Lotusblog

Act of Senseless Kindness Number One
I accompanied a client yesterday to the ward office and immigration office. We waded through several levels of bureaucracy, lapped it all up and then found ourselves at the Ministry of Justice building at 16:03. They close at 16:00.
After being ignored for a while I pleaded with one of the staffers to process my client’s papers. I was expecting a no, it was closed after all, but miraculously, although huffing and puffing like a little-piggy-eating wolf, said staffer angrily said “well you’d better do it quickly because I have already turned other people because we’re closed”.
And would ya believe it, my client had a stamp in his passport, a spring in his step and pride in his heart in less that fifteen minutes. A new immigration office record.
So, I would like to publicly say, “Thank you immigration office. You really saved my bacon yesterday. If there’s ever anything I can do…”

Act of Senseless Kindness Number Two
Eventually I made it home. It was raining heavily due to the typhoon and I was deciding whether I should wrestle an umbrella or just dash home through the rain. I thought that a middle-aged woman standing at the top of the exit stairs was thinking through the same puzzle, but no, she was actually waiting for people to enter the station. Ah, I thought, she has forgotten her umbrella and she has the nerve to ask people if she can have their umbrellas. What a cheek, I thought.
But, I was wrong again. She approached a well dressed woman in her early thirties and asked if she was going to catch a train. Yes I am, said the younger woman. Well then, said the middle-aged woman, you can have my ticket. It’s a day ticket and it’s still valid- it’s a waste to not use it. And so, the younger woman, with a ticket in her purse, a spring in her step and pride in her heart bounded towards the ticket gates.