I promised Bthun I would relate this story, which I'm surprised to discover I haven't posted before. It relates to my time as a professor of public speaking and English, at a college in Zhejiang province, China. This was several years ago, now.
I had gone to China with my wife, who was invited to take a resident-artist position with the China Academy of Art. It was a cultural exchange program; the first year she was to study speaking and writing Mandarin, and the second year she was to be an artist. In fact, we had to leave before the first year was out, due to the collapse of her health and the terrible quality of Chinese medicine. (Although, it turned out I was the one who had contracted tuberculosis -- and then killed it myself, before we got home, with no better medicine than unfiltered Chinese beer.)
In any event, shortly after we arrived I was contacted by the vice president of a local college, who had a job offer for me. I was not there on a working visa, and it would be illegal for me to take any such job -- but the man who had arranged the job was also the official in charge of approving my visa, so I didn't worry about it too much. We had a brief negotiation on rates of pay, and then I went to work.
About a month into the job, I still had not been paid. I asked my fellow professors (all Chinese nationals, except one lady from New Zealand) if this was usual. They assured me it was: this college, which was one of China's first private colleges, took tuition in at intervals. The college had to cover its capital expenses first, and so there was a period of time during which no one got paid. All back pay would be forthcoming, I was assured.
Two months in, still no pay. I asked around again, and began to hear that in fact, some of them had been paid. All of them, really.
So I went to the lady in charge of payment, and asked when I would be paid. "Maybe today!" she said cheerfully. Thus reassured, I went on about my business.
Well, it wasn't "today," nor the next week, and the week after that I went back and asked again. "There has been some trouble," she said, "but we are sure to pay you any day now."
Hm. By this point it was getting cold, and I had only summer clothes... and the building we lived in would not be heated during the winter, we were told, as the government had decided not to spend the money on heating it this year. Communism is wonderful.
So I went to the vice president and asked him about my money. I informed him that I'd been promised by the lady who paid people that I might be paid any day now, for several weeks, yet no money had appeared.
This, it turns out, was a major violation of Chinese etiquette on my part. I embarrassed her terribly by going to her superior with a complaint. The poor woman hated me forever after that. She was doing, she felt, nothing wrong. In China, it is considered polite and proper to lie, if the lie will make people feel more comfortable and happier. She was doing what she had been raised to believe was proper: helping me not worry about my pay, by assuring me it could come at any time. And I had repaid her kindness by humiliating her in front of her boss.
All that said, her lie wasn't exactly of the "white" variety. In fact, the truth was that there was no possibility it could have been "today," as the college had come to the realization that it couldn't legally pay me at all. The visa issue meant that, should they transfer funds to my accounts, they would be in trouble with the government.
The college did intend to pay me, my friend the vice president assured me, but it was having to launder the money out of petty cash transactions, and it might be some time until they had enough such laundered cash to pay me three months' backpay. Still, he would make certain that it was done.
Shortly thereafter, I was given a big fat envelope full of 100 yuan notes, complete with portraits of Chairman Mao. I was never happier to see the man. After that, the college paid me faithfully, always in cash, always discreetly.
I told you all that to tell you this story:
After we decided to go back to America to get treatment for my poor, increasingly sick wife, I contacted the college to let them know I was going to be leaving. I apologized for cutting out on them before the end of the year, and explained about my wife's illness and need to get her home.
The vice president said he understood, and wanted to meet me to give me the last of my pay. I said that would be fine, as I wished to make a donation to the school. I had accumulated a lot of English-language books from the big foreign-language bookstore in HangZhou, and didn't want to try to ship them home. I thought the college's library could use them, as I had examined it and their collection of English-language literature was very small.
So, I packed the books into a suitcase, and took them down to meet the vice president. He'd chosen to meet me at the front gate of the university where my wife was studying Mandarin. I walked down there one morning just at dawn, and waited for him to show up.
Chinese universities are a major point of cultural pride for the country, so they are given all the incidents of state power and authority. This includes a formal guard: Chinese Armed Police stand watch at the gates. I was standing there, under the eyes of about four of these gentlemen, who must have found me a fascinating sight: a big Western man, with a long forked beard (I hadn't shaved the entire time we were in China), and a giant cowboy hat. Also, a suitcase.
About this time, a black car pulls up and the vice president gets out. He starts speaking to me in English, which he can do quite fluently, having lived in America for several years. Our friends the Chinese armed police, however, don't speak it.
After a short chat in English, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a very fat envelope for me. I take it and thank him, and then pass over the suitcase.
It was about this time I suddenly realized what this must look like to the cops. I started making my apologies and goodbyes, so I could get out of there.
"No, no!" my friend replied. "You must count the money, to be sure it's all there. I want you to tell all your friends at home that you were paid faithfully, so they might come work for us!"
Well, what could I do?
I opened the envelope and counted through a fat stack of 100 yuan notes. It was probably two months pay for me, at the rate a Western professor can command; so it was doubtless a year's income for any of those cops. And I counted it out right in front of them.
Then I put it back in the envelope, shook his hand, and left. He picked up the suitcase, put it in the car, and drove away. I was just sure that, any second, I'd be grabbed up and hauled off -- but nobody tried.
That night I related the story to my best friend in China, an Australian gentleman from Freemantle. His face was so red with laughter by the end of it, I thought he might keel over dead on the spot.
Well, the police didn't hold me up, and a few days later we had a mighty spree in Shanghai. I didn't figure the yuan would be worth much outside of China, so we spent almost every scrap of it in the one night we were there before we flew out of PuDong.
One of the happiest moments of my life was feeling the wheels of that 747 break free of Chinese soil. It was a grand adventure, but Communism is not for me.
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