January 28 - Catching up (and going all the way back to December 19!)

So this is the first in a series of back-logged things that I wanted to post, but never got around to doing. I'll hopefully get it all out soon.

When I arrived here, back at the end of October, I was planning to stretch about $500 I had brought with me until my first paycheque arrived, supposedly one month later. As I learned, however, that is frequently not how things work here.

It started out simply enough. I was advised to bring enough money to cover one month's expenses before the first paycheque, and $500 turned out to be way more than I needed to cover my first month's expenses, especially since my students were always paying for things for me at that time in the rush of paying their respects to their new professor.

However, payday arrived and no money came. I wasn't worried, but I fired off an email just the same to my employer in Canada. After that, things got ugly. Apparently, my employer thought it was only their responsibility to pay me if they had received payment of my salary first from the university in China (I have a middle man arrangement whereby the recruiter in Canada pays me to work at a university in Zhengzhou). The university here, for there part, were bureaucratically bumbling incompetents who weren't getting their act together. This process dragged out, and I ran out of money, to the point where I was living on my food stores (white rice, instant noodles and water) and $6 for three weeks.

I eventually completely ran out of food and money and was forced to borrow to cover my costs. I was completely livid. You cannot treat your employees like this, and my contract was signed under Canadian law. I had spoken with my parents and we began to consider our legal options.

They finally said that the problem with the university was resolved, but that transferring the money would be a problem because of Chinese government limits on how much cash can be transferred out of the country. It meant further delays until the employer in Canada could send someone to pick up the cash in person. I asked if they could pay me on the spot, and they agreed, but when the girl arrived, she balked and said it would cost my employer money on exchanges rates to pay me right away (nowhere in any of this are you hearing anything about caring for my wellbeing, or the fact that I have absolutely zero cash). She said I should wait one more day for an internet transfer. So I accepted, and it turns out she could not do an internet transfer out of China, only into China. So I had to wait another week.

I arrived here on October 30. I got paid on January 5th. Unbelievable, not to mention blatantly illegal on the part of my Canadian employer. I don't care that they didn't receive any money from the university. If my contract says they will pay me on a certain date, they damn well better pay me.

I have been paid now, and I am disinclined to further aggravate the situation with them, but I have learned they do not have my best interests in mind and that is something I will keep in mind.

I was considering a deliberate delay in preparing my final exams as a counter-tactic to their delay in paying my salary, but I ended up just preparing the exams. I figured it would be better not to stoop to their level.

The exams I prepared turned out to be quite a bit longer than Chinese students are accustomed to writing in English, but I'll talk about that in another post.

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I talked in a previous post about a guy whose lunch card was empty and for whom I subsequently bought lunch. Well, on my second to last day of class, I was headed to the student cafeteria to spend some of the dwindling money on my meal card (I should mention that in addition to my $6 and food at home, I had about $3 on the meal card too). When I got there, the boy for whom I had bought lunch was already there and excitedly flagged me down. Apparently he had been expecting me to come and had already ordered food for me! Wow! I was really pleasantly shocked by that. I asked him how he knew I'd be there and he told me it was just a guess. I asked him what he'd do if I didn't show up and he said he'd have eaten my dish too. He's a funny guy.

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Irene (who I now think of as Pei Pei, since that is her Chinese name), the girl who asked me to be the judge of her English debating competitions, and her boyfriend Max heard about my lack of funds and took it upon themselves to take me out for dinner. Max is a really gregarious, outgoing guy who is quintessentially a modern Chinese man. He's a really nice guy, and I like him a lot. He's also the first guy I've met who really wanted me to drink with him - a lot!

They planned to take me to eat hotpot at a nearby restaurant. It was really cold when they came to pick me up, so I gave Max my hat. Pei Pei already had earmuffs and I had a hood, so thus equipped, we walked the kilometre or so to the hotpot place. Once inside, we dived right into some really delicious food and Max ordered the first of what turned out to be many beers. I had been under the impression that all beers in China tended to have weak alcohol content, but the beer he ordered sat at a comfortable 9%. I'm sad that I don't remember the brand name, because it tasted pretty good. At home I have 老山 (lao shan; old mountain) beer, which is manufactured by the same company as the world famous 青岛(qing dao; Tsingtao) beer. Lao Shan beer has a weaker alcohol content than Tsingtao, but is infinitely tastier in my opinion.

