So from 1 March you can't be a journalist in China without a press card. Sounds fair enough.
So says Wang Yong at Shanghai Daily. A couple of excerpts from his opinion piece today:
Only those who abide by the law, have a certain level of education, and are employed by a legal news organisation will be able to apply for a press card.
Sounds fair enough. But where does it leave freelances? Surely this wipes out the whole sector of people who are not employed by a news organisation. And how can young journalists gain experience?
I freelance occasionally. It's innocuous stuff like travel features for 8Days and That's Shanghai. Am I really now banned from doing so? Who's going to enforce it? Maybe I should have got my fake press card in Bangkok for $5.
If the industry fails to regulate itself, the government will step in. The Western model of free entry has its problems. Without government supervision, the public has little remedy for the excesses of news organisations.
What problems? What excesses? The problems of people entering journalism who are not devoted party members, who might actually want to expose the truth on occasions rather than write whitewashes like Wang Yong? The excesses of fair criticism and varied opinion?
Wang asserts later in his article that the measures are primarily designed to root out corruption among journalists. I've heard stories about hacks accepting envelopes of money as they walk into press conferences on condition that they give a good write-up.
But there's another kind of corruption: a corruption of the whole role of the journalist and the writer. And that, I think is where this leads.
...once I've deleted all the spam. My God, It took over an hour this weekend and that's with MT-blacklist. Now to preapre a lesson on Western manners, that'll be interesting...
Well, not much time to say anything of interest at the moment since I've just spent the best part of half an hour deleting spam. Amounts of comments leading to bizarre potions, porn and gambling sites are rising exponentially. Argh.
How dare I actually go up to the counter at a shop and expect to be served first? Who the hell do I think I am? Some kind of imperialist depot, oppressing the poor Chinese, burning down their palaces and enforcing the opium trade?
Honestly, I am such a bastard sometimes. To think that I actually expressed dissatisfaction that the man who arrived a couple of minutes after me was able to buy his stuff before I did. It's his country, it's his right. I should know better too, it's the third time in a week.
Perhaps it was my mistake to actually stand at the counter in the shop: after all, the best place to exchange your money is leaning over the boiling pot of eggs. My mistake.
And while on the subject, how incredibly uncouth of me to push past other people standing directly in my way in a busy train station. Even if I did do my best to walk sideways and cause the minimum of fuss, clearly it is something I have no call to do. How dare I, especially given the gentle courtesy of everyone else you encounter in a train station.
Please, please someone help me. I see the error of my ways and want to find a way to behave more politely to people in future. Or is there something wrong with me - do I smell or something?
At first sight this is going to look like a bit of a geek's post, but in China it's got more significant.
It's well known that the CCP blocks a large number of sites. This is of particular frustration to me when I want to research something either for teaching or journalism and blogging. Half the time, the information you need is concealed on a 'banned' site like... my own national broadcaster.
Someone kindly left the following advice on my post 'The Small Firewall of Shanghai':
The easiest way around it would be to use a proxy server inside the country but outside the firewall. The best thing would be to get a tech-savvy friend with unblocked access to setup a proxy server and give you access.Alternatively you could find an open proxy inside China and use that. If you do, keep in mind that you will either be using it without the owner's permission, or it is a honeypot and is being monitored. Either way it would be best not to use it to access anything too controversial.
Up until recently I had been using proxies such as Anonymouse and Unipeak. Sadly, these seem to be no more, or at least are not working Could it be that the CCP censors have cottoned on to the value of proxies in circumventing their controls?
In the last few days I found another, Anonymization. It seemed to be the answer to my prayers - fast, easy and even with a useful toolbar. But quickly enough this went down too.
I'm now a bit concerned that this could have been one of the 'honeypots' mentioned. Have I let myself in for something nasty?
While I was referred to this list, I'm not really technically minded enough to get them working in the way that the sites mentioned above functioned.
Frustrating.
Referring to the entry below, sure enough a slip came through the post saying I had to report back to the med centre since there was something wrong with my liver.
