This subject reminded me of something that happened at the Vancouver Olympics. My sister and I were standing in line for a couple of hours waiting to pick up all our tickets and we struck up a conversation with a lady and her mother standing behind us. It turned out that the lady was a U.S. Department of State employee who was with the taskforce in town that had been setting up the security for the U.S. athletes. As there were more than 300 "known" protest groups expected to show up to disrupt events, traffic, etc. to call attention to their "causes", such as Global Warming, world trafficking, save some obscure snails, etc., she was constantly getting phone and walkie-talkie calls about possible disturbances, which she would give instructions on how to handle. She got one call and then started laughing. "No problem there," she snickered, "They thought it was a group that's here to protest trade regulations, but it was just 30 elderly Japanese ladies who couldn't locate their bus and were marching down the street rhythmically shouting and waving flags in the hope their bus driver could find them!" I'll say one thing......the Canadians sure knew how to put on one hell of a "polite" Olympics.....
They had these young people in distinctive blue parkas and badges who stood at every corner JUST DYING to be of help. Didn't need any help? Too bad.....they were going to help you whether you needed it or not. Relentlessly cheerful, gleaming of teeth, they had no greater wish than to direct you to where you were going, help you find what you were looking for and full of suggestions for having fun. You needed a flyswatter to drive them off. Actually, it was very nice. They were such nice young Canadians. If it were in Los Angeles or New York, they would have been mugging you instead of smothering you with "niceness".