Venky's Last Supper

Venky and I had discovered a lovely little eating place a couple of days ago where you could sit down and eat a scrumptious meal of rice, greens, and tofu in a pretty earthenware bowl for 3 kuai. It's not the price that makes it attractive, but more the quality of the food and the simplicity of the surroundings, something that would not appeal to most of the people who take us our for the (albethem lovely) lavish meals we have become accustomed to.

At Venky's and my favourite daytime eatery

So we went there for lunch, this time with A Wu, who at first seemed a little indignant, but soon warmed to the place presumably because we obviously liked it too. Needless to say a couple of beers were poured....

Night time appeared, accompanied with darkness, as it is wont to do, but the beer we started at lunch had somehow continued throughout the afternoon and followed us, for some reason, to Lao Ma's saloon. Venky was by now rather well-oiled and decided he needed a red bandanna dyed into his hair. As you do. So I translated to Lao Ma and she understood and asked if he was sure. I didn't translate, but just said he was. I secretly didn't want to give him the chance of jibbing out.

Well he went through with it and bravo! It looked a treat!

Venky's new hairstyle!

The evening was spent at a bbq and further imbibation ensued.

Venky's last supper

Shoe Polish

After the excesses of last night I can't really remember what we did today other than getting our shoes polished by the ladies outside the supermarkets in central Pingguo. Venky is leaving soon and after paying his one kuai for the job, forced another four or five on the lady, who looked happy and said to come back tomorrow!

The shoe polisher was not the only happy one!

Massage, Meal, and More Karaoke

Today we went for a massage! Ah yes the thing they do so much better and cheaper here!

...but painful at times...not that I would show it

Venky loving it

I think the massage left us feeling hungry, so we went for a bite to eat. Unfortunately, some of the potential bites were not Venky-suitable, i.e. the turtle (again). Luckily Venky is not judgemental regarding others' tastes so we happily sat around a table with friends and family to celebrate...well I'm not sure really but every meal feels like a bit of a celebration here....

My friend

Who's scared of who?

In fact this did seem like some sort of genuine celebration, and Lin Hong was dressed in smart work clothes, as were some others, and I think it was some sort of bank do. Plus the fact many were drinking red wine added to the effect. Although Venky and I stuck to the Li Quan, after enough gan beis we started to get into it more and as usual Venky's shirt buttons gradually got more undone from the top....

Venky seems to be in a slow-motion strip with some important people of Pingguo

Lin Hong on the right proposing a toast with her colleagues I think - that was the only glass of red I had tonight

Well I suppose last time it was me doing the same thing...

Yeah this was me last year...

This seems to be Venky's party trick

...and this was Venky last year!

One rather drunk bloke and two rather worried people

By the time the meal had finished it had been arranged that us blokes would go to "sing song" and the women would do whatever they had arranged. Fair enough.

Needless to say more beer was consumed, and unfortunately (not for them) there was a dearth of females. A few did turn up later but not before we were rather well-oiled and into singing mode. A Wu's big sister's husband, Jiefu, took a load of photos but it was difficult finding some half-decent ones....

Karaoke is about letting off steam as much as it is about singing

Er...maybe had there been women we'd have behaved more decently...

Good buddies!

Oh yeah, Tan had been in Nanning with A Ni and just got back for the meal earlier...sporting a tattoo for the first time. I was a tiny bit mortified until I saw it and agreed it was fairly good and wasn't in an unsuitable place.

Tan's new butterfly tattoo

Bees, Turtles, and Karaoke

The day sort of turned into evening as in much of it was slept through.

Venky went on a sojourn at some time and when it was time to eat we happened upon him traversing the street on a san lun che much to his amusement. Maybe he'd already found a beer place. Well it was gone 5pm so why not?

At the restaurant we looked at the various offerings of bees (one of my favourites) and turtles, and I hoped there would be enough vegetarian options for Venky (not that this place has failed us yet). After a sumptuous meal we somehow got cajoled into going to "sing song". Oh well, I suppose for Venky this is a new thing, at least in China.

