A Rocky End

I am properly annoyed, again. Yantai chose this past week to rain every single day (after three months with only two sprinkles). I bet it rocks for the farmers, but if you’re trying to dry out wet clothes so you can pack them . . . it doesn't rock quite so much. However, the rain is only the smallest part of my aggravation.

I managed to get my tickets and bookings all sorted on Sunday, and a good thing too, since Monday morning the Internet was disconnected without warning. I was about to call Dad back on Skype when the power went out. I opened my door and, to my dismay, it’d been flipped off to remove the modems and pertinent wires. I received no warning of this, thus it put me an uncommonly bad mood, since I still very much wanted to check my email and keep up to date with various arrangements (not to mention entertain myself for the remaining three days of my stay). Mostly though I felt slighted, as the only person the decision actually affected, to be cut out of the picture.

I called Daniel and, peculiarly enough, he was not aware of the situation, apparently he didn’t request it to be done. He said he’d drop by the next day (today) to chat, return my passport, and probably go out for coffee or something so I could check my emails (there are many Internet cafés here). That was to be about twelve.

Yet, I returned from the shower this morning and found the electrician awaiting me in my room. I didn’t have a clue what he was saying, except that it concerned my computer, so I went over, checked it, and beheld a wireless signal! I thanked him so he’d leave and set about getting dressed. Unfortunately, however, whatever the electrician did had no effect on the connectivity. I’m detecting and joining a network . . . but none of my applications are able to connect. I hadn’t a clue what was wrong, but figured it wouldn’t be a big deal, I’d simply talk to Daniel when he came at lunch.

But lunchtime came and went with no sign of Daniel. I felt a sneaking suspicion that he’d taken the electrician’s visit as absolving him of our previous conversation. So I sent a message informing him that it still wasn’t fixed. I don’t like being insistent, but this is a pressing issue for me so I also called once (two hours later) and again before contacting him and inquiring as to whether he was still coming or not. Apparently he hadn’t planned to. Somehow it didn’t occur to him he should let me know. I was pretty riled up at this point (he also said he would stop by on Friday, Sunday, or Monday, but never did), but he says he’s coming round this afternoon. Although, he said that at three, and it’s five now. If he fails to show up again I may well post this online, despite the unflattering content. If you say you’re going to do something . . . do it! And, if you’re not going to, have the decency to warn people! It’s not rocket science. This on top of changing the move-out-by-date from the thirty-first to the twelfth . . . on the first.

On a positive note, I found a home for the cat with Daniels mother in law. It was rather weird. She came by the camp yesterday and I, thinking she would be the perfect person to ask about cat homes (as an older woman with countless acquaintances in the city), called Jimmy to have him ask her. What followed could be a small scene in a comedy. DMIL didn’t want to use the phone, because it hurts her ears apparently, so I told Jimmy what I wanted to ask, DMIL gave the phone to the guard (whose Chinese is unintelligible even to most other Chinese, he’s nice man but a chronic mumbler).

Shortly the phone returned to me, and I was informed she had no ideas at all for the cat: that it was completely hopeless. I raged, in the safety of a non-mutual language, to Jimmy about how ridiculous that was, since I was standing there the whole time and DMIL obviously made no attempt whatsoever to ask around (a quality shared by every single person I’ve approached on the subject, except James the chemistry major). Jimmy started to explain to me, “hey, I mean this is China” (which means you don’t value cats?), but DMIL, probably in response to my unconcealed frustration/disgust motioned for the phone back. They spoke for about ten seconds, and all of a sudden she was happy to take the kitten.

This was such an about face, I have no idea what happened. My guess is there was something wrong with the Me-Jimmy-Guard-DMIL telephone-game (probably the guard). Either that or she wanted me happy badly enough to pick up a cat. Frankly I don’t care, at least she has a place to live.



Continued on Wednesday:

Not only did Daniel fail to show up yesterday, again, but he also failed to call me about it, again, and this morning he sent the electrician, again, without calling. So, I leave tomorrow, but haven’t been able to check my arrangements in two and a half days, and I still don’t have my passport in hand. Lets put it this way: my good will is spent.

Throwing politeness to the wind, I peppered Daniel with calls in the afternoon, sending along a stern text for good measure. About forty minutes after the text Daniel’s mother in law showed up again and assured me she would go get it poste-haste. While I’m well pleased with this, it also means that Daniel has been choosing to ignore all my calls, either that or DMIL bloomed into a telepath during the lunch hour.

Intertwined with all this has been Master Zheng inviting me to come practice at his school (I gather there’s another master visiting, whom he regards as worth something), but I can’t very well accept; the passport takes priority. The master thinks I should come practice, and then stop by Ali-Baba’s later to get my passport, but that’s ill-conceived. Given the number of missed agreements I have no wish to complicate things further. I’ve said I’ll call back once I have it in hand, and perhaps there will still be time. There’s really no excuse for all this, it’s not as if Daniel’s been prizing my passport away from the officials to get it back to me, he’s had the thing for weeks now. I know he must have a lot going on what with the school closing and his return from Sweden (he was there recently on business), but I presume he’s found the time to eat meals, in which case he should also have been able to find the time to come to the camp, eat here, or not all for that matter, and fulfill his obligations.

In the end the electrician came by with my passport, but I still received no contact from Daniel whatsoever that day, night, or the following morning. This behavior has been far removed from the amiable character I presumed him to possess . . . but it has been persistent, and I will not forget.

It's poor quality, but I took a short cat video before she left, goodness knows there're are already enough cat videos online, but oh well.