Saturday, March 24, 2012

Story of a Japanese visitor who was insulted at the United Nations because of looking for restroom during evacuation

On Wednesday, 21 March, 2012, I was visiting the United Nations with a friend. While waiting for our tour to begin, the fire alarm began beeping. We were then directed to evacuate the building. While waiting outside in a secured area, we saw a Japanese visitor who was desperately looking for a restroom. The Japanese, who had very poor English, asked a U.N. officer: "Restroom?" The officer disturbingly yelled at him and refused to help him. The Japanese visitor was insulted by a U.N. security officer just because of looking for restroom during evacuation. The close by crowd were upset about what just happened but no one dared to speak up and I was just thinking too. I could not resist the silence for more than two minutes. I went to the officer and respectfully told him that the way he treated the Japanese visitor was not appropriate in my opinion. The officer refused to accept his misbehavior. I walked away but took a picture of him. When he saw that I took his picture, he offensively came to me and asked me to delete the picture. I said: "I decline." Then I asked him what his name was but he again refused to tell me his name. Not only the U.N. officer refused to tell me his name, but he flipped his ID card to hide it. I looked around to find the Japanese to talk with him and maybe take a picture/video of him too but he was gone.


2 comments:

Dina said...

Oi! I don't know whether to be proud of you or afraid for you.

Petrea Burchard said...

Good job, Meead. You were within your rights and so was the Japanese man. The guard was not. You have nothing to be afraid of.