Bees

A long-nosed turtle

We found some vege stuff for Venky

We met up with Lu Wen and his little brother, together with A Wu and another bloke or two. As married as I was, I couldn't help noticing the lack of female counterparts but thought better of mentioning this.

Lack of females

We played some drinking game that was so much dependent on luck that I nearly complained (dice on their own don't do it for me), but I started winning so kept schtum until Venky announced he wanted to sing "All Rise" by "Blue", or some similar popular music boy band. Half way through I realised it was actually related to legal stuff, which is Venky's profession, but I doubt anyone else did.

Still, despite the percentage of the beer, it kept being poured and did its job and we acted like teenagers and as Tan will never see this I don't care too much!

Lu Wen, me, Lu Wen's little brother, Venky, A Wu

Venky's arrival

Not sure how we'd sorted it out but Venky came today, as he had last year.

Leilei waiting for Venky's arrival

Of course that meant going out for a beer and a bite to eat, so we did. We had a great time with my friends and acquaintances until Venky declared after about three bottles of 3.1% beer that he felt sick. I actually believed him that it was the bubbles as there was no other excuse unless he was the mother of all lightweights....

Venky in full swing

So we went for a walk by the river and he ended up giving me a big (man) hug and thanking me for inviting him down here. It was quite nice actually, but I knew I needed to get him home. Typically, he refused getting in any car as he didn't want to be enclosed, so we ended up agreeing that I would take a san lun che with him to the hotel, followed by A Wu's henchmen.

We had some nice ducks tongues

I had hoped to watch the Man U v Liverpool match at Venky's hotel, and so had Venky but it appeared sleep was more on his mind. After a few minutes' fervant search I did get a really grainy picture of the match, but by then he was flat out, and I didn't particularly want to stay, so as A Wu was still there we left the room and went back to where we are staying and I don't think I bothered to watch the second half.

Getting colder but Leilei back

It had been quite cold for the last week...so much so that many people bought Leilei lots of thick clothes. Luckily they will be very useful for UK winter. Unfortunately we have too much stuff to bring back, so we will have to send some by boat. Thankfully today was warm again...around 30 during midday so we can't complain.

Really happy to be back with Leilei after he spent about four days with his grandma in Bangxu, though by all accounts he had a great time! He's not fotgotten his mummy or daddy though...and still remembers how to say "carry me...please".

Got a comment on my diary about how the following paragraph was "racist". I'd better reply. For a start, here is the paragraph (China doesn't allow me to add comments to comments, as far as I know).

"Also, women are much more feminine here than in the UK. They wear dresses more often and look like women. They rarely drink beer and don’t burp as much as the men. They look happier than English women and don’t have chips on their shoulders about trying to be “equal”. That’s the important thing. Women are happy. Yes, they have a more defined role than in the UK, and so do the men – and I think it works better."

I was accused of being racist towards English women as well as men. Well I made a few obsevations that hold true for the place I have been living in for the last three months. Admittedly it probably doesn't speak for every place in China, but I stand by what I said about Chinese women being happier. I stand accused of having made a sexist comment, perhaps, but racist? That seems a bit far fetched. Maybe it's a matter of semantics but as far as I'm aware there's no such thing as an English race...and in China we have 56 races officially.

Today was so warm....I washed three sets of clothes and hung them out and 90% were dry by 10pm... then we lost against Liverpool 1-0 - although put up a decent fight.

Infected tape and electric bike

Up about 9am but let Tan do Leilei as for some reason my head was rather heavy. Having said that, even if you wake up with a hangover from Chinese beer, one thing you don’t crave is a glass of water – some people in the UK say if you go out drinking beer you should drink half a pint of water for every pint of beer…I suppose drinking 3.6% beer is a bit like doing that. Anyway, Tan took Leilei to grandma and auntie’s place, where they took him away and on the next bus to Bangxu.

