Dong Qiangqiang sat down as he was told and poured a glass of juice for Lao Bai: "Don't drink on an empty stomach, it will hurt your stomach. Let's have some juice first."
Lao Bai picked up the cup with a smile, looked at Dong Qiangqiang gratefully, and drank it all in one gulp.
After not seeing him for three weeks, Lao Bai seemed to be thinner than before he left. His cheeks were sunken, and his white hair had grown longer. His previously clean temples had naughty and unruly strands of hair sticking out from them. Coupled with the black stubble on his chin, the whole person looked a little out of phase, making him look a bit out of shape. Things were even worse before.
Lao Bai put down his cup and wiped his mouth. Looking at the meat and vegetables on the table, some red and some green, he couldn't help but pick up the chopsticks and praised: "You did all this? Okay, the real person doesn't show his face." .”
"It's just home-cooked food." Dong Qiangqiang had tasted Lao Bai's cooking skills and said modestly, "I can't compare with Brother Bai."
Lao Bai has been a tour guide for a long time, and his business often requires him to take guests to eat in restaurants with different flavors. Although he is not a cook by training, he loves to cook. In addition, he travels extensively and eats a lot, learning the difference between those who can cook and those who cannot.
He could tell by looking at the shredded potatoes on the table that they were as thin as toothpicks that Dong Qiangqiang must have practiced. Although the vinegar-based shredded potatoes were just an ordinary home-cooked dish, he could see the skill of the cutter.
"Well, you've been working as a back cook in a Chinese restaurant since you first arrived?" Lao Bai picked up a chopstick of shredded potatoes and put it into his mouth. He chewed and joked, "What are you responsible for? Garnishing? Making tomatoes? Or cutting them? Dun'er?"
Dong Qiangqiang smiled slightly: "Before I came out, my family was afraid that I would be hungry when I came to Germany, so they sent me to my hometown in Shanxi for a few months. I learned some basics from Masters Hong An and Bai An, which made Brother Bai laugh."
"It's good. You know how to cook and not starve to death." Lao Bai said and picked up a piece of braised pork that was fat or thin, juicy and oily, and had an attractive chestnut color. "How are you doing with your driving skills?"
"I just finished learning the traffic rules this week and have already applied to take the test. The driving school said I should be able to get the test time next week."
"Traffic regulations are easy to test, just brush up on the question bank. What about the road test?"
“I’ve basically run in urban areas, suburbs and highways, and I’ve also practiced at night and on rainy days. However, the total number of hours of driving training is still a little short of that. If I take the time next week to practice for a few more days, it should be almost the same (enough hours). . I asked the driving school, and they said that as long as I pass the traffic regulations test, I can make an appointment for the road test." Dong Qiangqiang replied.
"Well, driving is a skilled job. It's definitely right to practice more and accumulate experience. I just didn't practice enough at the time and lacked actual experience on the road." Lao Bai took a sip of wine and recalled, "I remember it very clearly. On the day of the road test, It went smoothly at first, but then I slowly drove into a commercial street in the city. There was a bus in front of me. You know the buses in Germany are those very long two-car cars. When it goes very slowly, you can’t even drive. I couldn’t tell whether it was parked or driving. I looked at it and passed it from the side as if it had stopped. I didn’t notice that the four lights on the rear of the bus were on (Note: According to German traffic regulations, the car behind you cannot pass a public bus at this time. (you need to wait behind the bus). Although I was overtaking at a speed of less than 5 kilometers per hour, it was still against the rules. At that time, the examiner’s face drooped. You know that Germans have very long faces, and they drooped again. , it almost fell under the passenger seat." Lao Bai said while making an exaggerated gesture, making the other party's face droop to the ground.
He was halfway through this movement when his arm suddenly froze and his face seemed to twitch. He slowly lowered his left arm angrily, picked up the wine glass with his right hand and took a big gulp.
Dong Qiangqiang noticed that his left arm didn't seem to move freely, and couldn't help but wonder: "It's been almost a month, and your arm is still not healed?"
Lao Bai put down his wine glass, stretched out his right hand and slowly pulled up the sleeve of his left arm. Dong Qiangqiang saw several layers of gauze wrapped around his forearm, and in the middle of the gauze there was a dark red oval dot the size of a fingernail. Dong Qiangqiang guessed that it should be the traces left after the oozing blood dried up.
"I remember your injury was on your left arm?" Dong Qiangqiang asked in surprise, "Is this a new injury?"
"It was scratched by a few gangsters with knives." Lao Bai explained lightly and put down his sleeves again.
"Is being a tour guide so risky?" Dong Qiangqiang is not surprised by skin injuries, but he did not fully expect the risks of the position of a tour guide.
"You will know when you become a tour guide in the future," Lao Bai's tone became serious. "The security situation in many European cities is particularly bad, no better than Chicago and Detroit in the United States."
"Didn't you go to Paris? Isn't Paris still bad?" Dong Qiangqiang couldn't help but asked curiously.
"In the past few years of working as a tour guide, I feel that the public security in first-tier European cities such as Paris and Rome is not very good. It is not as good as those small countries in Eastern and Southern Europe. Especially in Paris, there are robberies during the day."
"Then the French police don't care?" Dong Qiangqiang couldn't help but think of his own experience at Frankfurt Airport.
