Thursday 22nd June, 2017                 1420

The battle continues.

Overnight I have descended from incensed to angry to fuming until now I am at my best level - cool but determined. I may not win immediately but I will come a damned good second and will ultimately exact revenge if I don’t.

The two versions of the contract are disparate in many respects. If the school chooses to rely on the one more beneficial to them, so be it. I can only rely on the one they presumably misled me with last year when I signed. I may make myself unpopular in certain quarters.

I requested a meeting with Mr Zhang and Brenda today. Brenda is fine but Zhang answered questions I never asked and never even mentioned  those I did. Perhaps he thinks by ignoring them the will, just like childhood dragons under the bed, disappear if he sticks his head under the bedcovers. Think again.

I have sent a draft email to Brenda for her opinion on whether it complies with accepted Chinese negotiating/arguing/warring etiquette before I email Zhang. If I observe the contract then so should the school.

Until I learnt I would not be paid in August and doubt was thrown on the 3,500y payment I wasn’t too concerned about the summer programme. After all, the school is paying for everything. Except this morning Zhang told me hotel rooms were shared.

I don’t share with strangers, never have. I don’t share with men. Never have. If I share they are girls I already know or are ones you wouldn’t take home to meet Mother. Now that would be fine had I not suddenly been hit with a possible 8,800y black hole in my summer pocket money. Worse, I am not even sure I will be paid for going on this trip and writing reports on it. You see, if all the aforementioned was not happening I would probably gladly have offered to pay for my own single occupancy hotel rooms. I am damned if I will if things remain as they are, as much as I think the trip would be a great experience. I can see myself ultimately refusing to take part.

Regardless of all the travails recently, I AM pursuing my own agenda in August. I have booked and paid for an executive room in the Holiday Inn, Hefei, Steve in Shenyang is going to be there (except for the last night as his lovely daughter is getting married so he’s flitting back to the UK - might invite 40 or 50 close friends over for an indoor Barbie once he’s gone!), Pudong is booked but not paid for yet and three nights in Hilton Wuhu have been paid for using reward points. I am damned if my local troubles are going to ruin my summer and it is thanks in no small measure to my pension, which will provide me enough to live on during an unpaid August when I return.

Enough of misery, at least for a little while. Face it, I have the joy of soon being with Alice, western breakfasts, meeting Vivian after a year and then being reunited with Steve, Jens and Shona and converting my liver from a house brick to solid marble. Then on to Shanghai to see Capt Roland (he’s bound to take us ten-pin bowling because of the awkward way I “play”) plus a bevy of five ex students, not least of whom being Joanna for 6 nights. Ok I’ve gone cheapskate on Shanghai by booking the 168 Motel but purely because I shall be unaccompanied and I wanted to stay longer this time. And they have a reasonably priced bar. Just one thing will be missing and Joan knows exactly what that is…..

Then for dessert, three nights back with Alice before finally returning home. Unless of course I have just enough money to stop off somewhere en route. I just need to price watch the flights now and wait until they hit rock bottom to book.

Do you know, most of us make a big deal out of problems or setbacks that others on the planet can only wish they had? Here I am moaning about being cheated and yet I still have enough to be able to fill my belly and quaff wine each day. As I sit and type, just outside my office window sits a pushchair containing a toddler who is sound asleep. He was placed there by his grandmother. She is currently rooting through the bins collecting cardboard to sell for a few yuan.

She is not begging, merely eking an existence by scavenging through rubbish. She has collected so much that her problem now is how to attach it to the pushchair and get it to where she can sell it. Am I tempted to call her over and give her 100y? Yes, very much so but I won’t for fear of bruising her pride. You see, if she is looking after the grandchild then her daughter/son and their husband/wife must be working and so earning money. There is a danger I would be deemed insulting. Certainly unless she is eccentric the family are not well off but maybe they eat well enough.

Now she has decided that all she has collected is too big to tie to the pushchair and I saw the reluctance on her face as she placed it against the wall opposite, I assume to go and leave the child somewhere safe before she returns to collect it. I now find myself keeping watch to ensure nobody else comes and pinches it.

My problems just shrank.