The following is a microfiction based on a senior Hongkong citizen's childhood story:

A skinny child, I somehow found the strength to carry two good-sized baskets of scrap metal, each tied to one end of a bamboo pole seesawing on my right shoulder.  Naturally, I was leaning right, which made it easier for me to look past my mother. She was leading the way down this narrow left-tilting muddy footpath to a small but growing market. She halted and sighed far too often, however.  My baby sister was in her arms, unusually quiet. 

I could not help saying hello to my peers who were patiently trying to pass me.  Boys would have been totally naked, if not with their worn-out shorts on, like me.  Girls were better covered, looking back at me like patchwork dolls, smiling faintly.  Shoeless, boys and girls were leaving their deep footprints in the mud, one step at a time. Each and every one of us was holding on to something heavy. We were born with a burden.

I lost my baby sister on that market day. No one explained her death to me.

It was 1959. Refugees were all over Hongkong.

by Lingyang Jiang