To Help or Not to Help

The Infinity people


I feel like a queen of East Europe!


A couple of drinks in the old Hog's head in St Mary Axe, wow, it is all like the old days.
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When going through the UK immigration, I volunteered to help an old Chinese man to answer immgration officer's inquiries. Amoung all oriental looking passengers (I came out of a 747 loaded with Japanese), I stepped out because I hope someone would also step forward to help my father or mother when they are traveling abroad alone.

I was tired and exhausted after 13 hours flight, but trying hard to keep my cool. The old man was from GuangXi, a retired teacher. I filled out the landing card for him, patiently waiting in the queue.

However, the old Chinese man is annoying in a brutal mannerless Chinese way. I did not feel his appreciation (it is not like I want him to thank me, but if he can put a little bit of thoughts for me, sweet but useless comments like "I am sorry to take your time, but..." I think I would be much more than happy to help him through). Of course his attitute was really his best weapon, I did admire his fearless and nothing-to-lose bluntiness. Nevertheless, that annoyed the hell out of me. As if he deserved to be served.

Although he has got a full set of documentation to allow him to get into UK, the immigration officer's attitute was not of his best. Question: How long is he going to stay? Answer from the old man "5 months" So I immediate translated but the old man added "maybe 6 months". So I faithfully ferried the answer to the officer, who was not amused "5 or 6 moths?". "Can you just put down 6 months to be sure" "I was expecting a truthful, concise answer when you replied". After the routine examination, he was let go and my passport was handled. The officer was not able to find any empty page to stamp, he was giving me the nagging about my lack of attention to my travel document, the old man standing behind the line raised his voice in Chinese "Why don't they let you through?" Immigration folks hate people talking in language they don't know, especially they thought we are traveling together. Dirty looks exchanged, oh god, I just want to get to my apartment and rest.

Finally I went through, though the old man is annoying, I worried that he won't be able to find his luggage from the laggage reclaim bells. I lead him to the reclaim area and pointed to him where he should find his luggages then I went to find mine. Again, he was sticking to me, nagging "what should I do, what should I do" Totally not using his brain cells but hoping I would find his luggages and pamper him all the way out. To this point, I was most annoyed to a point I want to run. But he really had no options without knowing anything. I ran around to find his bags (with him in tow), just before he got the chance to get on hold of me again, I quickly ran toward the "Nothing to claim" exit and shouted "You should also get out from here". I was worried he might catch me so I really walked very fast.