Monday 13th June, 2016                1910

When you think things can only get better, they get worse.

I tried phoning the Educational Exchange Centre in Hefei with a view to leaving here early tomorrow morning and coming back in the afternoon or evening. I was assured this was a service for foreigners. It may be so but only for foreigners with translators because nobody spoke English.

I batted it back to Jenna at the recruitment agency and left for class. No way was I spending out yet more cash on a fool’s errand by just turning up and finding they can’t help me and no way can I get a student to bunk off exams to translate.

I left a little early to go to the cash point to get some money and also check if my pay had gone in. It hadn’t. Having gotten a new card last week naturally I am wondering whether it is everyone or just me, so I sent Anthony a text to ask if he has been paid. Nearly four hours later I still await a reply.

Off I went, not in the best of moods at this bureaucratic whirlwind which crops up every time I jump through a hoop, rips the hoop away and builds a wall to climb. When I got to the classroom it was closed and the set up is that you can’t open the door from the outside without a key. Knowing Juliette precedes me on Mondays and that she has had to start her exams earlier than me, I guessed she was running late with her testing and so naturally hesitated, especially as the bell hadn’t even gone.

I had seen some of her students as I rode down but of course with me, once each student is done they can leave, so I thought nothing of it. Until that is, five minutes after the bell had elapsed and still no door opening. Then I knocked. And knocked.

I then realised she had finished early, shut the door and gone. Fine. I went and knocked on the “aunty’s” door to get her to unlock my classroom. And I knocked. Some students turned up so I got them to see if they could find someone with a key on another floor. They couldn’t. Soon I had the entire class join me on the balcony, locked out. Fleetingly (and VERY fleetingly) I contemplated calling Anthony. I dismissed that idea for two very good reasons. Firstly he still hadn’t replied to my earlier message so was unlikely to reply to another or a call and secondly, once upon a time I actually had my own key. If you recall I borrowed the room for half an hour for a meeting regarding the Christmas hospital visit and was then engulfed by a typhoon of epic indignation and wrath which emanated from the new Dean’s office and was ultimately delivered by Anthony. So no, why should I go to great lengths because eventually precisely what I envisaged would happen when they confiscated my key as if I was a naughty little boy, did happen.

And so I made the class wait for ten minutes after we should have started and then dismissed them. They were delighted, I confess I felt satisfied. I will not however be happy if it happens again next Monday because I will be examining that class, possibly with their agreement a marathon session to test all 25 of them, for reasons I will now explain.

With an early knock off I went to the business street and into the cool of the office for an hour, contemplating what to have for dinner, salad in the end.

Getting home I had messages waiting on Skype from Jenna. To cut it short, Jiangsu PSB are apparently only interested in qualifications issued by colleges or universities which when you think about it is a joke given the extraordinary tactics they have had to employ domestically this year to stop cheating in the college entrance exams - SWAT teams, mobile signal jammers etc.

I had the choice of going to Hefei where, if they were actually able to help at all (and somehow I don‘t think they would be), it would take a month (a month!) to verify my credentials or I could go to Shanghai and the British embassy, where it could be done in a day but at far greater cost as I would need an overnight hotel and of course more expensive travel.

It was at this point that it was just as well there wasn’t a loaded revolver in my desk drawer.

I did though mention I had an ONC that was signed by the Scottish Secretary of State for Education. As far as I can tell it is no higher than A levels but suddenly Jenna was excited - that would do! What??? If it does then it will expose the new rule as being precisely what it is, idiotic.

I will go to Shanghai next Thursday provided I can finish my late class early (or as aforementioned do the lot in one go on Monday), arrive in the evening, stay in an hotel and go to the embassy on Friday morning. I am guessing that little exercise will set me back about 2,000y to go with what I have already spent so far, meaning a month’s wages damned near will have evaporated - wages I was planning on keeping for the period between pay cheques and schools.

If this doesn’t work then I give up.