luse tong dao

at work i spend most of my time at the fast access line. it's the line that will let you bypass the 1.5 hour-long regular line and leads you straight into the next show. officially, the people who get to use this are: the disabled, pregnant women, expo employees+2 guests, volunteers, reservations, employees of any of their sponsors+whatever legion of people they choice to bring because we are completely sponsor funded, wheelchairs+2, strollers+2. unofficially, if you know someone at our pavilion and can prove it by getting him on the phone, and probably if you bribe the person working with pins (the ridiculous currency of the world expo) or other gifts. a man working in fast food offered to bring me a meal or vouchers. i shot him down. one of the biggest problems is that seniors (with old age identification cards) and citizens (our visiting Americans) do not have fast access, which they do at other pavilions. any deviation from these rules usually results with someone furious in your face. the americans tend to be the worst. whenever ambassadors see white people walking up, we start trying to pass them off on one another. you help them. no you help them. we sigh with relief when they open their mouths and turn out to be europeans. we turn away the truly oldest-looking, hobbling people i have ever seen and make Father Time and Mother Earth wait in line but let in strollers and wheelchairs simply because they do not fit through our turnstiles.

got into a screaming fight with a chinese man at fast access yesterday. he was trying to physically force his group's way in when he should have been in the regular line. i blocked him and he started immediately screaming inches from my face. while fighting with him, i realized i had raised my right hand up and was holding it close to his face. i would never hit anyone. but even this defensive gesture shocked me. at one point i yelled at him, do you really need to be this loud?! i've learned here that when someone raises his voice with me, i am not the collected person who can calmly but firmly deal with him and piss him off further. i always yell back. i wanted to tell him i wasn't scared of him, but i actually was. that he would sock me in the face.