Venture to speak

  This Wednesday was the eve of the Chinese Lunar News year. We had a practice to order lunch box every Wednesday at lunch time. But on that day, a senior colleague suggested to eat out and seek something better.  We reached a shopping mall and found a restaurant which offered hot pot buffet. We felt happy because we were so reluctant to enjoy a luxury lunch for long times. We deserved it!

  After the pots were settled, we snapped many delicious food from the bar and poured them all into the pots. When the pots were steaming, we were excited and ate as many as we could. We also talked during the lunch. We talked about our family life, female movie stars, especially the fresh girlie barristers in TV drama. We didn't believe there will be such beautiful barristers in real world. But that was enough to fill up our hope and imagination and escape from the cruel reality.

   Was such topic so boring that could not draw attention from two of our colleagues? They played with their smartphone all the time throughout the lunch hour. Such situation has already occurred in every lunch in the past. The senior colleague finally said, "Playing game is OK, but we need to talk and build friendship when we gather!" May be the young guys were too shy to talk in a table of staff.

   His says reminded me an interesting word I have read from a novel. When we quote someone's speech, we use phases such as "he said", "he asked". For example, "Do you think I am too fat?" he asked. But in that novel, the author expressed in this way: "Do you remember Tony?"I ventured. I think "venture" is a precise word to describe that atmosphere. It is elegant also. Sometime English reading is pleasure. Words I expect should be noun or adjective, can be used as verb and give special meaning.

    When we faced dead air in a gathering and wanna break it, we should breath up and say some silly stuff first. For example, "Such a cold weather!" We wish it can trigger the conversation. But it fails most of the time because IT guys are very shy and not talkative. Then I should find another funny topic to start. Some kind man will try to respond so that the starter will not feel embarrassed. But someone will continue to play the smartphone silently anyway. That's why it takes risk to start talking. And that's why the word "venture" draws my interest.