I can come to only four conclusions:
1 - Myself and the three others are all very unhealthy (especially our livers)
2 - There is some kind of persistent database or clerical error
3 - The centre needs to fill a quota of patients coming back for a second check
4 - Someone is creaming off a kickback every time a foreigner drags himself all the way to Hongqiao and coughs up RMB 65 for another blood test.
Whichever way, I'm not impressed.
In a spirit of bleak dejection after the national humiliation at the hands of the French today, I hereby expound my theory.
Long-sleeved shirts are cursed.
Every player who has screwed up for England in the past few years has been wearing a long-sleeved shirt. Examples (photographic evidence pending):
Euro 2004 v France: Heskey (who shouldn't be on the side in the first place) conceded a free kick outside the box, allowing Zidane to equalise. Gerrard compounds this by badly miscuing a back pass leading to a rash leap by James and subsequent penalty and defeat.
World Cup 2002 v Brazil: Seaman held responsible for two savable goals by Ronaldhino.
World Cup 1998 v Argentina: Beckham's petulant kick leads to a red card; down to 10 men, England are knocked out when Ince and Batty miss penalties.
All of the above were wearing long-sleeved shirts at the time. They need to be banned.
Could be a sign of a shift in my mentality. But I'm annoyed. Usually when I do soething illegal here in China I get away with it. This time I didn't, and I'm distressed.
Last night AC Milan were in town, playing Shanghai Shenhua at Shanghai Stadium. Since we'd been let down by a student who had said that tickets were available via the university then failed to produce them, we did the usual thing. Turn up and bargain with a tout.
Ticket touts are a feature outside any stadium, but compared to the subtle and illicit goings on at Wembley or Twickenham Shanghai touts are part of the furniture. Frequently they'll do their thing not just under the gaze of security guards but literally four feet away from them.
However, having spent 400 RMB on four tickets at cover price 380 RMB, this time we were in for a shock. The computer at the barrier didn't read them; they were fake.
The worst thing is I didn't feel ashamed at having been caught out. Of course there's no comebacks, the disorientated foreigner act working as usual. But what made me most annoyed was that the tickets were fake.
Can't you even buy illegal tickets here without being conned? I'm so used to buying illegal DVDs that work it comes as a shock if they don't. The fact is, that in some ways breaking the law is a norm...
...the first two words of this Guardian report on China's economic reforms and the alleviation of poverty.
There are two sides to every story, and nowhere is this more obvious than in Shanghai. A visit to the railway station will generally reveal dozens of countryside immigrants with hessian bundles, sometimes carried hobo-style on a stick. Passing them will be well-off businesspeople in suits and free-and-easy youths with coloured hair, an altogether different China.
A visit to the suburbs shows you that there is poverty and urban decay in the cities; dilapidated buildings and the occasional beggar. But downtown it's all shiny new syscrapers, Buicks and Benetton. Huai Hai and Nanjing Roads are illustrations of the new neon consumerism.
China has certainly made a lot of progress since Mao died, and Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin have a lot to be praised for despite other shortcomings (such as massacres of students, imprisonment of political opponents etc.). For a cynic like myself, it can be hard to accentuate the positive, but evidence of success is... evident.
Like a friend once said to me, "this is one of the only cultures that has had continous civilisation for 5,000 years. They must be doing something right." Agreed, though I still haven't found the answer.
My biggest fear is that it can't last. I'm no economist, but I think that there's a few unforeseen factors that will kick in at the end of the next decade which may spell the end. And this comes as the result of teaching at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, the raison d'etre of which is presumably to churn out the next generation of business leaders.
What concerns me is the effect of the economic boom, the education system and the one-child policy not as separate things but as a combination.
The education system does not appear to educate; changes are afoot but too slow for the current batch of rote-learners. I often feel that some of the students here are not unable but unwilling to learn and take interest in things.
