標題: 飯局 [打印本頁] 作者: 王敬濤 時間: 2020-9-25 10:19 標題: 飯局 Dinners, such as the famous Hongmenyan, are by no means as simple as they are first thought to be. The host always has their own intentions. In order to achieve their particular aim, they invite you to the dinner, which of course will be more complicated than you expect.
I was invited to a dinner at university. It was not long after the new term had begun. We won a basketball match against another class. All the five players were excited, our class monitor held a dinner at the campus restaurant, the six of us going Dutch. We drank happily for the victory, for having such a considerate monitor. He was handsome, humorous and talented, getting on well with everyone in our class. Although good at hip-hop, he never seemed arrogant. He didn’t even dance unless he was asked to. What touched us most was his taking others seriously. We had never felt so close to a person like him, some girls fell deeply in love with him secretly.
At the end of the dinner we were drunken, and didn’t feel like moving, he went alone to ask the waiter how much the dinner cost, as he always did, like a faithful servant. It was seven hundred yuan, which was a little too expensive. There were six of us. So everyone should pay one hundred and sixteen point sixty-seven yuan, which was not convenient because we had no small change with us.
Our monitor offered to pay it for us so that we could go to bed earlier, the money we owed him could be returned when we got change ready. He smiled in return when we thanked him.
After we returned money to him, two of the players, who were my best friends, told me there had been something wrong with the paying. We had had only ten dishes, would each dish cost seventy yuan? Even vegetable? How could they cost so much? It was in 1990s. Impossible. Both of them went back to ask about the check—when they found the meal cost only three hundred and fifty yuan, they could hardly believe their eyes.
What should we do? We wished that it were only our monitor’s joke, that he would explain something to us the next day. We waited for him. Nothing happened after three days. We tried talking to him frankly, but he ignored us with a very cold smile. Should we report him to cadres? No! It would cause trouble because we were not allowed to drink on campus. We decided to spread the news secretly, having others know how hypocritical he was. Gradually, everyone began to know what he did and got alert, including the cadres. Someone found themselves cheated by him somewhere else after that, but more and more rarely.
After graduation the monitor and we three happened to be assigned to the same fleet. He did a good job and wanted to join the Party, competing with us. He was talented, we couldn’t rival him. But we knew what a despicable creature he was, it was our responsibility to disclose him. At last, his dream of promotion didn’t come true.
Now he still works as a common officer in the fleet, never put in any important position. He has not made up with us because we have been waiting for an apology or a change in his character, which maybe will never take place.
