Chapter 44: The Veritable Nurse Shark
After figuring out the whole story, Xiao Peng felt helpless. Mrs. Derrida said she would be furious when she found out the truth, but Xiao Peng swears to God, he didn't feel angry at all. Instead, he found it hilarious!
France's industry and agriculture are both highly developed. It's the largest agricultural producer in the entire European Union! They are the world's leading exporter of agricultural and sideline products! 11% of the global agricultural and sideline product market comes from France!
The main export markets for their goods are Northwest Africa and Europe, but these markets are now also highly competitive, and they urgently need to develop new markets.
While Northwest Africa is considered France's "backyard," they had long struggled to penetrate East Africa. After years of effort, things finally turned around, with a groundbreaking commercial partnership with Kenya. France imported sisal hemp as a textile raw material, and France provided an equivalent amount of wheat to Kenya, marking a new chapter in bilateral cooperation.
This is a good thing in itself, but then something interesting happens.
Kenya still attaches great importance to this cooperation and has taken the initiative to send a fleet to contact France. A large amount of high-quality sisal raw materials are transported to Djibouti via the Djibouti-Africa Railway, then loaded onto ships and shipped through the Suez Strait across the Mediterranean to Marseille for unloading. The ships are then loaded with wheat at the Port of Marseille and return along the same route.
As a result, a problem arose: Kenya attached great importance to this cooperation and took a very positive attitude, but because it was too anxious, it did not contact enough large cargo ships, so it simply organized a fleet from Djibouti and came to Marseille in a mighty manner. They were all small cargo ships like the ones Xiao Peng saw today.
Although the Port of Marseille is the largest port in France, they were still dumbfounded by the sudden arrival of such a group of small cargo ships.
Marseille has two ports: the New Port, where cargo ships dock, and the Old Port, where yachts moor. So many small cargo ships can't all enter the New Port, nor can they anchor outside, blocking the waterway. After all, the port of Marseille is too large to serve only small vessels, right? Finally, they came up with a solution: let the small cargo ships that haven't unloaded their cargo dock in the New Port of Marseille first, waiting for the previous ships to unload and load and leave the port before entering.
This is a good solution, but people in the Old Port of Marseille disagree.
The Old Port was full of sailboats and yachts, so why would they allow cargo ships in? What if they damaged our boats? So they organized a "Defend the Old Port" campaign to ban cargo ships from entering, using their own boats as a barrier. But they got what they wanted, and they capsized one of the ships.
Ignorance is the original sin!
A boat isn't a car that can be stopped simply by slamming on the brakes. There's something called inertia! Xiao Peng's small sailboat traveled at least 300 meters from the time it lowered its sails and dropped anchor to the moment it finally came to a stop. And what about a cargo ship this size? These protesters demonstrated with their own actions what it means to "try to stop a chariot with a mantis arm"!
If Xiao Peng were to evaluate these protesters, it would be summed up in four words: they are all idle!
The protesters on that sightseeing boat weren't regulars like Derrida and his wife, who live in the Old Port of Marseille. They were locals. They were all middle-aged men and women, with an average age of over 55!
France has excellent welfare, especially for the elderly. As a result, young people here live a hard life, while the elderly live comfortably. With enough food and clothing, what do they do when they're bored? Protest! Demonstrate! It's pretty much like how Chinese seniors gather to do square dancing.
Many young people work hard from 9 to 5 every day and earn less than half of the pension of the elderly who do nothing. This is not normal in itself. Even here, there is no reason for a group of elderly people to demonstrate and protest against the low pension. . . . .
Of course, in their own eyes, this isn't looking for trouble; it's a sense of responsibility! They want to set an example for young people!
These old men and women have extremely bad tempers. After being rescued, they didn’t want to go to the hospital for a physical examination first, but insisted on waiting here for the coast guard to come and give them an explanation!
When the coast guard boats approached, the indignant expressions of the old men and women made it impossible to imagine how miserable they had been when they fell into the sea. Xiao Peng felt sympathy for the coast guards being besieged by them.
Being a police officer in France is really hard!
If we really want to hold the cruise ship responsible, it's the cruise ship's fault! Their actions blocked the waterway! But these old men and women don't care about that. They insist they are victims and are accusing the freighter of intentional homicide.
Especially when the reporters who heard the news showed up, they saw these old people making all kinds of accusations, and they seemed to be unwilling to get rid of their anger unless the captain of the freighter was sentenced to death!
It felt like those square-dancers in China who took over a young person's basketball court, beat them up, and then turned the tables on them, accusing them of disrespecting the elderly. When the police and media arrived, Xiao Peng and "Nightingale," the rescue duo, were left out in the cold.
Xiao Peng felt bored watching this scene. If he had known this would happen...
Well, he will still go into the sea to save people!
Although Xiao Peng has changed a lot after staying in Marseille for so long, he has not lost the kindness in the bones of the Chinese people.
He sat on the stern of his little sailboat, wrapped in a bath towel, holding a dead octopus from Mrs. Derrida's refrigerator.
Xiao Peng threw the octopus into the sea. It barely sank before Nightingale swam right up to it, and then it vanished in an instant. Nurse sharks are suckers, and they ate the octopus much like a human eats noodles!
"God, this is a miracle." Mrs. Derrida, who was in the boat next to her, asked excitedly, "How did you do it?"
Xiao Peng shrugged. "I really don't know. I don't even know how it appeared here. When I went out to sea just now, I saw it circling my boat. It might have followed the boat. But how it could save people is beyond my comprehension!"
Mr. Derrida emerged, a can of beer in his hand. “That’s the real ‘nurse shark,’ ” he said.
Another name for the nurse shark is the 'nurse shark', but this describes the shape of its head rather than its ability to save people.
After feeding Nightingale, Xiao Peng stood up and said, "Let's go! A luxurious Chinese meal is waiting for us!"
Mr. Derrida was stunned. "You're not waiting for the media to interview you? You're a great hero in saving people today! This is a great opportunity for you to become famous!"
Xiao Peng shook his head and pointed at the bottom of the sea: "How can I be considered a great hero? The great hero is down there."
Why didn't he leave? He was just waiting for the media to come and interview him so he could become famous. What young person doesn't like to show off? But after those old men and women made such a fuss, Xiao Peng lost interest.
"Mr. Derrida, how about I wait for you at La Ciotat Pier?" Xiao Peng asked. After all, they also participated in the rescue, and the media must have interviewed them!
The Derridas looked at each other and said, "Of course, eating Chinese food is more important! Let's go!"
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