♥ xixi ze violinist ♥: Black & White.

Hey people! How was your day?

Mine was...... bad but interesting. :) LOL.

Will tell you guys about it. Read on. :)

I considered myself a very mild person, which means I am not easily offended. Usually when something bad happened, or when I meet someone awfully mean, all I need is to switch my thinking mode and the anger will vanish.

For example, if a woman is yelling vulgar words at me because I didn't buy her stuff after asking for the price. (That happens quite often in China just in case you don't know) I'll try to think that she's having a bad day or maybe she's really unhappy with her current life she needs to vent her anger somewhere. Then I'll not be angry with her anymore.

Some of my friends say I seem like I'm happy all the time. They can never imagine me being angry, because even if I'm angry sometimes, I just tell them animatedly about the matter and they would laughed because when I told them "I'M SO ANGRY YOU KNOW!" my expression was more like exasperated rather than being angry. LOL. Can't help myself, I just can't hold grudges for long. I'll forget the bad feelings right after I wake up the next morning.

I guess being forgetful is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing is of course good for myself because I get to be happy easily. Bad thing is people tends to take you for granted because no matter how bad they treat you, they know you won't stay angry with them for long. That's exactly like that for me.

There was this senior that is super duper horrible. She is the one giving us all the gigs. There's a price for the gigs depends on how long we play and how far is the place. It's just like a set market price, but this senior, this horrible person, she can actually unshamefully cheat us for so many times! For example last time, she just called me and said, "There's a gig for 1 hour, it's RMB XXX, can you go?" That was the normal price for gigs in city area, so I asked where is that place and she said, "Er... Jia Ding." I didn't know where that place is, I thought it's some kind of hotel's name, so I said okay.

And a day before that gig, she texted me the address and I searched it up online and I was SHOCKED. Damn! it's like 1 hour and a half away from the city okay?!?!! It's almost at the border of Shanghai province already!!!!!!! Wth?! But I couldn't find anyone to replace me already because 1st, nobody will be willing to go so far for this little money. So you can say I'm just trying to be responsible, and I went. Carrying so many heavy stuff and took the metro like almost 20 stations, interchanges the metro for 3 times summore.

When I got there, it's actually a VERY GRAND opening of some fashion brand. Then that stupid senior suddenly told me that the organiser requested us to play some electric violin piece afterwards too! She didn't told me that before! Electric violin supposed to have even higher payment you see! She kept apologising and saying that the organiser just told her on the spot, blablabla. The thing is, it's obviously fake because she already brought the short red dress for the electric violin along. LOL. She really think I'm stupid or what?

Anyway, my mild temper is still switched on so I just follow what she said, because I'm not someone to pick a fight. I don't like to pick a fight. I'm not good at scolding people, so I kept quiet.

After everything was done, she asked me to wait for her at the entrance, and she went to get the payment from the manager. And guess what? I heard the manager told his friend to give her RMB XXXX. I'm supposed to get TRIPLE times than the payment she told me, but she cheated me and got all the 90% for herself, and only 10% for me. Geng or not??????

When she turned around, she saw me looking at her. She knew that I knew, but she acted like nothing happened. And I was really angry inside, feeling totally cheated, but I still say nothing. I really should give her a piece of my mind, but I kept quiet.

That happened like last year, which I got pretty mad I didn't agree to go to her gigs for a period of time. Anyway, like I said before, gigs are the main source of income for me to survive here, so I will still have to go to her gigs from time to time.

Btw, now back to why I'm suddenly so angry right now. 3 days ago, she told me there's this gig, which is a 长活(which means the long-term gig, so the payment will be lesser but if you considered the long run, it's actually a good pay), we have to play 3 hours each day and the gig is for 3 days straight. The payment is not really much, but it is considered decent for 长活 so we agreed.

However when we got there. It's some really fancy restaurant in Shangrila Hotel!!! Super grand one kay? It's some wine-tasting ceremony and some princesses from Italy are invited too. Does that sound like long-term gig to you? No, right???

