culture - Chinese lines of command

Too many people see China as a basic top-down autocratic regime, where Beijing decides what happens in the country. Fortunately, and sometimes also unfortunately, the reality is a bit more complicated. A nice example was given by a foreign teacher at one of Shanghai's more famous universities. I had asked him to see if his university could get an event organized.
"I even do not know who to ask," he wrote back. "I have no clue who even my boss is." He had been there already for almost a year. Never mind, I told him, being positive as always: "at least there is also nobody who can fire you."
"But there is also nobody who want to pay me," he wrote back. Well, I had to agree that that can be a nuisance in a system that very often looks like something I would have called in the past anarchy.