Bureaucracy

So, today I met up with the Civil Affairs People here - Chinese bureaucracy is a mess! First, they said I could do it, then we talked to someone else and they said I couldn't do it, then I talked to someone else and they said I could go do it. Strange. I"m still not certain if I have official permission, but I probably ended up talking to about half of the county government people here. The actual lady who handles rural governance stuff in the ministry of civil affairs here took me to all these different places, and was actually a jerk. She was continually rude to me and was like "You foreigner, you don't understand how to go through the correct procedures." When I asked her what the correct procedures were she said "I needed permission from a higher level of government." When I asked her what higher level of government she simply said "youguan bumen" - meaning the "relevant department". Then I asked her what was the "relevant department" - and if it was the Provincial Ministry of Civil Affairs (which the Jiangxi Academy of Social Sciences had contacted on my behalf and confirmed that my project was "ok"), she dodged the question saying it had to be the department that takes care of these things. However, we talked to the assistant county leader guy, and he said it was ok, and sent me to talk to some people that would supposedly accompany me in the countryside - however this lady was a supreme jerk and she very clearly did NOT want me to be in Zixi at all. She kept saying things like "why do you want to be in Zixi? - you should go over to Nanchang." When I asked her why I should go to Nanchang instead of Zixi she said that Nanchang would be "more convenient" - I'm thinking "how would it be more convenient for me to take a train for 4 hours to go somewhere else when I am already here?" She even suggested I try other places like Yingtan - anywhere but Zixi! Anyways, she absolutely refused to help me, saying that she wouldn't give me any assistance at all and that I shouldn't be doing this research. She was a real jerk - at this point, I was exceptionally confused at all that was going on, and I had no idea what stage I was at - the Ministry of Civil Affairs boss had approved my project, as had the assistant county leader (pretty high position), but the lower people very clearly did not want me to do it, and the person who was going to set it all up for me had let me know in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to do this project. Very weird. Finally, I was talking to a guy who was much nicer and seemed to take my side. I was sat down in a room while he discussed it with the jerk lady. Finally he came in and said that I could go on my own to whatever villages I wanted, and if anyone gave me trouble to call him. Ok...... So I think I have approval. I then went back to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and asked if they had a list of all the villages so I could randomly choose two - she was quite irritated with me at this point, and said that she would not help me at all, not even to provide me with a list of the villages in the county! What a jerk - when I told her that the guy had said it was ok for me to go on my own she said that she didn't think I really had approval for the project because nobody had called her, and that while I could go on my own, she was not going to give me any assistance! What a jerk!

In any case, tomorrow I am going to start by going to the rebellious village that I saw yesterday. I would like to talk to them about their organization - what exactly the situation is in their village and get a sense for what is going on. It should be fun!!!!!