Occasional Tales

Who's the boss? It seems that the whole matter of being ferried from the airport when you arrive and to it when you leave is a mere courtesy. Formally speaking, the people who actually employ me should be doing that, but the school has to do it in their stead. In other words, I'm on my own tomorrow when I depart. Do I have any regrets about leaving Fuzhou? A couple. One is that I never had a bike so that I could explore the city more widely. I think there's rather a lot that I missed seeing because of my comparative immobility, and once I knew I was departing, there was no point in getting a bike. The other is a couple of cute girls here, but since I'm told that the most beautiful girls in China live in Chengdu, I may find that there's ample compensation for that loss. (Yes, I know. I'm a sad old perv who knows that age, academic and cultural differences really preclude any chance of meaningful relationships here.)

Attitudes when foreigners depart. In a couple of days I'll be leaving Fuzhou. It wasn't my choice because although I said I had no objections to departing, I preferred to be spared the bother of packing everything up yet again for a second year running. Instead, Central Command asked me to go to Chengdu and I agreed. I'm still with the same programme, but at another school. I'm also still under contract. Unfortunately, the school's attitude, regardless of the circumstances of your departure, is that you're a dirty, traitorous scoundrel who deserves no help whatsoever. It doesn't matter one iota that you're still under the current contract. That's a contract which, throughout the time it covers, is used as a stick with which to beat you, but otherwise ignored when they don't think it's in their best interests. Every contract I've signed here has been violated by the schools to a greater or lesser extent. The people who actually employ us l...