All entries should be based on the theme for 2023, New Tales of Judge Pao. One winner will be chosen in each of the groups, and one lucky student will be named The Hong Kong Young Writer of 2023.
New Tales of Judge Pao
Judge Pao, China’s Sherlock Holmes, really existed
BEFORE THERE WAS Detective Pikachu, before there was Batman, before there was Sherlock Holmes. . . there was Judge Pao. A crusading figure with a passion to fight crime and clean up the land, Judge Pao lived more than 1,000 years before any of the other justice fighters mentioned above were dreamed up by authors. His name may ring bells worldwide, as there have been many books and movies inspired by his life, including books written in Chinese, English and French.
This hero really existed. Not only that, but his fame spread while he was alive, with people saying that he dispensed justice as a human during the day, but at night, he became the immortal Yama of a Department of Hell known as “the Infernal Bureaucracy” and worked as a supernatural judge sorting out the affairs of the Afterlife.
He also has a really interesting Hong Kong connection. His line of descent has been carefully recorded, and a famous family in the city, known for the patriarch Sir Y.K. Pao (short for Pao Yue-Kong).
And Hong Kong, home of his grandchildren, regularly wins awards in global indexes for having a world-class legal system and one of the planet’s best corruption-fighting operations.
China’s famous supernatural judge would have been proud.
Please note that we do not accept submissions directly from students. Students must first submit to their schools, which will then have to choose ten entries to forward to the next round of the contest. Contact the teacher who is in charge of the competition at your school.