Friday 1st July, 2016                     1830

Rather fittingly it seems to be almost perpetual rain at present, whilst for me my emotions are being dragged on a rollercoaster ride.

With Changzhou unable to start the ball rolling until I have some form of approval from the capital, Jenna at the agency also found me another school in Xuchang that offered me the job without even a Skype interview (I think they saw my DVD) and to boot they increased the base salary without anyone asking. It looked good so I said yes yesterday.

Except as of today their province is implementing the new regulations. So yet again my hopes were dashed against the rocks of hopelessness.

Last night Joan turned up with a large envelope for me. Thinking it was one of those you don’t really want to open, such as exam results, I wavered for a moment. I thought it may have been the response from Beijing. It wasn’t, it contained my documents that we sent to Hefei being returned to me with a hand-written note instructing me to send them to Beijing - in both English and Chinese.

I went mad. They told us to send them to Hefei and now to Beijing? Why couldn’t THEY send them to Beijing and save time?? This was becoming a black comedy. Or at least it would be if I didn’t have so much at stake. Today though Jenna made some phone calls and it turns out what they meant was that they had sent copies to Beijing. They managed to screw up the message in two languages!

So now I am in the hands of Beijing and that’s not particularly somewhere I want to be, however I can only hope for the best. If that happens then the entire country is open to me, if not then there will be a very anxious time before I find another berth or decide to relocate to Cambodia or wherever.

I have spent half of today (and with Anthony’s help) sorting out various documents I need once my contract ends to be able to show the new school (if there ever is one!) and also Chizhou’s internal leaving gumph. Tomorrow I will take my memory stick, get them all printed and then go looking for signatures and official chops (stamps).

I realise all these new regulations will be weeding out those whose degrees were courtesy of Photoshop and I have no sympathy whatsoever with those that took that path but having never once pretended anything other than the truth I am still galled that suddenly after this time genuine qualifications that have hitherto been fine by Beijing now may well not be. This is China! Good job I am an optimist at heart.

If I had the money I would get a business visa and open a burger restaurant selling real burgers and proper chips!