Merry Christmas !!

My computer network has changed in my apartment and as a result I now spend less time on this machine and more time on "Bertha", my beloved media centre. It is a very poor excuse for not having updated the blog in six months and I have let it lapse to the extent that I am now receiving e-mails and letters enquiring about my health and/or continued existence here in China. So, to all concerned, and those who have just forgotten to blacklist me yet, I'm still alive – Merry Christmas!

Life here is much the same, which I could engineer into another feeble excuse for not keeping in touch as there is no news to tell, but I won't... on this occasion. There's a new girl in tow, who I met during the Chinese National Day holiday, but she lives about nine hours away. She has already made the journey to see me four times and I am planning to head over to Henan province to see her for Chinese New Year. She is young, intelligent and gorgeous (just like me) and perhaps after the Chinese New Year trip there will be something of more interest to blog about.

Best wishes to all for a very merry festive season. I am picturing some of the proper English turkey roasts that you will be enjoying and hope that they will be as mouthwatering to your taste buds as they are in my mind.

Just a short one today and if I made New Year resolutions, mine would be to update the blog more regularly... but I don't. So, I will speak to you on the blog the next time that I feel guilty or, for the technically capable among you, the next time that I catch you on Skype (ben_lefroy).

Best wishes to you, all and one.

Poor excuse for a blogger...

It appears that my last blog update was on the 6th of May and so I have been rather neglectful in my communication duties towards family and friends – for this I apologise profusely, although the reality is that there really isn't anything to tell.

The weather is starting to pick up for the summer and I have already managed to have one beach outing with my students. Sandcastles and ice-creams by the sea is a far superior option to book exercises, sat in the classroom, but it does involve some serious homework marking at a later date, as the aforementioned students are all tasked with writing about any out-of-class activities post-excursion.

I do not keep a very close eye on news from the West because it no longer affects me greatly, and most of the time it consists of people whining about one thing or another, but at last glance it seems that the UK is planning to go on strike.

Why is it that people who work for state institutions expect to automatically be paid for years and years after they cease doing any work? The argument appears to be over pensions and the requirement for people who have not made any personal arrangements for their retirement to put in a little bit of extra effort before reaping the rewards offered by the state.

Given that the UK is still struggling to escape the huge financial burden gifted to it by so many consequetive months of 'financial growth' since Blair, Brown et al. I do not think that it is unreasonable for the government to expect a little help from those who benefit the most from the freebies long after they have hung up their plimsolls and mortar boards.

For those who are not happy with the situation back home (and I still consider it to be my home) I recommend a move overseas. Whilst we happily criticise communist regimes and the corruption in foreign countries, there is a lot to commend much of the thinking behind the red flags.

Citizens here in China love their government, despite the censorship and the poor human rights history. The love is not universal but it far outweighs the feeling towards the powers that be in the UK. And long may it continue.

If the strikers understood that the government is trying to correct the debt issues and the financial problems that the country faces, then perhaps they would not be behaving like spoilt children with too many teddies to throw. And maybe their time on strike would be better spent addressing their own plans for pension income once they cease to contribute anything worthwhile to society (assuming they are doing anything worthwhile at present), rather than just creating a further burden to a troubled country.

But this is just a blog, read by family and friends, and not the place for political whining. So, forgive me my rant, many thanks to those of you who have contributed so generously to my student stamp collection campaign and I will try not to leave the next update for so long.

Six months...

It really has been six months since my last blog entry – although with two or three months of time spent researching Chinese hospitals, Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year and my own birthday having been squeezed into those months it doesn't seem like half a year at all.

The bitterly cold weather looks to be easing up a little and Rizhao has enjoyed some relatively mild days of late. The heavy snow which affected large parts of China this winter only paid a flying visit to the coastal area of Shandong and it is unlikely to return as we head into March, April and beyond.

My employer has asked me to extend my contract, by two months to September 2011, for reasons unknown to me. I am more than happy to do so but I was already planning to sign a new contract from July for a further 12 months. One can only assume that he wants his staff requirement for the summer courses covered well in advance but it does generate an unnecessary amount of paperwork regarding visa, flight allowance, pay increase etc. Upon reflection, it does mean that any future six- or 12-month contracts that I sign after that date will always come to an end on the other side of the very busy winter and summer courses – ie. he will not be left in the lurch, at least not by me. Perhaps it's not such a ridiculous idea after all.

I have been looking everywhere for a way to get a prepaid Visa or Mastercard here in China. I thought that I had found a way around the problem via Western Union's prepaid card but it turns out that you cannot simply add funds at any Western Union branch anywhere in the world, which I am sure would not be difficult for them to implement into a straightforward, risk-free product. No, it is designed for UK residents and can be magically topped up in numerous places all over the UK, but in China it is just a pretty piece of plastic.

