It is early in the day and it is time to say: Zao shang hao!
We have discussed this predicament over the past fortnight since Qi Kalin left Australia and the many contretemps I have had with you and Wang Quan about failed promises; both of us, Qi Kalin and I have just about entered the great hall of despair!
To talk about chairs has become irrelevant, wo de pengyou.
We need chairs to watch TV and to enjoy a social life with fellow colleagues and friends. But there is no TV. We have no friends. Not one person contacted us over the past three days to be friendly. This is after I have actually asked that we be included in local life, to be included in the China we came so far to be a part of. Many promises were made to the effect that we were welcome as friends but no one has actually fulfilled any of those promises. So we have no need of the chairs while we have no TV and no friends. Perhaps we have become so ugly no one wants to be in our company.
Yet when I arrived I was considered to be a friendly and humourous man. When Qi Kalin arrived not even you had the courtesy of welcoming her as she sat in our office most of the morning, ignored until I walked into your office to remind you of her presence. Even then the introductions were cursory, without real warmth! Slowly has dawned the realisation that everything here is phony, unreal, pretentious.
It is over a week since my meeting with Wang Quan, yet his promises of greater cooperation have not materialised beyond the cursory.
Qi Kalin and walk the streets together and then return to our flat. Then we walk again and return. This goes on day after day. I sent you a message: I am bored to tears.
There is still no sound card in my computer, so I cannot download movies or listen to my music. The setup on Qi Kalin's computer is unworthy of sound as it is hopeless. We have to leave the flat often because the children above us drive their children's cars from one end of their flat to the other so that it sounds like we are under an airport with planes roaring above us. They are children and they are entitled to play in their own home; but it makes life hell for us.
It is almost two weeks since I gave you Qi Kalin's tickets for refund. You promised that by the time you returned from Wuhan the money would have been transferred. This was not true. I sent you another email and you admitted that you had not fulfilled that promise so you made another promise. It is now Tuesday in Australia and the transfer has not happened. It is since mid February that you promised that the refund would happen immediately [within two days] and this applied not only for my flight but for Qi Kalin's. On this basis my poor friend lent me money and now he has been waiting almost two months and despite your promises and in turn my promises to him, he is left without that refund.
You mention that we are the first to have new stuff. What you have grudgingly supplied is par for the course for so-called foreign experts; they are standard fare in just about all institutions in China. You tried to put us into a hovel. Then I stayed in the campus hotel for almost a month, with leaky bathroom and toilet, locked in until I had to awaken the staff to let me out in the morning. I lived out of my bags for that time because the cupboards were filthy.
Six weeks after my arrival we now have two computers, kitchen equipment, a nice big bare flat except for the study and the bedroom. We spend what time we have in the study and once the students' work has been examined and marked and lessons prepared we look at the computer until our eyes go nuts. There is nothing else to do except to walk.
We love to walk but this letter is about more than walking; it is about broken promises! It is about why we are here in the first place, why we left our lives in Australia to come here to try to teach students who do not want to learn, to join colleagues who do not welcome us as friends, to listen to empty words of promise, to wait patiently for promises to be fulfilled, to realise that we are among a vacuous lot of hapless persons who are not in positions to do anything without the imprimatur of a principal who cannot even say Ni hao to us in the corridor.
There are so many things that you personally have done for me and this I acknowledge readily. You are a friendly and warm person and we like you very much personally. We appreciate Liu Lifen's assistance and caring nature and she is quick to help us. Wang Kun is kind, considerate and efficient and is a decent colleague. Zhang Chao is a tireless worker and works far beyond what reasonably should be his purview and we appreciate him very much.
But I feel I have been brought here under false pretences in that I am simply here to fulfil a requirement that a native speaker teach NCC subjects. My academic skills are not being utilised as I stand in front of classes that without question are the most indolent in my many years of academic life. It is no secret that the college operates as a sub-academic venture [already four staff have confirmed this as fact]. Why am I, with eleven years of tertiary background and five years of recent teaching experience, a Master of Arts in English Literature, a published writer and specialist in my language, spending half my classroom time with a mundane subject such as Study Skills? This puerile rubbish is handled by study guides in most institutions!
To answer your question, wo de pengyou and boss [haha], yes, the sofa suite next to Wang Quan's office is most suitable if not just one sofa is chosen, for we still cling to hope that we will be hosting visitors and friends in our hopefully long stay with the college. Just to exchange the present sofa for another is insufficient; we need the full suite. We are in fact trying to make a home here. We are using the present sofa near the front door of our flat so that we change our shoes more easily when we constantly move in and out the door.
If the money has not been transferred by today, if there is no TV and somewhere comfortable to sit, if there is no sound card and reliable Internet, if I have to spend half my time with Study Skills, if we are not recognised for our senior status [we should be referred to as Lao Qi and Lao An by students and junior colleagues, as you mentioned some time ago], then we know we are in the wrong place.
It is time for all this tripe to come to an end and we be allowed to proceed academically for the benefit of the few students who actually care about their progress through college.
Have a nice day, Xu yan
An Derui
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