I took advantage and went back to sleep until 11. Tan had borrowed a camcorder from Xiao Li’s brother-in-law, in order that I could copy the tape I had made some weeks previously onto a cd via the laptop. Unfortunately, after I put the tape in and turned the camcorder on, it just displayed an error message. Damn. I tried with a brand new tape and still got the same error. It was only a minute later when I realised that the tape I had recorded on the other month (and had been lying in the bookshelf since) was utterly infested with tiny red ants. They were now crawling all over the tape – not just inside…and I noticed they were carrying eggs. Yes, some bastard family of ants had decided to make a nest inside my 90 minutes of video tape from China. As I banged the tape on the windowsill more and more ants came out…and eventually a couple of larger ones with wings…, which I presume, are queens or something.

I did a search on google for the error message “C:31:23”, and found that normally it can be fixed by removing the battery, or by smacking the camcorder on the side. Thankfully (very thankfully, as they are not cheap), the camcorder responded to the former and I was spared the embarrassment of telling the owner that a bunch of ants had ruined his pride and joy. I have not since tried to play the original tape – there are still ants crawling about inside….

The other day Xiao Wei arrived home with her son Li Mingda on a new motorbike. It was a pretty nice looking moped in dark blue. They already have a red one, but this was a present from her mother – and apparently is not a moped but an electric bicycle due to the lack of any petrol engine. This means anyone can ride it without a licence. Thanks mum what a great present! It looks just like a moped but is silent. You just plug it in to the mains every few nights and there you go – much less pollution (ok I know the electricity has to be produced somewhere – but still…). And the best thing about it is the price – 2000 kuai – about £130. I swear if I’d known that I’d have got one as soon as we arrived (note to self: buy one next time I spend any appreciable time in China).

New electric moped. Not bad for £130!

As we were having a fantastic bbq with Biao ge (the one who is the master of cooking duck – and, it transpires, lamb) I found myself mulling over sexual equality in China. I’ve read that one of the things that will slow down China becoming a predominant world power is its subjugation of women. Now I’ll admit that the one-child policy has brought an increasing awareness of how important it is to have a son – and I find that abhorrent. I also am aware of the dearth of females in politics and high-powered jobs in this country (but I don’t think it’s drastically different in the UK). What I have noticed, though, is many women doing traditionally men’s jobs, such as driving buses and building houses.

Also, women are much more feminine here than in the UK. They wear dresses more often and look like women. They rarely drink beer and don’t burp as much as the men. They look happier than English women and don’t have chips on their shoulders about trying to be “equal”. That’s the important thing. Women are happy. Yes, they have a more defined role than in the UK, and so do the men – and I think it works better.

Sick City top but at least we won

I am wearing a Man City top that smells of sick. I washed it last night in preparation for today, like last weekend when we drew 0-0 with Newcastle.

The reason it smells of sick is that Leilei woke up on the stroke of half time (not a bad time to wake up as we were ahead 3-0), and sicked on my shoulder. Unfortunately he had a bit of a cough and wouldn’t go to bed, so I took him downstairs for a bit, and then made him play the car game on my mobile that always gets him asleep.

Except that he wouldn’t sleep this time. It took a half hour phone call from Awl before Leilei was asleep.

OK. They are all asleep now! So my shirt smells of baby puke! We won! We beat Fulham 3-1! Ok we could have done better but it’s three points! And Corradi scored at last!

Earlier today we went to a celebration for the birth of a baby girl (a month ago) to a cousin of Tan. It was a bit like a wedding celebration in that it was situated in the poshest hotel (the one close to our house) and was preceded by five minutes of extremely loud bangers. Similar to our wedding meal last year, the guests started eating as soon as they sat down at their tables - no standing on ceremony waiting for the baby to arrive (well, everyone had paid 100 kuai each in red envelopes to be there).

I was invited to play cai ma by various blokes, and managed to beat some of them, much to the others' amusement. However I had to leave before 7.30 to look after Leilei while his mother prepared to go out dancing. He was to have gone to Bangxu with his grandma tonight, but they are now going tomorrow. I felt a bit bad at the meal, as it seemed more people wanted to see him than the baby we were supposed to be celebrating...