Whether they're interested or not, it's galling to ask a basic question about what you taught them last week to find that not one out of 30 can give and answer.
The system is all about memorising information for exams and in real life this is not going to help in a complex fast-moving market-economy business environment. Yet in 15 years times these kids are going to be in charge.
Add to this the economic boom and the gulf between the rich and poor. The bourgeoisie want to stay rich, and one way to ensure this is to keep the proletariat stay relatively poor. (I must do more research and find out how the poverty problem is being solved as per the report. Surely there can only be 'x' amount of money to go around?)
China never was and still is not a meritocracy, and I'm concerned that the best people are not necessarily the ones rising to the top in businesses. Sometimes it's the best connected or even the best corruputed, though I concede that it takes a certain amount of brains and social skill to get away with it.
Then, finally, the generation of only children. The one child policy is essential; the population has to be controlled. But it's never been done before. There's a generation of little emperors out there, and it's the spoilt, rich ones who've rarely had to make an effort for anything that may well be running the economic powerhouses in 2020.
These three things together - a lack of problem-solving abilities, the corruption culture, and the 'masters of the universe' ethic - could spell economic trouble in 15 years time.
Any reassurances, please let me know. But for now, if the Guardian report is correct, well done China.
Dear Jean,
On behalf of the group, I'm writing to request a meeting with all respected members present to provide clarification and answer questions related to the so-called "Mid-Term Teaching Evaluation" Memo dated April 21, 2004. At this meeting, could a copy of "school regulations [on] evaluation of teaching" – which we have never received – be presented to prepare ourselves appropriately for such an evaluation.
In the Western university, it is customary for the so-called "evaluator" to introduce himself or herself and have a working relationship with the person being evaluated prior to the time of evaluation. As such, we request an opportunity to meet our "supervisor" at this meeting – as many of us have never met this person – in accordance with professional and respectful practice.
Thank you for taking the time to meet our request.
Sincerely,
So-called "foreign experts"
Is it normal to be assessed with a week's notice on your teaching skills even if literally the only instruction and guidance you have ever received has been a timetable of when you are supposed to teach? (This itself was only acquired after I made a special request).
Just asking, any thoughts out there very welcome.
Nasty colour scheme has been revised to a different nasty colour scheme in futile protest against the Chinese government's blog blocking policy. In retrospect, we should have looked black in anger last week when BlogCN and Blogbus were closed down. But hey.
Here's a question: does the fact that I and others participate in a clearly disapproved of activity make us dissidents? Whether our writing is politically extremist or innocuous ruminations on today's breakfast?
Today I had a fun-size Snickers on the bus, followed by some fried dumplings and a doughnut. Beat that for subversion.
Just heard those expressions again. "It's not me, it's the director." "This is the Chinese mind." Thursday afternoon had me seething with that deep frustration tinged with ironic laughter that other China residents know all too well.
I detected the fishiness quite early. "May I leave class a little early today?" asked a student as we waited for the classroom to free up. "I have to go for a run."
Far from being in training for the Olympic squad, the individual concerned was in fact trying to stay out of trouble. He wasn't the first. This week a high proportion of students have slunk through the door five minutes late after the mid-lesson break, breathless and red-faced after a 10-minute jog around the sports track.
On this occasion I decided go see for myself just what the issue was.
Each lesson at my university lasts for 100 minutes - two 45 minute periods with a 10 minute break in between. This is a thoroughly good idea since it gives students (and teachers) a bit of relaxation time during which the brain can recover.
Also a good idea is compulsory physical training for university students. Few of the 200 kids I teach are overweight, whereas it would be a very different story in the UK and worse still in the US. A fit mind in a healthy body.
There again, it could be down to the appalling food they serve in the canteens. Furthermore, the enforcement technique leaves a lot to be desired.
At the stroke of the four o'clock break, before the bell had stopped ringing, droves of students were scampering out of the teaching building and hastening toward the athletics track. I set off in pursuit.
