Friday 10^th November, 2017 2100

God knows when I will get to post this, they have screwed the internet again and I am cut off.

Thursday could have been a good day. Could have.

Annie and Stephanie came for a roast chicken dinner, for which I made my first ever home-made sage and onion stuffing (and amazingly the first time they had even heard of it) and it was actually surprisingly good and will most certainly be baked again.

Then I made the mistake of agreeing to go to English corner with them.

Vice Dean Li buttonholed me.

A student had complained that a film I had shown half of on Wednesday had made her feel “uncomfortable”. What???? The film in question happens to star Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint, Gregor Fisher and some chap from the Harry Potter films. It is also a very funny take on a hitman falling in love with his target. None of the aforementioned actors are renowned for participating in pornographic productions, yet I was left with the feeling I had been showing a blue movie.

Now, I know it was good, wholesome family entertainment but there I was being forced to defend myself. Worse was to come.

It was mentioned that I had really upset another student by making the remark that the first time I had visited Hong Kong it was British. Pardon? It was! It was British for 150 years! No, the student didn't know this and to the Chinese (even though the Qing government ceded it in perpetuity) it was always Chinese. So you are asking me to rewrite history??

I try where possible to avoid having a political opinion or talking about Taiwan, Tibet or Tiananmen – that is something all foreign teachers know but HK being British? Well that's a first and one that saw the boiler hit the red zone. OK, you want me to ignore history? The Japanese never ever came anywhere near Nanking in 1937 in that case!

So ok, it is fair to say that I was less than delighted. I did not however have much time to reflect on it as I received a text from Joan saying she needed my help. Not knowing the nature of help required, I hastened home, only to find that in my absence my internet access had evaporated. Really nice of them to time it in order that I am incommunicado for an entire weekend. Maybe more.

But the comments disturbed my slumber. I became more and more angry each time I woke up. I told the English majors that I would treat them as adults if they behaved as such. At least two have proved they are not. I am now left feeling that were I to show Tom & Jerry cartoons I would be taken to task for screening gratuitous violence. I am minded to cease showing any films at all to them and indeed on Wednesday they will be asked what they would do in the same situation. Do I need this aggravation??

So on arrival home this evening I was greeted with no internet. Eventually I received a call at 2030. Suddenly, to access the internet I need to have a Chinese ID. But I have one! It is not asking me to enter it though. No, you can fly or travel on trains and check into hotels with it but you can't have internet. Maybe Monday when IT opens again we can use your passport because now everyone is responsible for not visiting “illegal” sites and the government needs to see who accesses what and says what. Move over George Orwell.

Well as far as I know, the sites I access and what I post are encrypted so I am not particularly concerned. If you ask Beijing, there ARE no illegal sites, none are banned. They simply restrict access to such delights as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. Well they are either banned or they aren't?

So anyway, I had a savvy neighbour sent around to see if he could help and I ended up with other neighbours who have internet access who we asked for their router access codes. Don't ask me why but whilst they have internet, I cannot log onto their systems even with the codes. If I put my trousers on and went out I could probably (although now I am not so sure) sit in the lobby of the hotel and use their wifi – I got online in McDonald's at lunchtime after all.