God bless A

I was again appalled by the outrageously horrendous way the country treated the visitors. No, I wasn't brutally beaten up or tortured; yet, there's no way a nation can claim itself as a supernation by still practising a primitively and laughable system in its effort to thwart terrorism. Yes, I am talking about the frigging Ann-ciers program. First, upon reaching the airport, I was suppose to line up for the new visiting procedure. When it's my turn, oh, I got the unforgivable mark on my passport, which its existence is in the very first place questionable. Hence, I was asked to another site to wait for the special registration to be done.

The waiting experience in the waiting room was hellish. Gathered in the room was colored people with different shades; well, the albinos were exempted I guess. The detainees were not allowed to leave the room, and to make things more exciting, there's no restrooms nor water coolers in the venturable vicinity. This wouldn't be that bad if we weren't all just off from the plain, for another ingenious measure dictates that no bottled water was to be carried on when one's on flight. Hence, suffering from thirst and the conflicting urge to relieve, I had nothing else to do but to observe the other pathetic travellers, whose souls were mostly sucked out from the long hours of travelling. For some like me, the constant fear of missing the next connecting flight intensified with time; others were worried that their fellow friends would be waiting too long for them. While these negative emotions emit from the floor and filled the room, making the atmosphere more unbearable, the shitfaces sitting behind the counter seemed oblivious, each exuding an aura of calmness that was impenetrable by the disturbance caused by the fidgety crowd. They moved as if they were trying to master the deepest techniques of the ancient art of tai-chi, in such way further infuriating the meekly waiters who were in no mood of appreciating any sort of clumsiness.

To make things more unbelievable, they had no ordering system in putting the pastports on the shelf. Those books were casually placed in slots, which the officers would randomly pick from later. That's of course, a careful observation of mine out of sheer boredom, but I could be wrong. They might be adhering to the elusive chaos theory which they probably learnt from K-level. Discarding that possibility, it was difficult to picture that I was actually in a country which claimed itself as the pinnacle of modern civilization.

As time passed by, I was gradually becoming more zen, which I acheived by constantly muttering the sacred mantra that bears three syllabus of hokkien word. Meanwhile, one of the girl was not that fortunate; she burst into sobs while speaking on the phone. When it was her turn, she broke down again and tried to argue with the officer about something. I couldn't quite figure out what was the content of the conversation, as I myself was still obstinately chanting to maintain my state of sanity.

Despite my efforts, when my photo was finally taken by the webcam, I must have looked like Gollum. Needless to say, the plane which I was supposed to be in was already soaring gloriously in the nightsky. Yes, what else could I do? A couple more hours of waiting won't hurt further, would it?