Foreign National

Back in London, well, not quite yet, I am standing in the long queue marked as "other foreign national" in the passport control area at heathrow airport. This is my third time coming into London from overseas. It seems this time I got lucky again - my flight from Copenhagen happened to arrive about same time as two flights from Mumbai and one from Bangkok, so there is a big crowd waiting at "other nationals" to get through the passport control.

Maybe it is just me being sensitive, but I kind of feel there is probably no other airport than heathrow airport that makes you think we still live in a world that is divided by first, second and third world countries. There are three different paths at passport control - UK and EU citizens, commonwealth countries and other nationals. And even Japanese natually should fall into other nationals but as some sort of exception, they can stand in the line for commonwealth countries.

Standing in the long line consisting mainly of Indians, I can't help to think why they don't get any special treatment for once being the colony of the British empire. I guess that is one of the differences between a colony and one of the "commonwealth" countries.

After one hour waiting in the queue, finally it is my turn, the officer in charge didn't give me a hard time. She looked at my work permit visa on the passport and asked me "so which company do you work for?" After hearing my answer, she gave a "Ahh" with a grin. I was cleared through within a minute.

Now I am back in London, a place I could almost call home, and yet it is a long way to come home!