marry a rich greedy man who she did not love named Chang Fu. “I do not love this man mother why make me,” said Mei with an anxious voice.
“ It is your duty to marry this man, it is not about love” said Far in a gruff voice.
“ Why can’t I marry him? I’m the oldest,” said Jun angrily
“ she is prettier than you and he likes her more, and she doesn't have her feet bounded,” Ling said sadly. After she eats her favorite food vegetables and rice,, here diet that Gaung Poon told her to do because it is a taoist practice. She loves him, and she would anything to please him. Mei goes outside for fresh air. She sees Gaung Poon doing martial arts with his father. She walks towards him. Gaung Poon and his father want her to change her religion from Buddhism to Taoism if she marries Gaung, she loves him not Chang Fu. Gaung didn’t know that her mother is making her marry Chang Fu and she tells him.
“Mei Mei, I love you, but why can’t I marry you? I teach future emperors. Is that good enough?” said Gaung in a strained voice.
“My father wants you to…” as Gaung speaks she interrupts,
“to change my religion… but if I marry you,” then Gaung looks at Mei and doesn’t say anything and walks away.
In the middle of the night Mei decides to go on a walk. After a minute the walk turns into a run that looks like some animal running from its prey prancing as far as it can. Mei runs until she is out of breath where it feels like she could die. When she stops she lays in the wet dewy grass, which gets her night robe all wet after a while. Because of her wet gown she is as cold as an ice cube on a winter day. After a while she sits up and sees a temple far off in the distance. She walked towards the temple with her wet night robe. She was disappointed because she loved that silk robe that her father gave her before he had died.
When she walked up she saw a monk and asked, “What religion does this temple belong to?”
“This is a taoist temple, why do you ask” said the monk
“Can you teach me how to live a life of a taoist?”
“Yes. First you need to learn Te. Te is usually translated as virtue, but this translation uses some Confucian ideas and can be confusing. After that it is the ying and yang, dark and light.If you are in darkness you will always have light, and in light you will always have darkness. That is only some practice or good thing you could do. I have to go now I hope to see you soon,”
“Wait, should I chose my family or love?”
“It’s up to you,” said the monk as he walked away.
When Mei got home she saw her mother she looked mad, “where were you, you missed tea with Chang Fu. He wants his answer NOW!”
“My answer is no,” said Mei in a dainty voice.
NO! Young lady how are we supposed to live if we don’t have money?!”
“Again where were you” said Ling trying to be a smart alec.
“I was at a taoist temple learning how to be a taoist,”
“A what? You can’t change your religion……”
“Yes I can it there isn’t a law against it. And I am marrying Gaung Poon. He and his father are not the poor people you used to know he is the teacher for the emperor's children. He is now in the upper class we marry in two days time.”
“So we are saved!” Said Ling
“where will you get married?” Said Jun
“At the temple that I was talking about. I will be wearing a silk wedding gown too,”
“The taoist Temple, we can’t go there! There will be to many people meditating because thats what taoists do” said Far in a voice that sounded like she was trying to get Mei out of it. But then notices that that is what she does as a Buddhists, but she goes along with it even if she meditates every evening.
Mei and Gaung got married and know. After the wedding I heard another CLANG,BAM,BOOM! And I opened my eyes and I am back in the museum.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
I think this is a super cool Idea and I would really like to re-read this but as of now I was a little bored. No offence intended but this could be done better. I first thing I have to say is write it different. I way you wrote this was like you were writing a paper for English class describing your summer vacation. If you write it like a narrative it would be really cool. second thing is add description. You could have the best plot ever created but if there is no description it will turn out mediocre.
Third thing, I didn't see many but there are grammar mistakes that could be fixed very easy. It would take ten minutes all together to do the grammar. Fourth thing, what tense are you writing in? Past or present tense? In my opinion I think past tense would be best because you're trying to tell a story that has already happened not happening, but it is all you choice.
Don't worry about this because it is easy to fix all of these and if you have trouble with some I would love to help. But don't sweat it because half of these mistakes I make but I edit and it usually doesn't show. Edit this and I think it will be a hit because it's a cool story line just it could be better written. Good luck and keep writing.
It actually was for english. I'm in their class.
Ah okay that make a whole lot of sense because it sounded like an English paper.
I think this would be very interesting if you expanded a bit on the culture a little more. Since the narrator is in a museum, the reader should be getting the same information the narrator is retrieving from his/her experience.
Also, try putting a division between the intro, and when the time change begins, since the story connects to the intro, which can make it a bit confusing to read at first.
I'm not sure if I am right, but I am assuming that the narrator is watching the change in Mei and her family, like a flashback? So maybe try to get the narrator involved somehow, to help connect the reader to the story.
In the beginning description, try to 'show' rather than 'tell'. Describe the senses and small details to help the reader visualize the robes and the setting, etc.
Ex:
I stared out into the sunset.
Into:
I looked out into the evening, watching the sun fall into the watercolor painted sky.
A few details can really make a difference in the perspective of the story.
Again, this is an interesting short, and can be even better with a few minor adjustments to the details. Good luck!
~Genesis~
Thanks for the feedback I will fix those.