CUHK administration

With exams over and study-trips / travels looming in the horizon, this week is actually my last one in Hong Kong - at least this time around. That calls for beaches, swimming, non-factional reading and general exam-recovery, but instead I have been forced to deal with annoying bureaucracy from the school administration. Here are a few examples:

First of all, the library. I have borrowed 3 books from the library over the past 5 months, and since mid-April my account has been empty. In Denmark, if you have taken care of that yourself, nothing happens; potential bills get sent to you with costly interest rates. Here, however, it seems imperative that I print out a form stating that I will not borrow any more books and settle my outstanding debts, fill it out, sign it, and hand it in to the main library on the other side of campus. Failure to do this will result in me not receiving my transcript.

Second, my economist didn't arrive this week. Since it has, without exception, arrived latest every Monday, I was slightly irritated that it wasn't there Wednesday. Normally the mail gets distributed to students' pigeon holes, but since it wasn't in mine, I inquired at the front desk if there might be a place where the mail gets delivered before it is sorted, and if my magazine might be lying there. The guys raised his hand, waved it at me, and said that when mail comes they put it in the pigeon holes. I nodded, and proceeded to repeat my story, but he cut me off and, vigorously waving his hand, stated that when mail comes it gets put in the pigeon holes (as if it is some infallible law of nature). I tried to hint that there could be human error involved, but he kept repeating his sentence and flailing his hand at me, so I frustratedly gave up and walked out - without said economist.

This behaviour is not uncommon - most of the time the employees just blurt out memorized phrases which adhere to the rules. My friend left his umbrella in the cantine, and as he left they were closing. He remembered 2 minutes after leaving, so headed back, only to discover that they had locked the front door. He then waved to the man inside, and started saying: "I left my umbrella in the cantine...", upon which the man waved his hand at him and said "Cantine closed!". My friend tried to explain, pointing and gesturing, but the man simply waved his hand and, muttering "closed", wandered of into the kitchen.

In a society where so much is centralized, it makes sense to have employees do what they are told. It is in no way their fault; the administration which makes the rules is to blame. Unfortunately, this entity appears non-existent, and therefore there is nothing else to do but accept these annoyances.

The worst one by far (including the toilet paper incident) is when my room mate accidentally locked me out. I was on the balcony, so he locked the door when my keys were on my desk. Upon realization, I skip down to the office two floors below and ask them if they could open up for me. To my horror I have to display my ID card (naturally on my desk, which incurs a lot of annoyance and frowns from the 4 ladies basking idly in the air-conditioned room) and fill out two (!) forms; a log book of some kind, as well as a letter of payment - it turns out I have to pay 5 HKD for their services.