China does have a card processing network, called Unionpay, and has been slowly building global relationships to enable the use of these cards overseas and online. Unionpay is supposedly supported by PayPal, but I ditched PayPal over a year ago because of its failure to comprehend such an animal as an expat, trying to use an account in a foreign country, and requesting verification for every purchase it thought might be fraudulent. I attempted setting up a China PayPal account a couple of days ago but when I tried to process a Unionpay payment it just failed. I will notify the world of any developments.

If you Google the subject of credit cards for expats in China, you will notice that there are more than a few potential customers for a prepaid card. In fact, one was launched by Bank of China during the Olympic Games, in Beijing, to ease the financial transaction difficulties for foreigners trying to survive in the clutches of the nation's restrictions. And as soon as the games finished, the card was buried, putting a stop to all those RMB escaping in the direction of a non state-controlled entity.

I fear that banking restrictions are here to stay for a few more years on the development ladder before they are removed in favour of competition, convenience and choice.

Still, I have found a proxy which enables me to use Blogger without the need for a credit card, for the time being (Blogger being one of the many government-censored sites), and will try not to leave it quite so long until the next update.

Warmest of regards and thanks for the continued letters, cards, e-mails, messages, tweets etc.

Still none the wiser...

Well, the passport came back safely... minus a Chinese visa.

So, let's look at the facts:

• the Embassy in Hong Kong was to issue me with a new passport;

• it required my old passport (complete with a Chinese visa) in order to do so;

• it would cut the corners from the old passport, rendering it useless, as part of the process;

• it would be returning the new passport to a UK citizen, resident in China (a country where a visa is a legal requirement);

• the passport was issued minus said visa; and

• consequently, I have been an illegal immigrant now for over a month.

Why would anyone, even a civil servant, do something as banally stupid as that?

What possible reason could someone have for thinking that the passport did not require a visa? No, I can't think of one either.

Anyway, the result was a two-hour session at the PSB, involving a lot of questions, a photography session, several signatures (which you have to validate with a red-inked fingerprint across the top) on documents that I couldn't read, the exchange of a rather expensive-looking, unmarked, brown envelope and lots of 'aren't I a foolish foreigner' smiles to the lady at the desk. The result? I still don't have a passport with a visa.

I am scheduled to meet with the boss to sign a new contract at 3:00pm, when I will politely notify him that I am not going to sign anything until he can present me with my passport, complete with visa, and that I am 100% legal again.

The staff do not seem to realise that this is something of importance to a foreign national and wonder why I become frustrated with their lack of action if I ask them to do anything constructive about tracking the progress. At present I cannot book a hotel room, internal flight or do anything which requires proof of identification and confirms my legal status as a resident in China. It is not a situation that I wish to be in any longer and, hopefully, this afternoon's little tête-à-tête will higlight the importance of the issue.

Talking of the meeting, it is 2:30pm and I should head up to the school. I must get around to uploading some photographs soon. Every time that I decide to post an update it seems that it is rather time-limited but I have some interesting shots which, at around 1,000 words apiece, can tell you far more than I ever could in the time that I allow myself for blogging.

P.S. Weather's lovely !!

Still here, but for how long...

The school kept its status as an EF franchise, I renewed my contract for another year, you can't get a passport from the British Embassy, summer is here and I have sunburn.

Well, we had the visit from EF Shanghai and all went well. The new school is in transition phase at the moment which is, erm... interesting. But I am sure that we will iron out most of the wrinkles in due course.

I went to Beijing last month to renew my passport. My original intention was to go to Shanghai but, when I checked the British Embassy website a month previously, it informed me that Shangai stopped doing passports in February 2010 and I had to go to Beijing. Upon my arrival at the Embassy in Beijing, I was informed that they, too, have stopped issuing passports and I should go to Hong Kong. Marvellous.

Needless to say that I had neither the necessary time, nor holiday funds, to just jump on a plane and stay in Hong Kong for a couple of nights, so I have entrusted my passport to a Chinese courier company. I requested DHL but the school chose an alternative company which is "like DHL, only local".

The courier company in question is based in Rizhao. It took them four phone calls and a two-hour delay to locate the school, which is in the same city, which started the alarm bells ringing. I filled in the form in front of the two scruffy-looking representatives, to make sure that there were no errors or omissions, and one of the school's staff filled in the Chinese sections for me. They checked it over and off they went, leaving me with a wrinkled receipt informing me of my tracking number.

Two days later I received a call from the school informing me that my package could not be delivered "because I had not written down a telephone number for the recipient". Ok, breathe, Benny, breathe... calm down.

