Wednesday 21st June, 2017                                1915

I wasn’t expecting to be putting fingers to keyboard quite so soon after posting the latest instalment but to say I am pissed off would be to use polite terminology when the truth is, I would far rather use lower deck expletives.

Ok I admit, partly it is my fault for not doing due diligence but in my defence coming here was a rather last minute affair and turning it down would have been catastrophic given that I was only in China courtesyof a 4 week permit to stay granted by Bonnie in Chizhou police at the time. I would have signed anyway but I should not have been so trusting.

I have never heard of a public university not paying foreign teachers all the way through the summer holiday if they have signed up for another year. They all do. Except this bloody one. I shall receive nothing for August apparently. Ok, the Bank Of Orange has agreed to an extension of my overdraft for which I am very grateful and it shall not be for long but then Brenda hit me with another whammy.

Finance are refusing to pay me the 3,500Y instead of the round trip flight I could have taken. Whilst I cannot fight the first “stiffing” I am bloody well going to fight the second. Ok, there are language difficulties, I am used to that. Doesn’t stop my blood boiling at times though. My contract clearly states 3,500y will be paid if I don’t fly to my own country or provide a receipt. Further down, it states that a travel allowance of 3,500y will be paid each year with no stipulation as to why (in Chizhou it was 2,200y). 

Apparently all the other foreign teachers fly home in winter and I am the first not to have done so. If this is the way it happens then I am not surprised they do so. I never asked for the 3,500y in winter, I wanted to save it for summer. I have done, to repay a loan. I have not touched it. 

I am no expert but I appeared in enough courts covering contract law and disputes in my time to know that categorically I am entitled to 3,500y travel allowance PLUS either my round trip ticket home repaid OR another 3,500y in lieu. I can wipe my lips with the missing month’s salary for being so trusting but not with something in black and white. 

Oh, but wait a minute! It doesn’t say that in the Chinese version! Mr Wei must have made a mistake!

Really? 

Sorry but on the version I can understand it is quite clear and if I have to go to SAFEA or a judge I am quite sure they will know the only version I can understand is the English one. I do accept partial blame for the missing month but no way for the other - what if I was going home for summer? The school paid me unbidden in February for the 3.500y travel allowance so now I give them my flight receipt? 

Oh boy, I am well and truly putting the cat among the pigeons over this. I have had to reassure Brenda that I don’t blame her at all, I know she has no authority but I respect the chain of command and don’t want to put her nose out of joint by going over her head. She actually WANTS me to because Mr Zhang is not someone she likes and he never answers her questions from me! What a two-faced shit he seems to be turning out to be eh?

I never asked what the payment would be for going on the Hogg programme because at that time I thought my travel allowance and August would be paid and a few extra bob in my pocket would be enough. I have now asked. Depending on the answer/result I will decide whether to go or not because even though I really want to go. I will not if I am being shafted. I will also be looking to work elsewhere next summer unless things are put on a better footing.  

The problem I have right now is not financial (Thanks only to Captain Roland) but time-wise. Too late to realistically secure another post (and still lose a month’s pay) with all the upheaval and expense another move would entail, not to mention that I actually like working here and it would cancel all my summer plans. 

Comments invited on my interpretation of the contract?

If party B doesn’t visit her home country during the contract year in summer or winter holiday, party A will pay party B 3500Yuan RMB as summer or winter holiday travelling expenses instead of the air tickets,etc.

 3. Travel allowance: If Party B is invited as a Foreign Teacher/Foreign Expert with a contract of one academic year and has accomplished the task as stipulated in the contract, they will receive a travel allowance of 3500 yuan RMB given by Party A.

 

This Contract is signed in Lanzhou , on July 2016 in Chinese and English languages, both texts being equally authentic.