The Dream of Paper (HKYWA 2024)
by Matthew Yam Po Sing 6A
This short story was written for the Hong Kong Young Writer’s Awards 2024. This year’s theme was “New Tales of China’s Inventions”. Students were allowed to write about the old and new Chinese inventions everyone uses today!
Winner of the Bauhinia Club Award in Creative Fiction Group 2 as part of the Hong Kong Young Writer’s Awards 2024.
In ancient China, there were two kinds of paper: bamboo slips and silk. Bamboo slips are small thin bamboo stripes that are linked together by strings. They are very cheap but too heavy, and you can only write about a few hundred words on the bamboo strips. Silk is very light and easy to write on but too expensive. A piece of silk costs about 700 to 1000 Wuzhu (Currency back then)! This problem has been a huge problem for Emperors.
Professor Nolan Davison, Bryon Bell’s teacher, has just invented a time machine. It lets you dream a historical dream and whoever dreams back in time must be awakened by another person to wake up. He had the chance to see the piece of paper that changed the world with Professor Bell…
Professor Bryon Bell was at an archaeological site in China. A gigantic smile appeared on his face. He could not suppress his excitement. He was about to see the first paper in the world getting unearthed! However, there were some gibberish words written across this mysterious artifact. Professor Bell frowned and started to read the words. Just like magic, some purple particles formed a sphere. Professor Bell was surprised. He had never seen these incoherent words, not to mention the weird particles. He just can’t wait to research this paper. In the blink of an eye, he was sucked into a strange tunnel full of images of Chinese people. Suddenly, the only thing he could see was blackness...
When he woke up, the surroundings were poles apart from nowadays. Everyone was wearing loose clothes and had a small piece of jade hanging around their waist. Everyone was riding in chariots. There were no skyscrapers; only single-story houses. He has traveled back in time! He was transported to the palace, dressing like a servant. Phew! Luckily, I was dressed like a servant. Unless the Emperor might punish me, or even chop my head! Professor Bell thought.
“Cai Lun.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I have been worried about the problem of bamboo slips and clothes. Bamboo slips are not quite expensive but very heavy. On the other hand, clothes are light but very expensive. Can you think of a way to help the civilians?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll do my best.”
Professor Bell was transferred to Cai Lun’s house. This time, he was dressed as an entourage and his clothes magically changed. Cai Lun’s house was a huge villa with a big garden and a huge balcony to observe the civilian life so that he could improve their life. He was sitting on the balcony and sighed, “I shouldn’t be accepting this huge mission. What a huge problem! How can I make new material to write on?”
Professor Bell spoke unconsciously, “Why don’t you go to the village and get some inspiration?”
“That’s a great idea! Tell the servants to get the sedan chair.”
“Yes.” Professor Bell spoke.
A few moments later.
“Hey! What are you doing with that white, thin stuff?” Cai Lun shouted to the women he saw across the river.
“We are people that do sericulture. We are getting silk from silkworms. These are the silk that failed the quality test. We usually use them to fix broken windows or wrap something up. My husband even uses them to practice calligraphy.”
It must be very light. If I can improve it, I might make new writing material! Cai Lun thought. He couldn’t wait to go back and test it. “Return and try to make it from these silkworms.”
“Yes.”
Cai Lun got a few silkworms from those women and went back. Professor Bell was again sent forward to the future half an hour later. Now, he was a bush in the garden. He saw Cai Lun was collecting silk from silkworms. They collected the bad-quality silk intentionally. He mixed them with some waste wood and bamboo. He put it on a wooden frame with a cloth inside of it. When this mixture was dried, he found out that this material was very unstable: sometimes it was very fragile, and sometimes it was too tensile to write on. Sometimes it was not even writeable! After countless trials and errors, he finally found the perfect recipe: he used withered flowers, skins of trees and broken fishnets to mix with water, then boiled it, and put it on the wooden frame.
Cai Lun reported this to the Emperor. He tried calligraphy on it and it was perfect! It was just like an even cheaper and lighter version of bamboo slips, or a way cheaper version of silk. The Emperor decided to give Cai Lun a great reward. Cai Lun named this material “paper”.
Professor Bell noted all the history of the paper carefully, but he still couldn’t go back to the present. Suddenly, he remembered the effect that whoever went back in time must be awakened by another person to come back to the present.
“ARGH! Please someone wake me up!” He screamed at the top of his lungs.
About a minute later, he saw the strange tunnel. He was traveling back in time. He woke up, back to reality.
“How was the experience? Did you see Cai Lun? A piece of paper accidentally slipped into the machine. That’s why you dreamed about the history of paper. Sorry!” Prof. Nolan Davison said. “Oh, can I have a look at your notes?”
Professor Bell searched in his pocket. “I... I lost it!”
The next day.
“Archaeologists had unearthed an ancient notebook written with the details of Cai Lun’s papermaking technology. It is estimated the time Cai Lun had discovered papermaking technology. Archaeologists are still discovering why there was a notebook at that time. That’s all for News Today. Thanks for watching. Have a good night.”
How? Why is my notebook right there? Could it be… the dream really happened? Professor Bell was shocked.