And the next next day, which is the last day of the supposedly-long-term gig, we went to a really far place and it was some 20th anniversary of some huge company. How to explain that as long-term gig you tell me????? Now the 3 of us (cellist, violist and me) were already really really mad. Obviously we were fooled. You see, it's not the problem of money, it's that she could actually be so thick-skinned to lie to us, spinning this wonderful story about some long-term-gig and let us come so far and perform for so long, and she got all our money without doing anything!

The cellist was the first one to got mad. She straightaway confronted the senior and said, "Which part of this looks like a long-term gig? Which part?"

And that senior didn't expect us to actually stood up for ourselves so she got stunned for several seconds and she found some pretext and went to the washroom, probably think about how to deal with us.

At the mean time, we were fuming in one of the company's meeting room, and the manager of that event was there too. So the cellist asked him straightaway, "Is the gig today a long-term one???" The manager looked dubious and said, "Urm.. no."

"What about the gig in Shangrila Hotel? Is that long-term as well?" "That is definitely not long-term" He said.

So the cellist told him how the senior cheated us and gave us super low price to come to this event. The manager's expression was totally epic. He was so surprised he got speechless. "Wow, that's pretty... unbelievable."

When that senior finally came back from the washroom, she didn't know that the manager already knew. And she was still faking and explaining to us that maybe she got the wrong info, but she was positive it is supposed to be a long-term-gig. Blablabla. And she put on those perfectly-trained pitiful sincere face wth. =.='''

We all already knew the truth so we didn't talk to her for the rest of the day. And in the end she still gave us the same price. That was that.

Yesterday was the last straw because she called me to go to another gig on Saturday(which is today). She probably think I don't know a lot of places' name. So she tried to do the same old tactic like the last time Jia Ding's one. She said, "There's a gig RMB XXX for one hour, can you go?"

I asked her where is it, and she said it's not too far, at Chuan Sha. HELLO WTH, CHUAN SHA IS ALMOST NEAR PUDONG AIRPORT ALREADY CAN??? Another 1 hour and a half journey. I was so angry I practically yelled at her, 川沙这么远我不去! 都快要到浦东机场了! She also knows this price is incredibly crazy for such a far gig, so she was like faking again, and explaining that this gig is her friend's friend's wedding... blablabla.. so that's why it's cheaper, blablabla.

I just said I DON'T WANT TO GO DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? And she's all like "Then can you find someone to replace you?" I just said, "NO, I DON'T THINK MY FRIENDS WILL BE WILLING TO GO TOO." She was faking nice and hung up and texted me afterwards saying stupid stuff like, "Darling, I'll try my best to find someone to go, so let's work hard to find someone ok? We have to find someone!"

I saw the text and was like, "What WE? You can go find someone YOURSELF!" And I contentedly ate my dinner. After like 5 minutes, she called me again and said she contacted the manager of the event and the manager said that you don't have to go there so early blablabla. WTH?!?! Did she not understand what I said? I said it's too far I don't want to go! She's still trying to persuade me to go by arriving LATER?????

I was totally pissed, so I actually have the courage to say stuff that I don't used to say normally. I gave her a piece of my mind. LOL.

I said, "Excuse me. Are you kidding me? You yourself should know, this kinda price is too little for some gigs so far. I don't want to go, and never ever try to cheat me to go to a gig so far with so little payment anymore!"

She probably didn't see that coming. LOL. Coz I usually kept quiet and didn't say anything even after many times she cheated me, but this time I've had enough. I don't care if she doesn't ask me to go to gigs in the future already. I just don't care. I don't want to be bullied or cheated or fooled anymore.

You want me to go? Then give me a decent payment. Thank you very much.

She just said sorry sheepishly and I hung up. That feels really good. The feeling of me standing up for myself. LOL. :) I think nobody should take these shits from anyone. Don't let others to bully you, you have to voice out and there's no need to be afraid about it.

Wow, can't believe I actually typed so much! Sorry guys, I just need to rant a bit. Working life can be really stressful when you meet stupid horrible people like that.

Anyway, some pictures of the gigs I went last week! :)

Love this black gown of that day!

This is the gig with the horrible senior, grrrr.