As Murphy's law would have it, my line was the slowest moving line at customs for security checks. This particular officer was being rather difficult to people he didn't seem to like the look of or their faces/tone of voice/whatever.
He seemed like the stereotypical middle-aged man who was most dissatisfied with his lot in life and took it out on the nearest humans.
In the surliest manner, he commanded the people to 'take off their shoes', 'stay there', 'move there', 'hold your luggage' or 'wait'. He was quite nasty to this family of four who had alot of check-in luggage including 2 baby strollers. I really wasn't comfortable with what I was seeing. But the officer wielded absolute authority and nobody was in any position to say anything for now.
When it came to my turn, I dumped the laptop and ziplock bag of liquids ino the trays. I took off my belt and shoes without being asked. He actually flashed me a smile. "Ah, lovely. Go the whole way! That should be the spirit." I was like, whatever. I just wanted to get this over quickly.
What he said next, boggled my mind. "For someone like you, you speak very good English."
I was like, WTF. So I retorted. "All thanks to your finest universities." Of course it was a fib. But it achieved the desired effect of seeing the smile freeze on his face. At least it stopped him from proving just how ignorant he was.
In this day and age, seriously, customs officers in first world countries should have learnt that yellow-skinned humans speaking good English is NOT a big deal. Go wow only when they fluently speak Swedish, French, German, Russian, Swahili or something that's not the universal language.
Wah lau eh. Not all Caucasians speak good English either.
He seemed like the stereotypical middle-aged man who was most dissatisfied with his lot in life and took it out on the nearest humans.
In the surliest manner, he commanded the people to 'take off their shoes', 'stay there', 'move there', 'hold your luggage' or 'wait'. He was quite nasty to this family of four who had alot of check-in luggage including 2 baby strollers. I really wasn't comfortable with what I was seeing. But the officer wielded absolute authority and nobody was in any position to say anything for now.
When it came to my turn, I dumped the laptop and ziplock bag of liquids ino the trays. I took off my belt and shoes without being asked. He actually flashed me a smile. "Ah, lovely. Go the whole way! That should be the spirit." I was like, whatever. I just wanted to get this over quickly.
What he said next, boggled my mind. "For someone like you, you speak very good English."
I was like, WTF. So I retorted. "All thanks to your finest universities." Of course it was a fib. But it achieved the desired effect of seeing the smile freeze on his face. At least it stopped him from proving just how ignorant he was.
In this day and age, seriously, customs officers in first world countries should have learnt that yellow-skinned humans speaking good English is NOT a big deal. Go wow only when they fluently speak Swedish, French, German, Russian, Swahili or something that's not the universal language.
Wah lau eh. Not all Caucasians speak good English either.
8 comments:
got feral native english speakers still mah. but you know what? don't even bother to get ruffled; they cannot understand or accept that other nations have caught up or even surpassed their former colonial rulers.
Now you make me curious about how you sound. 8)
Urgh. Im not sure if I would have been bold or quick thinking enough to give a reply.
But if yes, I would like to reply - If only you can speak Chinese as well as I speak English. Pity.
hahaha.. I love it though when that happens. It's like them shoving their own face into the sand!
One of my friends (an Indian) loved telling me customs stories.
1) He travelled a lot for work was constantly picked out "randomly" for detailed checks. Finally, he challenged the officer for the "randomness" (didn't look random to him) and the officer hemmed and hawed, before letting him go.
2) He and his family travelled to a European country. While the other travellers were cleared uneventfully, he and his family was hit with a barrage of questions. Finally, he questioned, "What's your problem? We are Australian citizens!" The customs officer took a closer look at the passports and gulped.
I had my share of stories. Later.
And here are mine:
1) We left the plane and was heading for the customs. A tall teutonic officer was checking passports. I passed him mine and he started questioning me: Why are you here? Where are you going? How many days? etc.
As a single Asian woman, I guess I fit into the profile of someone coming into the country to "work part-time".
I answered all his questions truthfully and was on the verge of flashing him my pile of Euros, gold credit cards and train tickets when my partner came over to rescue me. He stopped his questioning immediately.
2) This Singapore customs officer was acting like an asshole checking my passports and my check-in luggage, to the point of scrutinising my lipsticks and gels. I almost wanted to tell him that he wasn't the only one working in a high security area!!
sinlady: i'm still annoyed. gaaah.
JM: like any other singaporean!
lms: sometimes i keep quiet, depending on whether they might haul me to the room for FURTHER questioning. usually, i know what i can get away with. heeee. like telling me to pay for my visa in an african country when i know i don't have to. so i told them no and stood my ground.
jomel: cannot be too rude too! later they haul me to jail!
eveline: many european customs officers still make the mistake of pulling proper looking dark skinned tourists, but let their white trash through. wah lau.
we all have these stories and each one is so different. scary too. goes to show customs officers are either not well trained or told to use their judgment too much and their own judgment becomes clouded.
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