There they were, most wearing jeans, jumpers, coats and shoes, some of the girls in kitten heels, doing their PT. It was laughable. Many were walking.
Standing at the edge of the 400m track was one of the fattest Chinese people I've ever seen, certainly too bloated to have been able to run himself. He was holding an electronic device and as each student passed they held a swipe card beside it. Thus the fact that they had made it round the track was digitally recorded.
Apparently, each student has to obtain 'credit' for their PT. Perhaps 10 laps per day, I'm not sure. If the appropriate distance is not reached, they are penalised via their academic record.
Now, they should jog before breakfast, take a shower, eat and then go to class. The pong emanating from some of them during the day may indicate that this is not the case. The amount of students trying to catch up during class at the moment is further evidence.
I'm told that the track will be renovated in April, leaving the lazier students limited time to make up their credit quota. And they can only run when the electronic recorder man is present.
To be fair to the fat controller, he has to answer to someone else, who eventually in turn has to answer to the Ministry of Education. The university will be penalised if it cannot show that the physical training programme is being fulfilled.
The university therefore has to demonstrate that its students have fulfilled the 'running distance' quota imposed upon it. Presumably there's some official somewhere ticking boxes: "Yep, the accounting students this week have run a total distance of 10,000 km between them. Tally ho!"
It's symptomatic of a ridiculous keeping-up-appearances situation that while it works in general has some serious flaws.
1. To draw the health benefits you should exercise for at least 20 minutes at least three times per week. Trotting around the athletics track during your breaks is not going to achieve this.
2. They're students. They're not all going to roll out of bed and go for a run at 6am unless they have a bewhiskered drill sergeant screaming in their faces.
3. I've even heard that the lazy ones often pay the racing snakes to do a couple of extra laps on their behalf. Thus, not all the students are gaining from the exercise regime.
4. It's hard to quantify the disruptiveness of having half your students turn up five minutes late and in no state to learn. I am paid to teach them, they are here to learn. Period.
Here's a summary. Each university has to produce a quota of distance run. So the students do it in such a way that they neglect their study. Though the quota is fulfilled, in fact the running has mostly been useless.
Let's look at another example. Each village has to produce a quota of metal. So they spend all their time melting down pots, pans and farm equipment, neglecting their crops. Though the quota is fulfilled, in fact the low-grade metal is mostly useless.
Sound familiar? I don't accept that this is 'the Chinese mind'.
Often it's the little things that annoy you most.
Yesterday, I was queuing at the university teachers' canteen. I had spotted a few of the dumplings I particularly liked waiting invitingly on the hotplate and was waiting for the serving staff to return. I waited alone for a couple of minutes before two ladies, presumably university professors drew up beside me.
I know that China has a 'different culture'. But sometimes I forget. So when the server arrived I didn't think there would be any issues as to who was first.
The lady next to me immediately ordered all eight dumplings on the plate without even a sideways glance. I was left with nothing.
During a recent student debate I tried to hold concerning differences between Eastern and Western cultures, one student posited that "in the East, we think about the group, in the West it is the individual." I'm still trying to get to grips with this comment, and I think that somehow I need to define what is meant by 'group' and what by 'individual'.
During the dumpling incident, who was in the group and who was the individual? The woman must have been buying the dumplings on behalf of her friends; unless she was incredibly greedy she wouldn't have been able to eat all eight alone.
But as a fellow teacher who had been queuing for longer, was I not part of the Venn set of 'teachers' and thus enjoyed equal rights to the food? I would only have bought two, thus the other group would have got six; everyone would have benefited.
Or rather did I belong to the group of 'foreigners' and thus for some reason was not entitled the same rights? Or instead was I simply considered as an individual, outside the other woman's sphere of reference and thus non-existent?
I'm talking about this at length since in a way it's illustrative of the macrocosm of Chinese society. Yes, ultimately the teacher (despite being armed with a cluster of academic certificates) behave like a peasant and this is par for the course. It's the lack of recognition of social responsibility or of any rights for other people that get to me.
