Harvard Business Professor Declares War on Family-Run Chinese Restaurant That Overcharged Him $4

[Updated 12-10-14 11:01 p.m. PST] This is not the first time Professor Edelman has done this!

[Updated 12-10-14 4:59 p.m. PST Harvard Business Professor Apologizes For Bullying Mom and Pop Asian Restaurant]

Things we’ve all experienced at a Chinese restaurant: being inexplicably yelled at by the restaurant’s servers/owners/cooks, finding new species of insects in the food and/or drinks, and being overcharged. When any of those things happen, you’re supposed to freak out, make a scene and then surreptitiously come back for more MSG later when they’ve forgotten you were that one bun dan who freaked out and made a scene.

Well, apparently, Harvard Business School associate professor Ben Edelman didn’t get the memo on Chinese restaurant etiquette. After ordering $53.35 worth of takeout at Sichuan Garden in Boston’s Brookline Village, Edelman found that he had been accidentally overcharged a whopping $4 upon his arrival home, according to Boston.com. Edelman then put his Harvard degrees to work against the business in a series of righteous, smarmy emails with Sichuan Garden bartender Ran Duan, whose parents founded the restaurant.

Read Edelman’s emails below, wherein he tries to squeeze the restaurant out of $12 for overcharging him $4 and reveals himself to be, in general, a total and complete fuckface. Duan, meanwhile, gets an A+ for not pulling a Bac Nguyen.

Duan told Boston.com about the exchange:

“I have worked so hard to make my family proud and to elevate our business. It just broke my heart.”

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