I have already had lunch

Lee Syan Fah is a Chinese student who came to the Soviet Union to study at the Moscow University. He doesn’t talk much, probably because he doesn’t have a good command of Russian. He is silent most of the time. He is quite friendly and doesn’t mean any harm. Many students in our group mock at him and make him a laughing stock, so much he stands out from all the others. He keeps pretty much to himself. Sometimes, when you ask him a question, you cannot say for sure if he understands you at all. But when he finally answers you can say straight away that he is not anybody’s fool. He keeps his nose in a book and his lips move as he follows the text with his eyes.
Unlike most of our students, I am friendly disposed to Syan Fah, and he knows it. We speak English as he is more fluent with it than Russian.
- Look, Syan Fah, I am going to have lunch, - I said. – Would you care to come and keep me company? We could go to the canteen together.
But Syan Fah wants to save money. A dollar saved is a dollar earned, he often says. And he is right there.
- No, thanks. Maybe next time. I have already had lunch.
- When did you have it?
- Yesterday.

I didn’t know that Syan Fah only had one meal a day, and not every day. He had meals 3 times a week, but he used to drink a lot of pure water. The water was free at the time.
30 years passed. Syan Fah called me from China a few days ago. God only knows how he found my mobile phone number. He talked to me with the same voice, as if we had parted yesterday. His company now exports shoes to Russia and is worth about a billion dollars.