I can't make up my mind whether it's really thinking of the group first, individual second, or just selfishness by another name.
Consider this, then, by way of squaring the circle. The Chinese government has recently blocked several blogging providers, presumably since it is afraid of free speech and unrestricted comment. It's been debated and will continue to be discussed here at Living in China.
The writing is interesting not because of the people who condemn the action but because of the one who supports it. Since I posted the article, I know who the writer is and I can assure you they are no brainwashed peasant.
So does this view represent the majority? It is OK to infringe the rights of the individual for the good of the whole? Who really is the whole, and who really is the individual?
But finally, do the individuals really care about the group at all? This is not how it seems to me in cosmopolitan Shanghai with its violently disparate levels of wealth and ruthless 'me, me, me', 'I'm all right Jack' culture. But is this just because I am an individual and cannot comprehend the whole?
"In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance." Barbara Tuchman
OK, so this quote is probably taken out of context. I came across it while randomly surfing a quotes site looking for inspiration. Not a bad resource - check it out here.
But I'd like to know what planet the Pulitzer-winning historian, author of seminal WWI study The Guns of August, was living on when she wrote it.
Let's look at each clause in turn. Famine and starvation - try The Great Leap Forward. Disease - try AIDS and SARS. Thievery, graft and corruption - try doing business here or speak to anyone who has. In fact try having anything with even remote value (to post office personnel who don't speak English) posted to you and see if it ever shows.
Call me a cynic, but I often can't see the difference between pre- and post-'Communist' China. In every aspect, they seem to be just the same. I'm scanning through The Communist Manifesto right now, trying to get my head around the country and its politics, but so far I'm not entirely sure the bourgeois really has been overthrown by the proletariat.
In fact, everywhere I look, the bourgeoisie are strutting around in their Gucci, Prada, Armani. Take a look round Xintiandi and there's nothing but designer shops, well out of my league let alone the average Joe in China.
Most people in this nation are the types you see hauling big hessian bags around Shanghai station, having just staggered off a 36-hr hard seat ride in search of work. Don't even try to tell me that it's these guys, or their millions of compatriates still in the countryside, that are running the show. Fair enough, I haven't finished the Marx and Engels book yet.
The observations above come from an epic two day roam around central Shanghai in search of Lawsons' stores for a photo job I'm doing for the head office in Japan. View the excitement right here...
A highlight on Wednesday was being told (via Jenny, who kindly translated for me over a mobile phone) that the employees of Lawson's were not allowed to tell me where other Lawson's stores were located. Tell me if you can the reasoning behind this one.
I admit that I'm feeling a little bit negative at the moment. I'm in the midst of a run of bad luck that seemed to begin at the stroke of Western New Year. Since then I've variously been conned, cheated, messed around, insulted and ill.
But I'm still here. Perhaps I also have to look at my own foibles - going travelling during Spring Festival was, in the face of it, pretty damn stupid. A learning experience - don't do it next time!
Topping it all, and admittedly this isn't China's fault, my 'puter is in its death throes and I shall have to get a new one, if the credit card that was posted a fortnight ago ever shows.
I persist. In a bloody-minded way, the more annoying things get, the more I am determined to stick it out and find the best this country has to offer.
At least the travel photos turned out well. It's just a case of having bad Dao at the moment, and I know I'm not the only one. Here's to getting some ying back for my yang, or whichever way round it should be.
Seemed like an easy job when I accpted it. Guy in Japan e-mails, says can I run out and photograph a few examples of Lawson's convenience stores in Shanghai for a corporate brochure? No problem, I say, thinking 'easy money'.
Just spent nearly four hours tramping around Jingan and Ju Lu Lu areas and found only two. One of these had a sign that was peeling off and the other was tainted by an old git scavenging from a dustbin right by the swooshy doors. Managed to conceal most of him behind a bush, but not the kind of thing you want in a corporate brochure.
