Chinese employers tend to treat their employees rather shabbily in some respects, unlike the exemplary and contract-abiding way that most western employers treat theirs. We should realize that this is their culture, and be prepared to go with the flow to some extent so as to maintain good relationships with our employers here. Pay late by up to 7 days is not a major inconvenience and can be overlooked, even if occurring on a regular basis, in the interests of preserving good employer-employee relations. But any later than that would be regarded by many foreigners as taking liberties, and rightly so, in my humble opinion. Unfortunately, some FT's here do not share ny view, and will say nothing about it! It's then that I've had to act alone. By sticking my neck out on said issue in the past, I've made myself unpopular with my employer. But I feel there's only so much I can tolerate, and if my employer steps over the line by too great a margin, I'll not let it go! Being deemed a troublemaker for that is a necessary though unavoidable consequence of the application of my sense of fairness, which is much more accurately defined than that of many Chinese people or by some of my foreign colleagues who have embraced crawling to their Chinese bosses, even having developed it into a fine art!