Director General from Finland

I was on secondment in 2015 to the international team of a Ministry to which my organization was subordinate. At the end of April of that year, a delegation of a counterpart ministry of Finland was visiting us. The delegation was headed by a Director General. I was responsible for escorting them through their visit. After official visits in Beijing, I was supposed to take them to Nanjing and Shanghai where they were leaving.

At that time, high speed trains of our country had already gained international fame. When planning the trip, the Finnish delegation emailed us that they would like to take high speed train from Beijing to Nanjing and Shanghai in stead of flights.

When they arrived in Beijing, a colleague from the Finnish Embassy in Beijing told me cheerfully that they had already bought tickets for high speed train from Beijing to Nanjing and Shanghai.

Events in Beijing all concluded in success, and they were soon traveling to the south. Since they were foreigners and carrying a lot of luggage, we arrived at Beijing South Railway Station in advance for quite a while. After security check, we were at the waiting room quite early. Since they did not have time in Beijing to see around a bit, they seemed quite curious and excited for the numerous shops of local specialties in the train station, and were willing to have a look.

So there was a question. They were all carrying large pieces of luggage, and it was obvious troublesome to go with their luggage given the huge crowd of people in the station. I was about to suggest that they leave their luggage when they were having conversations in the Finnish language. I speak English only and was not yet able to put in a word when they gathered all their luggage and scatted.

I looked around to see which direction were they going and was frustrated because they were literally going in all directions and quickly disappeared. So I turned around to see the luggage and found only the Director General left behind with a huge pile of luggage.