Power Cuts

This weekend I did not return to Yingtan on the train, the work there ended as quickly as it began. It turned out the school there was not registered to employ foreign teachers, they had a visit from the police and so it resulted in my not working for them anymore.

So instead I spent my weekend in Wuhan, the first time I had stayed here during any free time in months. I began on Saturday morning by going out for breakfast; this was followed by a trip to Walmart to get some essential supplies. I returned to my apartment around 11am and after unpacking my shopping I sat down to begin working on my computer.

After just a few minutes the internet stopped working, this is not unusual and happens regularly, it began working again after a few minutes but before I could get to work to electricity stopped, again another regular occurrence. It seems that it is rare to go a week without having a stoppage in supply to either electricity or the internet. The water supply is often interrupted as well. My day of working on the internet was not going to plan and it was after 4pm before the electricity was restored, the internet began again a little while later.

On Tuesday I was asked if I could change one of my Wednesday classes to Tuesday, so this meant I only had one class to teach on Wednesday this week. My working day would begin at 4.05 and be over before 5pm. This meant I had virtually a full day to work on the internet; I made a note of my plans for the day and was awake early ready to begin. Alas my plans went astray very early in the day as there was no power once again, at 7.30am the power went off. I called my Chinese contact to find what was happening and the power is off all across the local area until 3.30 was the answer. Now people know in advance of these events when the utilities are to be cut, but I am never warned in advance, I have asked to be kept informed but it never happens. The electricity did return after a short while, but the internet is off for the majority of the day.

I get frustrated at the interruptions to what I consider to be essential services but my livelihood does not depend on this. I do wonder how people cope when they are relying on an electricity supply and the internet to run their business. In the meantime I will just have to sit and wait until I can post this latest article, thanks for reading.

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