There are meant to be over 100 Lawson's in Shanghai, but I'm stuffed if I know where they are. Everwhere there's a Kedi, and an Alldays, and whatever the one with the green and yellow logo is called. Soon 7-11 itself will be gaining a foothold.
Compared to other cities in China, Shanghai is awash with these little Kwik-E-Marts, which I think is a great thing. Keeps people employed, and keeps the midnight munchers happy too. It's a sign of some subtle shift in the demography. More money, different lifestyles... more corner shops. Apparently, Lawson's (a tripartite joint venture, the major stakeholder being a Japanese chain) was the original franchise to hit the city just a few years ago, but has quickly been superceded.
But it's been most inconvenient for me. If anyone knows where to find one, drop us a line, OK? Cheers.
At least 18 Chinese workers died on Friday in the most unlikely of places - the picture postcard location of Morecambe Bay near England's Lake District.
The tragedy exposes the practise of exporting Chinese labour abroad, where countless people are ruthlessly exploited by gangs ignorant of the most basic safety procedures.
My mother in fact recently bought a house in the area, within eyeshot of the scene of the accident, and provided the following details.
The labourers were working as 'cocklers', handpicking tiny shellfish (cockles) from the Morecambe Bay mudflats. A team of workers was caught in the estuary, and with no means of escape were drowned as the tide rose.
So far 16 survivors have been found, but bodies of 16 young men and two women, all thought to be Chinese, have been recovered. There is virtually no chance of finding anyone else alive. The survivors were suffering from hypothermia due to the cold water, although the weather was mild.
The alarm was raised at 5am Beijing time on Friday (9pm GMT 5th February), and emergency services including helicopters, rigid inflatables, quad bikes and, inshore hovercraft were scrambled. The hovercraft were needed due to the nature of the sands, where the draught is too shallow for ordinary lifeboats.
Local people have been warning since the cocklers arrived that this was a tragedy waiting to happen, as the sands are extremely treacherous. There are signs all along the coast advising of the danger of quicksands, deep gullies and fast flowing incoming tides. There have been incidents in the past of people dying while caught in the mud.
These people were not only working in these areas but working in the dark.
One local was quoted on radio as saying that the young Chinese (or possibly their families) owe money to the gangs and are brought over to England to do this work.
A local fisherman claimed that an individual can earn between GBP 750 (11,000 RMB) and GBP 1,000 (15,000 RMB) per day, although this money was not going to the cocklers themselves but to the gang masters.
The cocklers are still operating here, writes my mother, and all around the bay - total numbers are unknown, but she regularly sees 16-seat minibuses going down the coast.
All the occupants are Chinese, including the drivers. It has been widely reported that they are illegal immigrants, but if that was the case then in theory they would be easy enough to pick up. About 40 and a labour master were arrested last summer at the town of Morecambe itself for this reason.
My parents had previously spoken to a fisheries spokesman from the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as they were concerned about what they saw as the pillage of a local natural resource. He advised them that the cockles have what is known as a 'mast' season every four years, when there are huge numbers, and 2003/4 is such a year. If mature cockles are not harvested they will die.
These cockles appear to all be exported to Spain, in Spanish refrigerated container lorries (upto 20 tonne payload), so none of the harvest is going into the local economy. Cockling in the area had always been a 'cottage industry', with a few families making a summer living from it, but this last summer they felt intimidated by the foreign workers, and the local fish processor reported a significant drop in the number of cockles for processing.
The pillage of cockle beds in other parts of Europe has led to the dramatic rise in price. The only people to gain are the gang masters; the losers are the young people who have died, their families back home, the local economy
and ecology.
The tragedy raises several questions. How did these Chinese workers end up in Europe? What is their obligation to the gangs that appear to control them? And why did the local authorities not act to dissuade the gangs, who at best were clearly interfering in the local economy and at worst, as has been proved, endangering the lives of the people they engage?
The Guardian newspaper reports here, with further analysis here.
Looks like it's fallen through completely now, so might as well explain.