So, just which phone number would they like me to give them for the British Embassy, 1 Supreme Court Road, Hong Kong? The main switchboard, perhaps: "Dial '1' to be put on hold... Dial '2'... " etc.? Maybe they want the personal mobile number of whoever will be processing my application? What, exactly, do they expect me to put in as a phone number? But, and more importantly, why didn't Scruffy and Scruffier ask for that information in the first place and, furthermore, why does a courier company think its delivery driver will need to put in a phone call to find the BRITISH F***ING EMBASSY?!! Ok, breathe, Benny, breathe... calm down.

Anyway, it is all now in the lap of the Gods and if I get deported you can rest assured that you will read all about it here. If, on the other hand, I end up in a Chinese prison, you may find that blog updates become a little less frequent. Unless, of course, whilst behind bars, they provide me with a computer with internet access and don't mind me using proxy servers to bypass the Great Firewall of China...

Sun, sea, sand and... school

I am rapidly approaching the two-year mark here in China and I have just met my first representative from the parent company which promises so much on its website. And it looks as though we are actually going to receive some training this week. It is a little overdue, but welcome all the same.

The reasons why the powers that be have suddenly seen fit to take an interest are twofold – we are moving to new premises (same building, more stairs to climb) and the school has hit its five-year review. The purpose of the visit is to ascertain whether or not it will continue as an EF franchise or if we will be working as an independent school from now on. I am sincerely hoping for the former.

The new school brings with it reams of new technology and we will be working from "smart classrooms". This basically means a complete U-turn from the style of teaching to which I have become accustomed and the need to adapt to the new system. Those of you who know me will be aware that I am a self-confessed geek but I am still dubious about the use of IT in certain situations. A young learners environment is one of those situations.

Most of my classroom activities involve lively games, where the children are given the opportunity to run around and have fun, whilst learning at the same time. This form of teaching works well with young children, especially given that our private lessons are done outside of school hours, where most of the students would rather be playing computer games or watching TV.

The training for the new premises will take place over the next two days and my decision on whether or not to renew my contract, which ends on June 30, rests in the balance.

Watch this webspace...

If it ain't broke, fix it anyway

If this isn't already a rule in the IT manager's handbook, it definitely should be:

"If you have systems functioning correctly,
you can rely on a third party to screw things up."

Ever since I had my first computer at the age of seven I have been in the grasp of the evil forces of those who make our lives easier under the guise of IT. Whether it has been Microsoft or Apple deciding that working operating systems need updating (along with every piece of software that you own which will no longer function), hardware providers deciding not to support certain parts of their product range that they now consider obsolete or, as is the case more regularly in the post-internet era, third-party online service providers.

Now, I know that IT is a fast-paced industry and that I should be grateful I am able to navigate my way around the field of roaming mines, unaided by a roaming-minefield guide, and without losing any virtual limbs but, as I am now a mere home user, I find the time spent addressing such issues a real irritant.

The irritant of late has been the Great Firewall of China (GFC) mine, which respawns again each time that it blows up an unsuspecting website or proxy service, so that it can continue its killing spree ad infinitum. Of course this only applies inside China but it affects me and those around me.

Today's nuisance mine, however, is one that I thought to be quite slow moving and unlikely to cause me any problems once I was able to get past GFC: my beloved Blogger.com.

I received an e-mail this morning which read:

You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your
blogs at Blogger.com are set up to publish via FTP. Earlier this
year we announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on
Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and that deadline of
May 1st is quickly approaching. This is the second and final
email reminder to migrate your FTP blog from your current
URL to a Blogger-managed URL (either a Custom Domain
or a Blogspot URL).

For more information on the deprecation of FTP, as well as
a handful of helpful resources which will help walk you through
the migration process, please take a look at our dedicated migration
blog: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for using Blogger.

Oh, joy of joys! I get to spend my morning changing things that have worked perfectly for as long as I can remember, with the uncertaintly that accompanies the process, not knowing if they will ever really function quite the same again. What have I done to deserve such excitement on an otherwise enjoyable day?

So, for three years I have been able to publish the blog quite happily using FTP, but now I must change my settings to publish to a Blogspot URL or a custom domain. Why? It all works fine and it is just a piece of script. What are they changing behind the scenes which means that the capability to publish via FTP is being abandoned?

Even as I write this I do not know if it will publish correctly or if I am going to have to manually create today's blog post using HTML. I sincerely hope that I do not as I would be faced with going through the same process for every update from now on. I do not want a Blogspot URL. I do have a custom domain but I don't really want to use it. I want to keep on publishing via FTP, the same as I have always done, because it works.

Anyway, I am now going to set up a new address with Blogger. My domains and webspace will end up as nothing more than expensive redirects as I do not have the time or energy to chase down my ISP from China to change all of the DNS entries and besides I may want to use the sites for something other than a blog one day. I will endeavour to update all redirects from other sites and any links that people may have as soon as possible and my apologies for any inconvenience caused by today's mine.

Time for lunch and a beer...