Chinese people LOVE me! (19)

"Chinese people love me because...... I get things done."

The lawyer friend I talked to yesterday about my troubles with the building site next door was largely unhelpful: at every turn, she was pessimistic, passive, resigned to the hopelessness of the situation. She would keep telling me (an all too common Chinese phrase, which I have come to hate) that there was "nothing to be done".

The law, she told me, was unclear, and could be easily circumvented anyway. It was difficult even to determine who the "relevant authorities" for dealing with such matters were, and impossible to identify and contact any particular individual who might take responsibility for them. It would be impossible to get any information from a government department about something like this (for example, had my protest call the previous evening been logged by anyone? what action had subsequently been taken? which building company is running the site, and what are they building? do they have a permit for after-hours work? how long is the project scheduled to take?). It would be impossible to get anyone to take any preventive action. The best that I could hope for would be some reactive relief: I could complain again each night if building work continued beyond the statutory 10pm curfew (I did at least get this much useful information from her: building sites are required to close down between 10pm and 6am - unless they obtain a special permit for 24-hour working!), but there was no way that anyone would preemptively send chengguan (a kind of secondary police force who deal with matters that are deemed 'regulatory' rather than 'criminal') to the site to make sure they were closing down on time. "Lots of people in Beijing have this problem," she told me. "It happens all the time. And it's very difficult to get anyone to take action. There's really nothing to be done."

I can't stand this sort of defeatism in the Chinese - and I try to 'educate' them out of it any chance I get. My own attitude is the polar opposite of this: I always believe that there is a way to solve any problem, if you are determined enough to find it. I keep on asking questions until someone gives me answers. I keep on chivvying people to do something until something gets done.

The other night, I complained and complained and complained about that wretched building site..... and now it has been closed down. Completely. I am assuming that the building company was discovered to have been operating without any sort of permit at all. The heavy plant is all still there, and there are three or four prefab dormitories full of workers - so this is only likely to be a temporary respite. But we must enjoy it while we may.

The whole neighbourhood is uncannily quiet today. I imagine that everyone is catching up on the sleep they didn't get over the past two weeks.

But tomorrow, when they've all recovered a bit, I'm sure they're going to be queueing up in the street to shake my hand and thank me. I hear the community committee may even be organising a small parade in my honour, with bunting and tickertape and, of course, firecrackers. I probably won't have to buy my own dinner for the rest of the year. I am become a local hero to thousands of my sleep-deprived Chinese neighbours who thought nothing could be done.

Then again, perhaps I should try to keep a low profile for a while. If that building company finds out who I am, I could get dumped in the canal with concrete shoes.