One thing that people always say to qualify some bigoted remark is "I'm not prejudiced, but..." I won't say that, I'll leave you to make up your own mind. I certainly don't want to be labelled a bigot. But it does continually irritate me that in China, many things just don't seem to work without some kind of corruption or cheating behind them.
On Boxing Day, I received a text message (my secondary mode of communication after e-mail). Someone from the foreign department at my university was in contact with a professor at another institution who needed a native speaker to proofread an English textbook.
Would I be interested? For 2000 RMB (US$240) per chapter, damn right I would...
I spoke to the academic himself by telephone, who seemed like a nice enough man in himself. Before committing myself to proof all 10, I said that I would like to look at one chapter to estimate how long it would take. This was duly dispatched and I spent a few hours going through it before sending it back to them.
This may have been where things began to go wrong. The professor was working with another man, who it transpired would be in control of the thing. From the start, the tone of his e-mails was far from friendly. Before I had even agreed to do the work, he was telling me "this is what you will do".
But for a promised 20,000 RMB it was too good to let go. That much money would pay for my travelling and then some, so it was worth spending a few extra days in Shanghai for. Perhaps then it was my own avarice that got the better of me. But I delayed my travel plans by a week to get it done.
My initial suspicion, however, was "this is too good to be true". There was no written contract; how could I protect myself and ensure I was paid for the work? The best way, I felt, was a solution that would keep everyone happy. If they were to send me all the work they needed doing in one go, I could: a) double check it all against each other to ensure consistency; b) do the work quickly and efficiently in my own time without wasting a moment; c) ensure that I did not return the corrected proofs until I had a firm guarantee of being paid.
Having corrected the sample, the man got back to me and said "no, we didn't want you to do this one." So how was it going to get done then? I assumed they needed every chapter proofed. Another one was duly dispatched. I did the work on this one, all the time asking for the rest of the work so I could get on with it.
But every time there was an excuse. "It is important to ensure quality." "We won't send you the next chapter until we've checked your work on this one." How, may I ask, can you check my work when the whole reason I am doing it is because my English is better than yours?
The best was "this is the first time that I have been so hesitating in answering your questions though I have worked and have been working with a dozen of foreign teachers." Yet even four days after I sent them the second chapter to look through, no response whatsoever, not by e-mail, not by telephone, not by anything.
I am certain that I did a good job. The only reason that I can think of for this obtuse attitude is that they don't want to pay me. So the work won't get done and I won't get paid. Everyone loses out. Especially the students, who will receive yet another textbook riddled with errors.
The sad thing is that this seems to be the way with all kinds of business dealings here. Corruption and cheating, I am told by several different sources, is so endemic it is normal. It's actually considered a bit odd if you don't mess people around.
But why does it have to be this way? How can they build an 'economic miracle' if business dealings are based not on competitive trading but kickbacks? How can companies be managed effectively if the leaders have cheated in their exams and bribed their way in? What happens to the truly deserving and able people who don't have the money to work in this way?
'Capitalism with a Chinese face' is a continual disappointment to me. It's not just a flagrant abandonment of the socialist ethic, creating a new uber-priviliged bourgeosie and an exploited underclass, but it's not even a good way to do business. Perhaps I'm just frustrated that my little deal didn't come off, but I can't see how the nation can sustain itself operating as it does under ransom.
With little else to do but watch depressing DVDs such as Farewell my Concubine (see below) you're bound to have random ideas.
Today's random idea: a new word. Blogsheet.
I was once the editor, or e-dirt-er, of a scurrilous publication known as Bogsheet. Mainly concerning snogging, drunkenness or drunken snogging, it went up in the toilets of Pembroke College, Oxford every fortnight or so.
The first edition engendered threats of violence from three righteously indignant people, one of whom cycled several miles to personally complain. Everyone else thought it was wicked. Who among my contemporaries could forget the notorious McNamara incident? You can see the far inferior modern-day version here.
So, I coin the term, Blogsheet. Read into this what you will...