WAR

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I have, in one way or another, informed my readers about my increasingly decrepit apartment. Although it became increasingly frustrating to have to deal with an exploding A/C unit, a moveable washing machine, a leaky toilet, and defunct kitchen/bathroom circuitry that forced me to choke on smoke and shower in the dark (to name just a few) I was able to find ways around them, especially as I was promised a new apartment before the last day in September.

It is now October. Am I in a new apartment?

No, I am in a hotel.

Like I said, I became increasingly frustrated with my apartment--problems were reported and either "fixed" or ignored entirely. I put up with it. But there was one thing I could not--under any circumstances--possibly--accept or tolerate:

They severed my water supply.

The first day, I assumed (not at all unreasonably) that the water had been shut off due to construction. When I discovered that it still didn't work by the next morning, I was troubled, but went to work for nine hours anyway. I mentioned it to my boss. Upon my return, the water was STILL shut off, and I was sorely upset. After a long day handling germy kids and dry erase markers, I had to go to the supermarket and buy jugs of water just to wash my hands. The next morning (today!) the taps still did not work. Forty hours after the problem was first noticed, I went to work and demanded to get to the bottom of this.

I have not been charged for my utilities the whole time I've been here. I assumed, perhaps foolishly, that there was a good reason for it--perhaps since the landlord sees fit to store all his junk in my living room, the school was cut a deal.

No.

Fact is, my wonderful Foreign Affairs Officer was not paying the bills. Although the cost would be taken out of my paycheck, he apparently couldn't be bothered.

That's right, they shut down my water and I sat in filth for two days, unable to wash my dishes, shower, flush the toilet, or simply cook a meal, due to one man's inability to pay the bills.

The school did not reveal this secret very easily. I came to suspect it within the first few hours, and one of my colleagues asked the folks downstairs if their water supply was all right. Yes, they said, they had water. I witnessed this myself; yet they twisted it around to tell me--to my face--that the water supply had been shut off because the folks downstairs were hogging it.

And that was when I hit the roof.

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The school has 24 hours to solve the problem. Half of these hours are now up; and we fought tooth and nail just for a place to stay tonight. The school was most unwilling to front 500 rmb for a hotel room despite the monthy income of hundreds of thousands of kuai. Imagine that! The only people I have to depend on in this entire nation of 1.3 billion, and they can't even give me a reasonable place to stay!!

After being blatantly lied to, having gotten in trouble by the very people who were supposed to protect me, and having to fight just for a viable home to live in, I consider myself to be in a state of war. And War is Hell.

Hold on tight. It's going to be a very tumultuous last month in China.

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Photos

Everything I Own
God. I must look like a refugee.