On the way back from our trip to Japan, I was pulled aside at airport security at the Narita airport.
This happened after I already passed the security system. But apparently they randomly pull people aside for additional check while we were walking down then tunnel into the airplane.
The woman security person must have been trained to deal with disgruntle passengers like me. She smiled, she was apologetic, she was very courteous. She said an apology with every other sentence – I’m sorry, can I open your bag here? I’m sorry, could you take off your shoes? That was all I had to take off. I held out my arms as she ran the hand scanner over me. I hope that won’t cause cancer or trigger a mutation.
I thought she was making light conversation to be polite – Where are you from? Did you have a good time? But then, maybe those were security check questions. She told me she was from the Philippines and came to Japan to work. I wonder what would happen if I told her I was born in Hong Kong but spend many years in the Middle East…
To be honest, it was all very painless. It took no more than 3-5 minutes. But to think that little me can be a security threat, I would think they could’ve used their time to check more suspicious-looking characters on our flight, like the Lebanese engineer who was on our tour… 🙂