Getting Paid on Time

I returned to Wuhan on Monday morning after a week of relaxing with my family in Yingtan, it was good to not have to work for a few days. I arrived back at my Wuhan apartment to find no internet, just after 8am it was back on, at about the same time as people begin working in the school offices, coincidence or not?

At about the same time the water went off, with no prior warning, this is another common inconvenience and after a few hours I enquired as to when it will be reconnected, oh as soon as possible was the reply. During that evening I enquired again, oh they are working hard to fix the problem and you will have water as soon as possible. At 9.30 pm I got the first honest answer, it is off over a wide area of the city, it may not be reconnected until the morning. At seven am I was able to have a shower, wash the dishes from the previous day etc. So far there have been no further problems in the last 24 hours or so.

On Monday I was due to have three classes but my students had monthly exams to take so I had a free day, as I had little sleep on the overnight train I tried to catch up on some of the lost sleep of the previous night. After about an hour of much needed rest I received a message on my phone could I contact the office?

I have worked for this company for over four years, I am now into my fifth year with them so was a little surprised by the questions I was being asked.

Could I confirm my name

What is my bank account number

Am I British and what is my passport number

The passport number they had for me was not even the correct style of numbering used for British passports, so I have no idea whose passport number it was.

When did I change my passport number if that is not my passport number?

I have had the same passport since before I arrived in Wuhan, I arrived in Wuhan in August 2014, I have had this passport since 2013.

The questions were about my getting paid the next day so fairly important, the accountant that deals with this was I assume not the same person that dealt with it previously, the next afternoon I was a little nervous going to the bank to check my bank balance but I had been paid on time.

My second job in Yingtan was paying me for the first time, also on the same day. They tried to pay my salary into the bank, for some reason it was not accepted, so instead it was paid into my wechat account, no problems there.

Now I had some money in my bank account I could go and begin spending again. Before I had been paid I noticed that the tickets for the coming weekends trains were selling out fast, so I managed to scrape together just enough to buy an outward journey ticket for the Friday evening. I always have the information I need for the tickets written in Chinese so that there is no misunderstanding, with the train number, the names of the departure and arrival cities and times as well as the type of seat required. I asked for a sleeper ticket he tried to sell me a seat ticket, I do not want to sit on a train for seven hours when sleeping booths are available.

That evening I returned to the same office to buy my return ticket, I have to deal with this same guy every time, I can almost see him cringing whenever I arrive to buy tickets and his thinking oh no not that foreigner again. I used to buy my tickets through a ticketing agent, it cost a little more for each ticket, but the person was so helpful and would look at alternatives if your first choice was not available, you do not get that level of service at the station. In my opinion it is the worst station I have come across in China, especially for levels of customer service.

The ticketing agent stopped operating, as many others have done because of automatic ticket machines, these machines are very efficient and better than lining up in a long queue of people waiting to be served by an unhelpful assistant. Unfortunately the automatic ticket machines can only be used if you have a Chinese ID card, so foreigners armed with a passport still have to go to the manned window to purchase their tickets.

One highlight for me during my week off was being able to spend some quality time with my son, he is 2 years old and plays on my phone whenever he gets the chance, I think he understands how to use my phone better than me. His latest craze is to take pictures of anything or anybody and as soon as he has learnt how to take good pictures I can stop deleting most of what he takes.

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