Tuesday 13th September, 2016                         2300

Welcome to the Mire of Misery once again!

So the luggage saga is more or less over and the only major casualty as far as I can tell (it will take forever to unpack and stow everything) is the oven. Not too drastic, especially if I can get some compensation. I can (and did tonight) make chips, bread (when I have scrubbed the machine, I think they threw it in a mechanic’s pit) and anything in a frying pan or pot. We are firing on three cylinders and ere long I hope to be on all four.

Back to the dismal stuff! Still no pay although I have been assured it was remitted today so should be in my account first thing tomorrow. I won’t hold my breath, although it may be the bank’s fault, it wouldn’t be the first time my own bank has returned a payment because a full stop was omitted. We shall see but either way I am indebted both to Joan and Janet, the latter who on the instructions of the school lent me 500y. That state of affairs is unacceptable because I can do nothing with dribs and drabs except hope that the next day all my money turns up. So far it hasn’t and tomorrow will see Mr Angry if it isn’t fixed because it’s holiday time until Monday for mid-autumn festival.

I was under the impression that the school had obtained my foreign expert certificate and that all I now needed was the residence permit. Yesterday I found out otherwise and only after I pointed out that I HAD to at least apply for the permit by a week Friday. Don’t ask me why but that came as a shock to the “professionals” dealing with my documentation. That was when I discovered I still need the FEC, without which a permit is impossible.

So tomorrow, instead of being a day off, is an 0500 rise to get the bloody bus to school, have a student take me to the quarantine hospital and hopefully (don’t be silly, this is ME!) simply get provincial stamps on the medical I took in Anhui in May. If not (any odds?) then I have to take yet another medical. Oh, and could I take enough money to pay for it and they will reimburse me?

With 25y in my wallet (dinner tonight was egg and chips) I pointed out that might be a problem, however I will go to the ATM when I get to the other campus. If my wages are in then fine, if not they had better have a Plan B.

Perhaps reading this, one may think the organisation here is awful but I have to defend them and say that within Chinese strictures they are considerably better than Chizhou were - the difference there being that I was familiar with everything and could usually sort most problems myself by the time I left. Here is uncharted territory as yet.

So tomorrow could be a momentous day for either the right or wrong reasons. I shall update later.  

Wednesday 14th                          1440

Could the clouds of doom that have bedevilled my life in Lanzhou so far finally be about to disperse? Will I start to get a few rubs of the green?

I nearly fainted at the hospital when it was agreed that for 60y they would simply exchange my Anhui medical book for a Gansu one and no need for a new physical! Could the tide possibly be on the turn?

Well not as far as my pay was concerned because when we got back to campus (I was thus confined there until noon when the bus was leaving for my campus) there was still no sign of the money. There ensued calls between Janet and Brenda, Brenda and accounts and several trots to the ATM outside campus by yours truly, punctuated by spells of sitting with dark thoughts in my office. Brenda promised that if accounts didn’t sort it she would bring me some money, I refused and told her that was no good because I couldn’t DO anything for fear of running out again before my entire salary was paid - it’s no way to live.

Eventually I was persuaded to go home and wait and see what this afternoon brought and Janet, bless her, tried to lend me another 100y of her own money. Again I refused, telling her that one way or another the matter would be resolved today even if it meant them taking me to accounts and we all telephone my bank to ascertain what was wrong so that they felt obliged to return the money each time. I couldn’t phone them myself because you get a Chinese speaking machine and it wanted a password - not sure I have one.

So when the bus dropped me off I decided to go into a branch to take the bull by the horns. More good luck, someone spoke English. Still no wages so I explained the situation and asked them to look on the computer for the information the university needed to actually pay me.

This is where it got surreal and I am not the only one who thinks it is barmy, the Chinese contingent had enormous problems grasping it. After four years of sitting in my wallet the old bank card split and became unusable so you may recall I went to get a new one. Well here you also get a new number and it is this number I gave to them here, after all, Chizhou still managed to pay me.

But oh no, that new account number on the new card ISN’T my new account number! No, I still have the old account number but the new card number will take money from the account! Confused? Join everybody here. What makes it absolutely egregious is the fact that the Chizhou branch never even mentioned this. Naturally I dumped the old card and had no way of finding out the number except from the bank itself.

Hopefully in a little while I will be rich and in a damned sight better mood, although there seems to be reluctance on the school’s part in case they end up paying me twice. Well if they do then of course I will give it back!