Only one week to go until the National Day holiday, when I will have a week off work to celebrate the glorious communist founding of China.
Or something like that anyway.

Strangely, this holiday technically isn’t a week long, although it lasts for a week. In reality it’s only three days, with the other two work-days shifted to the Saturday and Sunday before. So really i’ll be working for 7 days straight, after which i’ll probably need a holiday!

Still pretty hacked-off today about a few things. Firstly the fact that we’re still yet to be paid our salary; despite having worked for the last 6 weeks.
And secondly my visa still hasn’t been finalised!! We gave our documets to our boss over 2 weeks ago, and our boss hasn’t even started the visa-getting process!!!

Despite the fact that she knew about the urgency of the applications (most of the teachers’ visas have now expired due to her incompetance) they are still not done!!!
So the 500 Yuan A DAY overstay fine has come into effect, and i’ll be damned if i’m paying!
It’s really frustrating when things like this happen – as they all too often do in China – especially when the person in question refuses to accept that they are at fault. When to any ‘normal’ person they are banged to rights.
All of us foreign teachers are becoming increasingly concerned over the salary, or to be more precise, lack of salary. Our contracts stated that we should have been paid at the end of August, however we accepted our bosses appeal that full salary will be given at the end of september.
The problem arises later, in money is becoming rather thin on the ground for all of us. We need to pay our rent, and we need to live!
Our boss refuses to give a solid date when we will receive our cash, she simply says between the 25th and the end of the month.

What upsets me is that we know that she has long had our paycheques. She is stalling because I think she is using this money elsewhere – or she is spounging the interest off the significant amount of capital, that has been residing in her bank account for over a month – over 50K Yuan!

Why do some Chinese value money so highly, almost as if money is more important than ANYTHING else – including honesty, integrity and morals. Call me old fashioned, but i find this intoxication with cash totally abhorrent and completely counter-productive. If you upset your employees just for the sake of a few extra bucks in the bank, the only thing this proves is how greedy you are .

The weather is turning.

Today was the first day that I’ve felt a little cold in a long time!! Tomorrow the shorts and sandals will be consigned to the back of wardrobe for anoter 6 months!!

I’m actually quite pleased that the long, hot summer is finally nearing an end.
Soon, the trees will once more be without their leaves, and the familiar smell of sulphurous coal will fill the evening air. The seasons here are so completely different, it’s as if the city is on a different planet come the winter.

Mind you, i’ll miss being able to have the option, of walking back from work when the sun shines! 🙂

So I boarded the train at Beijing station at 11.50 on Monday morning, glad to be leaving the city after spending an extra night in a hotel because there were no tickets on Sunday.

As I pushed my way through the chaotic queue of people waiting to get down to the platform, I hoped that the bed I had reserved actually existed on this train; I was also preying that the train was air-conditioned. As I walked down the steps, winding my way through groups of people carrying everything- including the kitchen sink, my train came into view. There it was, the L25 from Beijing to Changchun sitting at platform 2. So I walked briskly along the platform to the 10th carriage, showed my ticket again and boarded.

I stepped up onto the train, no AC. Turned left past the toilets and into the carriage and to my surprise found my bed unoccupied and looking pretty good for the 120RMB ticket. Apart from the searing heat (one of the reasons I wanted out of Beijing ASAP) accompanied by humidity that made your clothes feel damp and sticky within 2 minutes of stepping outside, the train was fine – and at only 15% of the price of an aeroplane ticket.

I was in the section known as hard sleeper, it consists of six beds in a open cabin. I was in one at the top, mainly because it’s out of the way and i can put my bag behind me and it is safe from theft. The problem with the top is that you can’t sit up because of the low train ceiling and it’s a pain climbing up to.

I put my bag up onto my bed and realised just how much hotter it was up there, and quickly got down and sat at the fold-down window seat. The thermometer in the carriage read 37°C , the humidity at well over 90%. Sweat was dripping in my eyes – something that I have never experienced before – just by sitting down.

Finally the train left and the momentum of the train allowed a little breeze through the windows, which made little difference. It was at this time that I asked the guard when does the train arrive. The answer she gave me I understood, but I didn’t believe myself – it couldn’t take that long ? She answered with “ming tian, wu dian shi wu fen” which means tomorrow, 5.15 AM.
So I only had another 17 hours to go.

Hearing this seriously dampened my morale, I thought that the train took 8 hours or so, like the train on the way out. No wonder the ticket was so cheap, I’m on the train that stops at every damn station for the next 700 miles. Some 20 minutes into the journey the train stopped at the first of many stations.

At this moment I was counting my blessings that I spent a small fortune at the Beijing Book City, knowing that in Changchun the only English books that are available are abridged versions written by Chinese authors or Uri Gellar (this is true, if you would like any of Uri Gellar’s books – probably long out of print on the UK – I can get them for you!! ).

