No more than just a few miles

A recent news reported that a drunk government official in Shenzhen was judged by the local court as not guilty because he did not drive far but just two miles (one kilometer). His exemption from being accused and punished aroused wide-range of discussion as people don’t think the case should be explained by the quantity of miles he had covered. It’s not the case of no more than just a few miles, but instead, no! It’s far more than just a few miles.

This afternoon, I was an invigilator at an CET-6 exam room. As briefed and guided by the instruction and code book released by the provincial exam center, I accordingly followed the instructions and warned a male student who moved the pre-distributed exam booklet on his desktop and opened it. When I recorded the violation behavior and reported this to the patrol invigilator for further relevant actions, I was astonished by his comments and explicitly implicit refusal. His underlying reason was direct and concise: the procedure of rule-violation confirmation and processing were troublesome and the student involved was just a few miles away from the redline. Since this is considered by the direct authorities as yet a few miles from violating the exam rules, I stopped writing down the student’s name and his behavior and kept this at least then a concealed event discreetly. However, almost all the students present, approximately two dozen, noticed this incident, and what would they think, even if they did not speak a word?

Sometimes we believe a few miles is not miles, but since the coverage is a continuous event, one day one mile would turn into two miles, and further on, into an astonishing number of miles when these direct authorities were still unaware of the change of the nature of the violation-incurred behaviors. Concerning these minor but harmful behaviors, it’s not right any longer to say no more than just a few miles, but it’s more than just a few miles!