Friendship Story for Children – Sign board
Photo credit: gouache from morguefile.com
There was a restaurant in the suburbs of the city of Beijing, it was not a very big restaurant it was a small one. The front door of the restaurant was painted in blue by these delicious words “Here you can get world’s most delicious fish all the time” The fish of this restaurant was famous throughout the whole city and people used to drive for hours to get to this place and eat the fish. The fish was famous for its taste its red deep fried colour and boiled potatoes were served with the fish.
It is a story of two friends, A British national Joe and his Chinese friend ken. 3 years ago they used to go to that restaurant and the fish there regularly, there was not a single day that they had missed and not eaten the fish there. Joe while eating fish used to close his eyes and say “oh I am in love with this fish, it feels like as if this fish is cooked by the angels on a stove which is somewhere in the heavens” ken used to love his descriptions while eating the fish.
Time passed by very quickly and Joe and his friend ken left china for their respective jobs. After few years they both contacted each other and in the conversation both of them told each other that they had to visit china once again on an official tour, on the phone call they decided that they will re unite and will go into the suburbs of Beijing once again and will visit that restaurant to eat the fish which they had been eating together for years.
They day arrived, two friends met in China once again and there they decided to go to Beijing and visit that restaurant. They hired a cab and started their journey once again, remembering old memories and having a laugh on the way to the restaurant. When they reached that place they were shocked that there was nothing on the same place, no fish shop no sign board and nothing. They were very disappointed to see that and were amazed that where did the Fish shop go. Ken suddenly sniffed something and then pointed towards a shop and said
“ i don’t know but i think it’s the same fish, it’s the same old delicious smell”.
Both the friends rushed to that shop but they were surprised and quite amazed to see that there was no sign board nothing outside the shop but a black empty signboard. Both the friends decided to go in and they were shocked to see a large crowd inside the shop eating Fish with boiled potatoes and the eyes of the people were all lit up filled with happiness and joy. That old shopkeeper who had served all his life making that delicious fish for people came to ken and Joe and smiled, and in a good gesture he bowed down in the Chinese traditional manner and asked “ should i bring the fish?” Ken who was wearing Chinese dress smiled and bowed down back and said “for sure” but Joe on the other hand was a little amazed and asked the shopkeeper “why did you remove that beautiful sign board from your shop and instead placed a simple empty board?”
The old shopkeeper laughed and said “please have seat I will serve you the fish and will tell you my whole story”.
After the old man brought the fish ken’s eyes lit up and he picked a small piece and put it in his mouth and asked the shopkeeper “please now tell us your story” The old man sat down on the chair and started telling his story.
Old man: It’s been one year since that man came here, a tall dark broad shouldered army guy. He ate my fish and he Loved it so much that he became my very good friend, one day when he was eating fish at me shop he said to me that the reason behind the success of a shop lies in it’s sign board, he said that i have read your sign board which says “Here you can get world’s most delicious fish all the time” i think you should remove the word HERE from the sign board.
After that the very next day i made another board which said “you can get world’s most delicious fish all the time” third day the same army guy came and said to me that i have been looking at the sign board and the you should remove the word WORLD’S MOST from the sign board. So i followed his instructions and made a new sign board which said “You can get delicious fish all the time”.
Fourth day the same army guy came and said i think you should remove the word DELICIOUS as well. I followed his instructions and wrote “You can get fish all the time”. 6th day the army guy came and said i think you should just write the word FISH on your sign board. Hence i made another sign board which said “Fish”.
7th day he came again and said “i have been looking at your sign board and i don’t like this word FISH either, so you should remove it as well from your sign board and just make it empty, The smell of your delicious fish will spread in the whole market and people will get attracted by the smell of your fish and will come to your shop”.
I once again followed his instructions and removed the last word “Fish” from my sign board as well and instead i placed a black empty sign board outside my shop, now i have more customers visiting my shop and i now earn double the amount which used to earn before.
After listening to the story of the old man the two friends ken and Joe smiled at the intelligence of the old shopkeeper and cleaned their faces with the handkerchief after eating the fish and left the restaurant and got back to work again.
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