Information Gap
One weekend morning, you're awoken from pleasant dreams by a knocking on your door. You glance at the clock as you put on your dressing gown and see it's 7.15am. You open the door and find an out-of-breath messenger who asks you why you aren't ready. Ready for what, you ask.
Ready for whatever it is nobody told you about. It could be a school trip. A special demonstration lesson for provincial education officials. Filming of a new TV advert for the school. Your own funeral. Something that cannot possible go ahead without you. Something you've never heard of. Something lots of people are waiting for. Something that should have started 15 minutes ago, but hasn't because you were still in bed.
You're in the office one afternoon studying Chinese. One of the class tutors comes in looking annoyed and asks one of the English teacher's something. The English teacher tells you you have a class now, you should be teaching. You point to the blank space on your timetable. The timetable changed, you are told. When? On Monday. Today? Thursday. Come on, pick up your books, they're waiting for you.
One of your friendlier colleagues catches up with you in the corridor and tells you the head of the English department isn't very happy with you? Why not? All your students failed the mid-term exam. They say you didn't tell them about the set text. What exam? What set text?
We're used to living in an information rich society. Want to know how much a Prime Minister earns? How much the army spent on shoelaces last year? Address of your high-school sweetheart? It's probably all out there, waiting for a Google search, a flick through a government report, a look through a phone directory.
China doesn't work like that. Information is distributed on a need-to-know basis, and sometimes on a needed-to-know-yesterday basis. You are used to people needing a reason to withhold information. Now, you need to have a reason why you should be told.
It still amazes me that information which is obviously important to someone doesn't reach them. I think it's mainly an issue of responsibility - everyone assumes someone else will let the foreigner know - especially if its something you might object to, like getting up at 7am at the weekend, or something that will involve long explanations in English.
Accept it at the time - there's no point throwing a tantrum. If it happens repeatedly you could calmly explain that you have other arrangements, and you will be happy to help out later. What I recommend you don't do is jump up and down in front of a class of amused 8 year olds explaining with dodgy Chinese and ineffective sign language that contrary to apparently popular belief, foreigners are not psychic. Not that I ever did that.