ABSTRACT
One day my phone service suddenly went out. Anyone who’s experienced this at the hands, of, say, Verizon, knows what a hassle that can be. Try it in China. At least Verizon had a Customer Service Department. CNC did not. Why should they? By definition, there was never a problem, and if there was, it was the customer’s own fault. I called the university office on my cell phone to complain. At least that usually worked, because it wasn’t politically expedient for Foreign Experts to be registering complaints. Grace, the secretary, called Mr. Wei (not his real name) who was in charge of building services and also buildings, including our residential building, which, especially looking back after the collapse of all those schools in Szechuan, was hardly reassuring. He was also in charge of collecting the phone bills. Mr. Wei dialed my number, and it rang and rang in the emptiness of nowhere to be found. He then demanded that Grace ask me via cell phone why I wasn’t answering my home phone, if I was at home, which I was.