The bed was okay if rather narrow, had nice pillows and duvets – not that I would be needing them. I was told to take off my shoes by the guard when on the bed – but there was nowhere safe to put them, and these trains have somewhat of a reputation for theft, so i put them on top of my bag next to my head. I managed to finish one of my books during the journey: A Year In The Merde a very funny read, took my mind of the travelling.

At 9.50 the guard said something that I didn’t understand and 30 seconds later all of the lights in the carriage were cut. No more reading I thought. The only option left for me was to try and get some shut-eye, even if the top of the carriage was now infested with mosquitoes and other disturbingly large biting insects.

Now I was wishing i was somewhere else. The sticky sweat, the bugs, the uncomfortable bed – and the boredom. Eventually I got to sleep, I finally dozed off sometime after 1am.

I must have woken up at least ten times during the night, usually when the train stopped at a station. At 3.30am and much to my disgust, they turned the lights back on. I have never felt sick from just fatigue, but now I was starting to.
I was told to get down from my top-bunk because they were replacing the old sheets on the beds with new ones, “Why now!!!???” I asked, all that attracted was that look one sometimes gets from Chinese people; a look of confusion crossed with that “you must be mad foreigner, this is how we always do it ” look. I was now perched on a fold down seat in the aisle of the train, knowing that the train didn’t arrive for another 2½ hours and it was still the dead-of-night.

Of course I was probably the only one on the train thinking why did they wake us up with still 2½ hours to go. Anyway, people were eating breakfast, talking as if they’d had one of the best nights sleep in the life, playing cards or even Mah Jong.
I was in pain, the tiredness and back-ache combined with sleep deprivation was taking its toll – I rested my head against the window and drifted into a quasi slumber.
I thought I was having a particularly bad dream when I heard music being played, bagpipes – folk music.
I woke up.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, out of the PA system came music at an annoyingly loud volume. I immediately recognised the song as ‘Mull of Kintyre’ by Wings – In my opinion one of the most annoying tunes ever recorded – anyway, I drifted in and out of sleep hoping that this wasn’t the last song I would ever here.

The train finally arrived at 5.15am as promised. I don’t remember much more, apart from hailing a cab at the station and getting back home, where I went straight to sleep.

I’m now back teaching again, and almost all of my students are from the very south of China. The have to travel for anything up to 60 HOURS!!! just to get home. They go to university over 2000 miles away from their home town. I now have a new level of respect for my student’s, I for one, know that I could not do that sort of travelling at every holiday 🙂

Woke up early again today at 4.30, mainly because it gets light here so early and also that I have really thin curtains in my bedroom.
It’s all because of the artificial one- time- zone, that China runs on. Being on Beijing time and being some 550 miles north east of Beijing, it gets dark at 8ish when it should be 9.30ish and gets light at 3.30 rather than 4.30ish. I’ve just looked this up, Changchun is at 43° north latitude, London is at 52° – Changchun is at the same latitude as Marseilles in the south of France so it shouldn’t get dark until very late in the evening!

It’s okay if you happen to live along or near to the Beijing parallel – which includes the important Eastern coastal cities and Guangdong – but elsewhere in China – for me anyway- it’s totally ridiculous. I often talk about this with my students and they don’t even think about it, and find it strange my asking. But I guess if you’ve lived here all your life and known it know other way then would find that a strange thing to ask.

So are there any advantages to the sun coming up so early I ask myself? Well, you could start work earlier – which the Chinese do; much to my annoyance when woken up by someone cutting sheet metal with an angle grinder at 5am! In theory you can start work at 4 or five and work through ’til 5 – which may explain how the Chinese build things so quickly.

I remember during the winter vacation I went to Xian (500miles to the west of Beijing) the sun was coming up at 8.30 in the morning and it getting dark at 7 at night – in February! I am told that in Tibet and Xinjiang (2000miles from Beijing) the only people who use Beijing time are the state controlled railways and the TV stations!

Massive Update.

excuse the terrible grammmar and speling – its late!

So i’m back! And i’ve now got reliable (relativly!) ADSL and able to access this website allbeit through a backdoor. Anyway, i’ve been thinking about updating this site for ages, but never really got down to actually doing it! so here goes…

Well, lots has happened since my last and rather brief update. I’ll try and remember it all.

So it’s now almost August, and i’ve finished my contract with 长视. It’s been truely an amazing experience. Many strange things have happened – too many to remember!! – but overall its been a real eye-opener as to how people in this country live their lives and how they think. It’s been a real learning experience.