"There must be police, but it's hard to say whether they were with you when you were robbed." Lao Bai said sternly, "Paris is not small. It is divided into 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 circles, a bit like the Second Ring Road in Beijing. There are three rings and four rings. For example, the center of Paris belongs to the first and second rings, the Palace of Versailles is in the fourth ring, and Disney and Fontainebleau are in the fifth ring. Each ring is divided into many different districts. France in history There were many colonies in France, so many black people came to France to make a living. The quality of black people varied greatly, and public security was naturally not that good."
Seeing Dong Qiangqiang's curious expression, Lao Bai knew that he wanted to hear the story of his arm injury, and smiled sadly: "There are many people in the group this time, and most of them obey the greetings, but there is a middle-aged man who likes to yell. He also liked to show off when spending money, but he was immediately targeted by thieves. I had already seen that the people around him were thieves, and I reminded him to be careful, but he just didn't listen. As a result, after I answered When other people were talking about tax exemption, he was robbed. I quickly grabbed the shoulder strap of a bag. Unexpectedly, his accomplice stabbed my hand with a knife. I could only let go, but I still took a step slower. My arm That’s it.”
"Then you didn't call the police?" Dong Qiangqiang felt shocked when he heard this.
"Of course I reported it, but the romantic French police are not as efficient as the German police. When something like this happens, if everyone doesn't get the stolen goods immediately, it will be difficult to get it back in the future." Lao Bai shrugged. , "At least I haven't heard of anyone who lost something in Paris and found it again."
Dong Qiangqiang thought to himself: The efficiency of the German police is not much better.
"What happened next?" Listening to Lao Bai's story gave Dong Qiangqiang the same feeling as when he was a child listening to storytelling, an illusory sense of reality.
"Fortunately, the middle-aged man was not injured." Lao Bai picked up several pieces of braised pork. It was obvious that he liked Dong Qiangqiang's cooking skills. "I paid him some money."
"What? You compensate him?" Dong Qiangqiang was simply unbelievable, "Why? Isn't it his own fault?"
"What you said is correct, but there is a difference between the actual situation and the truth." Lao Bai said calmly, "Of course it is his fault that he lost the thing, and I will not pay any compensation or take responsibility for the loss. But think about it, I am a tour guide, and one of my group members lost something while traveling with me. Once word gets out, which travel agency will dare to ask me to do a tour again in the future? It is my duty not to compensate him, but I compensate him out of love. Of course, the amount is small I can compensate you in full, but the amount is too big and I can’t afford it even if I want to. Like the bag he lost this time, there were a bunch of new bags from LV, Chanel, and Dior, all adding up to at least 20,000 francs. I really couldn't afford to pay for the above, so I could only give him 3,000 (francs) from the tips I got in the past three weeks. However, the person in charge of the group and other members of the group were on my side. He even tried to fix it when he saw that I had failed. I had the injection, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask for the money, so I took 1,000 francs as a token fee and returned the rest to me.”
Dong Qiangqiang suddenly realized: "So you didn't even think you would get the money back in the first place?"
Lao Bai shook his head: "I sincerely compensate him. The consumption power of this group is very strong, and I don't want to lose a lot because of a small thing. I will definitely not do a loss-making business like picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelons."
Dong Qiangqiang not only admired Lao Bai's courage and courage, but also admired his careful consideration when encountering problems. He couldn't help but raise his glass and said from the bottom of his heart: "Brother Bai, thank you for giving me this opportunity (to enter the industry). I will hang out with you from now on."
Lao Bai couldn't help but feel scared when he thought about this experience. He took a sip of wine and warned seriously: "If you encounter something like this as a tour guide in the future, don't chase those thieves. After all, money is something outside the body, and these people are ruthless. . I was lucky enough to encounter someone with a knife this time. If I had encountered someone with a gun, I might have died."
"Just shooting for a bag?" Dong Qiangqiang thought it was a fantasy.
"You know that the bottom line of such robbers is very low. Their living environment is very harsh. Some people may kill people just for bread. You don't know what environment the people you are facing grew up in, so when you meet In this situation, don’t take risks and don’t be brave. After all, each of us only has one life. When you take risks, think about your parents and those who love you at home. What’s better than letting yourself go out safely and come back safely? They are all strong." Lao Bai sighed, "I had a classmate from Hamburg who was a tour guide and this happened to him. He was shot in the leg and went back to China without even finishing school."
Dong Qiangqiang never expected that being a tour guide would be so risky, and he would have to face robbers with knives and guns. Looking at it this way, the black-faced and tusked wild boars I met in the free range forest seemed to have become cute.
"Of course, don't worry too much." Seeing Dong Qiangqiang's solemn expression, Lao Bai suddenly changed the subject, "As long as you stay vigilant, this kind of thing (being robbed) is not bound to happen."
"Well, it seems that I need to learn some professional self-defense skills first," Dong Qiangqiang remembered the colorful posters he had seen when he went to the university's foreign affairs office to inquire about AP last time. There seemed to be courses on such self-defense skills. " It can also be considered as a precautionary measure to lay a solid foundation for my smooth debut."
"I wish you good luck in the exam and get your car certificate as soon as possible." Lao Bai raised his glass.
"prt (note: German for 'cheers')!" Dong Qiangqiang said loudly.
The wine glasses clashed together, and brown-red alcohol spilled all over the table.
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