Pei Pei refused to drink alcohol in front of other boys, telling us her father forbid her from doing so because it is unladylike. I respect her decision, but feel a little bit sorry for her about this. Though she accepts the decision as her own, saying she wouldn't want to drink in front of guys anyway. Well, I guess every person should make their own decisions about this kind of thing, but her point was underscored to us a few minutes later.

We happened to be sitting next to the entrance to the washrooms and a man and woman who had clearly had more than enough to drink for the evening came weaving their way over to the washroom, he drunkenly slurring and she speaking slowly and far too loudly. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but Max did a facepalm and Pei Pei said that she didn't think they should be acting like that because "she isn't his girlfriend". I wasn't particularly shocked by the idea of two lovers making out drunkenly in public, but I was rather shocked to see it in this particularly conservative part of the world.

After both emerging from their respective washrooms, they shared a sink to wash their hands, which turned into groping, fondling, kissing and her shirt partially coming off. Again, it wasn't shocking that a couple would do this, but I had not heretofore seen it in China and assumed this was totally against "the rules" so to speak.

After a few seconds, they untangled and wandered into a few tables on their staggering path back to their seats. Sometimes it's easy to assume things about a foreign culture. It's moments like this that shatter all assumptions.

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On the last day of class (December 19), Sang and his friend Liu Bo asked me to visit their little shop that isn't too far from the school. On the way there, I saw some incredibly cute little puppies and bunnies for sale - and being treated like absolute garbage by the vendor, in open air and high winds on top of a pedestrian overpass at an intersection. Sang asked me if I wanted to buy a pet. I told him that I could not in good conscience buy a pet while here, because who would take care of it once I left? Since that day, I have seen the appallingly indifferent treatment that these animals get in China. We're not only talking about a lack of love, but also a lack of basic caring for their health or well-being. I'll talk about this in a later post too.

Liu Bo's parents own a factory in Shen Zhen, and they've loaned him some money to make his own small business selling mountain biking premium bike parts and personal apparel and gear related to the sport. At least, that is the theory. In practice, they rent a third-stall in a third-rate mall and do most of their business online. Their "premium" gear is mostly shanzhai (pronounced roughly similar to shan jai) which is the Chinese word for fakes. All those fake Guccis and Louis Vuittons made in China? Shanzhais. This guy's store is full of them, branded with all sorts of big name western companies, not a one of them matching the true quality of the brand it is purported to be. The total lack of respect for intellectual property rights in this country is unimaginable in the West. We throw up our hands and moan about music piracy and bittorents. They put free mp3s in direct links from baidu.com (their google). Want the latest free music? If you can figure it out, you can download directly from their search engines. Unbelievable. Apparently, in the city of Shenzhen, there is a three-floor market that takes up the size of 10 square city blocks devoted entirely to shanzhai cell phones or real phones that "fell off the back of the truck".

One thing that really amused me about Liu Bo's store (Sang is just a minority stakeholder) was when he tried to sell me a "man's scarf". I was a little bit confused because I hadn't seen any scarves in the store. He picked it out for me - a multi-colored silk chiffon/shawl to wrap around one's neck. I told him that was not exactly the first thing that came to mind for me as a scarf for men. He asked me what a scarf was like, and I pointed out the material of a tight-knit woollen hat. He was mystified.

After leaving the store, we headed over to the Zhengzhou Light Industry College, which is immediately next to my university's student dormitories, in order to play basketball. My school's students often go there to play because it's is a two minute walk as opposed to a 10 minute bus ride to the main campus of our school. We obtained a ball, and walked onto the courts only to be met with the start of a physical education class. This really angry pair of teachers were screaming at everyone to move out and it looked like we might have to clear out too, but I stood my ground and acted like I had a right to be there and my students said something to the lady who appeared to be in charge and she waved us over to a court at the far end of the area. Apparently I was to get special privileges to play with my students as a foreign teacher at the Zhengzhou Light Industry College (Liu Bo lied to them for me, it seems). I had a really great game that day and scored well over 50 points in our three-on-three. We had an audience too, which was fun. About 15 or so students stopped to watch us play.

More to come!