So come April I was considering my options. I was thinking about staying at my present university, but was also considering other places. My decision was made for me by the department ‘leader’ who told another foreign teacher to tell us (the three youngest teachers) that we

” don’t care about our students” and that we “look down upon our students”

Where this bile came from i don’t know, but sadly this meant that I was going to work elsewhere for the next semester. Interestingly, I spent the next two weeks with my classes using the discussion topic “do you think that David does not care about his students” and ” Do you think that David looks down upon his students”
This proved to be a really good topic, and I felt extremely privileged that my student’s unanimously disagreed with these statements – infact many were shocked. Others said that it’s quite normal in China for your boss to say things like this, that it is normal for bosses to not like their subordinates! To any Westerner this makes no sense whatsoever, also in the west its slander and discrimination but that’s another matter…
It’s one thing making informed critisism, but unjustified slurs are pointless – esp. from your boss!!!

From my experiences here in China I have come to the conclusion that there are many, many things that I will never fully understand, however i respect that things are different here and I am a visitor to this country – so to act (like some foreigners) and complain that its not fair or unlike their home country would be wholly wrong and stupid. enough of this, back to what i’ve been doing!

So I sent my CV out and I got a dozen or so job offers from all over China – ranging from Fujian in the south to Haerbin in the north. But anoyingly most were from institutions in either Beijing or Shanghai, both places that I refuse to work in for various reasons. Mainly because they are too western for my liking!

One day in early May I received a telephone call from someone claiming that they wanted me to work at Jilin University next year – naturally I was suspicious, I thought it strange for her to call my mobile number – but all was to be explained whenIi met up with her at their office. What I was being offered was two four month contracts (two semesters) working at the computer science department starting at the end of August and finishing June 2006. They offered me more money per month and fewer hours a week (16 hours against my current 20) but no vacation pay. I got paid for last Feb and March, even though i wasn’t working -it’s fairly standard practice at universities in China.
After about 3 weeks of negotating and various ammendments to the contract – which I wrote myself – we agreed and signed up. I learned a lot about negotiating, you tell them what you want, they say well that’s not possible, but howabout this. You argue, then come to a compromise – in my case, they were offering to pay overtime 100¥ for 4 hours a week extra taking my hours up to 20 per week, also they arranged my schedule so that I will only work in the morning, 8-12 mon-fri. It works out that my takehome pay each month will be almost double what it is now – but overall its about the same, because accommadation is not included.

I spent three weeks or so trying to find a place to live that will be near-ish to my new work – which means living in the southern part of the city, some 13km from where I have been. I live in quite a nice place now, its on the 6th floor or top floor, and is very light unlike my lst place which was a dungeon.
I’m now living in my new place the other side of town, it took several trips to move all of my junk that i’ve accumilate over the past 9 months or so.

The other week i got my internet connection set up, it’s really quite good 1mbt, and for only ¥1000/£70 a year for everything including modem, wires, installation etc! It seemed only right that I upgraded my computer to something halfway decent, my laptop is stoneage technology, and can’t really handle being online all the time. Therefore, i went to the centre of town to this huge computer centre, and a friend of a friend who works there managed to get me a computer built to my specifications and at trade prices!! (it’s funny things like RAM, CPU,CRT,USB,DVD,CD,card, exactly the same in chinese as english; allbeit spoken with a chinese accent like ‘usber’)
I wanted the specific components, the best in my eyes for what I want to do, so that it will be upgradable for a few years to come. The only thing I didn’t go for was the fastest CPU as this is really expensive – but when the price drops I can simply upgrade!
Here’s the spec for you techies:

ASUS k8n – with 7.1 speaker surround output/1394
AMD 3000+ CPU
Maxtor 120gb/7600 HD
Nvidia gfx 5950 256mb
1gb RAM
16x DVD/RW SONY
19″ philips LCD monitor
A case that is so cool, it has a large lcd dispay on the front that tells you all sorts.

All of this cost me ¥5100 or about 350 quid – which i think is a steal. Even at normal prices it would be about ¥7000 – there is no VAT to pay or any other sales tax on computer parts as they are made right here in China, and only foreign goods here have the big sales taxes imposed on them.

A drawback to being here is that my english has deteriated, i have subconsciously stopped using contractions , idioms, cliches, slang – and im sure that i enounciate my words more clearly. So when I come back i’ll probably sounds like a retard for a week or two! Also I sometimes forget a word that I want to say or I pronounce the word wrong – I know this is because I am learning a east asian language totally unrealted to english.

more to come

my MSN is davidcrompton (at) gmail.com – i have a webcam and mic now!!!

David

I’ve been having problems with this website over the last month or so, and havn’t had the time or the facilities to be able to get it working again – until now that is.

To be precise the server crashed and all of my files were moved onto another server with a different dns address – which for reasons unknown to me – is shielded by the wonderful chinese firewall. Now my website is on another server – that i can access easily here in China.

It will take me a while to re-upload the old files and pictures as I will have to move them all…

I’ve got lots and lots to say about the last month, travelling and all – will post in due course

David