I love living here, and I think it's the variety of stuff (including frankly bizarre adventures) that goes on, and we get roped into, that makes it for me. Take last Wednesday, for example.
This was followed by quite a tense faculty meeting. The school's not being paying anybody properly since we started (since last year, the older teachers say) and enough has become enough. It's never on time, despite assurances it will be, and cash only ever materialises when a string of teachers line up in the office and complain loudly. We only got paid within a week of the scheduled payday because we organised a faculty meeting ourselves. It always arrives eventually, but the next two paydays are just before, and in the middle of, the long vacation - nobody will be around to hassle them to pull their finger out.
We all felt terrible complaining about being paid late - we are paid much more than the Chinese staff and they've not been paid at all for two months. It's not in their nature, however, to complain - the Westerners have no such qualms. So the meeting was tense, but productive, full of respectful straight-talking. They've promised it'll be on time next month: watch this space.
To show there were no hard feelings (it's not actually the fault of the staff in our office, rather that of the Finance Bureau), the school kindly treated us to a huge lunch in the Western Restaurant, and we had a great time, staff and teachers together.
Then it got to the most bizarre of my China experiences so far - a speaking part in a Chinese sitcom! Anna's blogged it here, but picture the scene: we're mini-bussed out to a private residential development north of the city, the resort of China's new millionaires, where an episode of the popular soap opera "Chinese family living in America, will they/won't they return to China?" - t's probably got a snappier title - is being filmed. To make the American aspect more realistic, the money on the table was dollars and the foreign customers were two English and a Scotsman, of course.
Anyway, I'm finding out how to tune into HenanTV to watch my screen debut - I got my line "Keep the change." in one take, by the way - and will try to post it here.
I guess I can just sit back now and wait for the Chollywood offers to roll in...
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