Just got paid

If there's one type of employer worse than a Chinese university (or a Chinese private college - they're the worst), it has to be a Chinese educational publisher.

I just managed to get paid for some editing work I did for a "distinguished" academic journal.

Yes, I just managed to get paid. Nearly six months after I did the work.  More than six weeks after the journal was published.

And they weren't going to pay me just yet. Oh no. They wouldn't tell me when they were going to pay. There was an 'internal process' of payment approval to be followed, and it was going to take an unspecified amount of time. It might have been another month, or two; it might have been more.

I basically had to fake my own death to get paid.

Ah, China.

At least they gave me a copy of the journal in question as an extra thank-you for my work (something to put in the coffin with me, as one of the proudest achievements of my life).

I find that they have removed a lot of the edits I made, reinstating gross, embarrassing, Chinglish errors.

I also find that every other article has been "edited" by someone who spent about a tenth of the amount of time that I did on the work, and basically did nothing.

And I find, on the title page, that the journal aspires to provide "a leading forum for academic debeta" in this field. Hmm. Probably doesn't succeed in that aim, I'd venture.

Ah, China.