Monday 12th October, 2015                          1800

Well the students weren’t too happy about the make-up class on Saturday and as you know I wasn’t pleased at having been given no official notification. I was even less pleased when I received nine text messages from students telling me they would be late because their form teacher had told them to go to his office at precisely the time my lesson started. Perhaps it was something important but my beef is with the fact that their head teacher could have easily obtained my number from the website and forewarned me out of courtesy. Once again it is shown that foreign teachers don’t count for much in the grand scheme of things in the faculty’s eyes. Somehow I doubt they would do the same to their Chinese colleagues. I may be wrong.

Yesterday morning Joan came to bring me the nutmeg I had ordered online. She commented that she had just seen a foreigner who at first glance she thought was Ollivier. Once again the laowei were not informed a new colleague had arrived so once again we were unable to welcome our new neighbour from the outset. In fact, later when I was putting my rubbish outside, I met him coming back from his guided walking tour of the campus. Richard is a young lad, slightly shorter than Ollivier but with a fuller beard and I could see why Joan initially thought he had returned. Younger also, being but a stripling of twenty-six and with a far weaker accent than I had expected. The reason he was late was the time it took to process his work visa. Whether that is down to the foreign affairs office here or when he actually accepted the job I know not.

He has been in this game for two years already but I have forgotten where he taught in China, so he’s not a complete newbie, only to Chizhou. He has a Chinese girlfriend who lives and works in Changsha and he is most disappointed to learn it will take six or more hours travelling to get there to visit her. It may not look too far on a map but in fact it is 700km away. He is from Port Elizabeth and I suspect he was surprised when I told him I knew it - a long time ago I went to look at a whaling station there and got soaked in blood when a whale being retrieved from the harbour rolled over and with the gas build up in the carcase, it farted blood and gas from the harpoon wound. I was about ten feet away.

I never went to town all weekend (which was the plan) and good job too because today is payday and I haven’t been paid. This happens every sodding year, they forget to tell payroll which foreign teachers are still here. Had I gone shopping I would have been up the creek and in fact I had left a month’s pay in advance for Mulan doing my housework and had to ask her to wait in case I needed it. Another fine example of how we are treated differently and yes I should be inured to it by now (and to an extent I am) but nonetheless it aggravates me that they never ever put systems in place to help things run smoothly. I want to go shopping tomorrow afternoon but that looks doubtful now.

Andrei and Juliette have just advised me they are having a Romanian food evening on Wednesday. I’ve never eaten Romanian cuisine so I hope I like it (and I hope I have been paid so I can take some wine!) - if it’s similar to Polish grub then I may well be ok.

The weather now is decidedly autumnal with daytimes in the low twenties and the nights a bit chilly. Perfect, although now I may have to start using a quilt on the bed instead of just the cover.

For now though, it is situation normal - nobody tells us anything!