Wednesday 10^th July, 2019 1805

My life is never complete without problems but why, oh why, do they always have to have monetary implications?

My contract stipulates that I get a certain amount of travelling money to see the country during spring festival (pretty standard with public universities) and also reimbursement for a round-trip flight to my home country each year, normally in summer and also standard.

This place is something else. The spring festival payment is made in February when the holiday is coming to an end and is therefore of no use when it counts. That I have handled.

Now, if you do not fly to your home country at any time during the year or cannot provide a receipt, they do in fairness pay you the same amount as in the spring festival anyway so at least if I went to Barbados or Vietnam I would receive a payment.

Since I have been here I have not returned to the UK so have only qualified for the minimum payment and Brenda has secured payment for the past two years with my July salary – bear in mind this uni does not pay you for August.

An hour before my pay went into my bank two days ago Brenda called me to tell me accounts would not give me the travel money until September, eight days after I start work again! Holiday pay is now after holidays pay. And if you fly to your home country you have to submit receipts AND boarding passes once you return! Therefore if you do go home, don't expect reimbursement until it is too late to spend it on holiday. If I do decide to go home and fly business class (getting too used to not being in cattle class!) then not only will I not get my full fare but I will have to wait for the economy portion as well.

I did pose the question as to what would happen were I to leave the school never to return and move to another country, would they pay me in September when I had no way of getting the money out? Oh no, they would pay you in July! So because I am staying I have to wait for money that will be paid when I need no receipt or proof of flying? No answer. Logic here is often absent.

I will not be caught with my pants down next year, I will expect it but it has given me serious cause for concern over my upcoming sojourn in Shanghai. It's an expensive place to be, less expensive than Paris but more so than London. It now means that for most of this vacation I will be doing SFA in order to conserve money (already going to have to – admittedly expectedly – utilise my UK account at the Visa exchange rate and then get stung for 2.75% foreign transaction fee plus 2% cash fee on top!) so not unnaturally I am none too happy.

I at least have a safety net (a sister who I can repay within 4 weeks) which I will endeavour not to use but short of hibernating in Shanghai a few nights out out of seven I cannot see any way my money will last, it costs in excess of 1,000¥ a day – but thankfully it does mean a bumper pay in September so I should be able to repay a debt from last year. By mid-October I intend to be completely debt-free!

Oh, and then just to piss me off further, Brenda, despite my protests, has demanded my passport and work permit. She is submitting them for renewal for another year. The residence permit was valid until 5^th September so I will lose two months – two months I basically paid for because I had to go to Hong Kong three years ago at my expense, remember? And that cost a month's salary.

Now, ONE: The passport had better be back before 7^th August or I cannot travel and TWO: I have sent her an email to make sure that when the accounts (very tempting to omit the “U”) dept shut down for summer on Friday they give her the money to pay for me to retrieve my passport because I do not intend to pay for it and wait until September to get it back. It's only 400¥ but as they have already withheld 3,500¥ it really would be salt in the open sore.

Situation normal. And there are some people who think I love China unconditionally........