The result is typically months of petty wrangling and personal financial loss combined with extreme frustration. Is this down to my being born under an unlucky star? I don’t think so. In fact I am certain there are past and present China-based readers of this blog who can relate precisely to such sorry sagas. 

Let me cite just the latest example. A magazine for which I used to write had the rug pulled out from underneath it by a certain state body which would give only its surname as Council. The magazine’s entire local staff got fired (does “laid-off” still apply as a harmonious euphemism here?), and the mostly laowai contributors got fobbed off as to when they might get paid for their published work. 

Months of phone calls, emails and IM conversations ensued – with the receiver of each systematically shirking responsibility for the mess, and passing the issue onto other oft-incommunicado souls. Then I had the correspondence below delivered to my inbox the other day. Since, unlike my associates, I have a speck of decency floating around my body somewhere, I have X-ed out the names, organizations and phone numbers mentioned in this “letter”. 

As you know, we do not take charge of XXX’s editing & operating any more, since the discussing about the solution is still on the process between us and XXX’s legal publisher—XXX, and actually the XXX issue was not openly published, the related payments should be paid after an agreement about the previews cooperation accepted by both sides. So we beg you have some comprehension and patience according to this situation. If you have any question, you may also contact XXX, present head of periodical Dept. XXX, with XXX or XXX. 

What a beautifully constructed ring-around. Please pay particular attention to the line that states “the XXX issue was not openly published.” That gem, within the context of previous experience, all but reduced to ashes any faint hope that I had held of receiving payment. Never mind that I have a copy of the published magazine on my bookshelf. This is my associate’s excuse nicely planted if/when s/he has to write to tell me that my cause is lost. Assuming, of course, that s/he bothers to do so. That well-worn tactic motivated me to write this post. 

Some readers will doubtless say that my frustration is misplaced. If this were the first time I had experienced doing business with Chinese characteristics, or even the hundredth, they might be right. But, as implied in the beginning of the post, I have become sick to death of having to deal with an endless stream of attempted cons, lame excuses, buck-passing and, most insultingly, bare-faced lying. 

One of two things is going on with situations like these. Either almost every one of the systems that laowai (and more often, locals) have to engage in this country is inherently inefficient, backward-oriented or corrupted, or we laowai are the butt of a very broad joke. 

If this latest situation is not resolved in my favor, and soon, then some people are going to be on the receiving end of some pretty scathing phone calls/emails/visits. Considering the effort I put into the work submitted, and the significant sum that is due, such action would amount to small compensation. But it would sure beat doing nothing.