Leilei drinking orange. Tan's mum is on Tan's right and her brother's wife on her mum's right. The eggs are dyed red for...err...good luck.

Lie-in

Had a nice lie in without Leilei, but went to pick him up later in the morning. A lie in. You really can’t appreciate how nice that is unless you haven’t had one for so many months. Sometimes I get up early and do all the baby things till late morning just so Tan can experience that feeling (normally when I’m after something).

It’s really hot again now, including the nighttime. Most men, though, still wear long trousers during the day and black shoes. There is a bit of a penchant for wearing shiny black shoes with white socks. Fortunately, Xiao Li and his friends wear dark socks.

Visits to the ladies outside the shops who clean shoes are frequent, as it gets quite dusty here. In fact I’ve noticed this wherever I’ve stayed in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. I think one of the reasons it’s so dusty here is simply the amount of building going on. I went to clean my white trainers today. I took Leilei out to watch his mum dancing for a bit (more to show him off to the other ladies), then went to buy some milk powder as we’ve given the other tin to his grandma. She is meant to be taking him to Bangxu tomorrow for a couple of days.

Leilei stays the night with waipo

As I was out shopping in the evening with Leilei, I thought I’d pop in on his grandma as I haven’t seen her in a week or so. After a few minutes there I said I needed to go to pick up Tan from dancing, and her mum asked if I could leave Leilei there…to stay the night. So I did. He’s got a lot better with other people now – you can leave him with just about anyone as long as he has a car or a ball in one hand.

New place to wash iron ore

I normally tell Xiao Li I need to do some work when he asks me to go to his work with him, but as I haven’t gone for some time, I thought I’d go after lunch. The last time I went was two weeks ago in the baking sun, while we stood in a maize field waiting for the owner to turn up to see if we could do some business deal.

That day I found out that the place in the mountains where they wash the iron ore, in preparation for selling to the factories, was no longer usable as the lake there had dried up. They needed a new place to wash the ore where the water would be plentiful.

Well, that day, two weeks ago was part of the plan. We eventually met the owner of a plot of land that had been used for growing maize, but was situated, conveniently, a hundred yards from the main river that flows from Pingguo (and continues to Nanning, and eventually to the sea). A few words were spoken, and I understood that we were to start washing the iron ore in this place instead of in the mountain.

So I was quite surprised to see a half built wall around an area nearly the size of a football pitch when I arrived. More than that, there was about 100 tons of iron ore awaiting washing, plus some women digging out the foundations for a new house on this plot.

They had taken this seriously. Xiao Li had paid the owner of the land for three years. The area was to be walled off, and have a couple of inhabitants in order to keep non-desirables away. A three metre deep pool was to be excavated and pumped full of water from the nearby river. I asked when the house would be ready (I gave the women a hand digging the holes for the foundation stones) and was told “five days”. I asked when the whole thing would be ready and was told “ten days”. I was surprised but believed these figures. And I will be here long enough to confirm them.

One thing is for sure, they get things done here. I presume there isn’t a lot of governmental interference, or employment laws they have to follow. We just paid the four women digging the house a few hundred kuai (works out to £1.80 a day), and those building the wall get twice that, then spent the rest of the time checking the work. I was encouraged to tell them to “kuai yi dian!!” (“hurry up!!”), but I could only do so in a laughing manner, although I did go around the workers and ask them how they were doing and what methods they were using to build the wall (they think I’m their boss).

So now I know what Xiao Li has been doing recently: overseeing the work on a new place to wash and distribute their iron ore. Ingenious! They’ll be able to produce five to ten times more than previously at not much more cost.

Lao Tao surveying the new premisis.

A woman digging the foundations of a new house that will take five days to build. She will have earned under a tenner in that time.

Cooler

For the last ten days or so it has been noticeably cooler during the night. I mean, sometimes at midnight you see people in long sleeves eating their bbq. And when you get out of the shower early in the morning, it’s actually a bit cold. This makes Chinese parents go over the top and you see young children in three layers of clothes in their mothers’ arms. Leilei doesn’t escape this, and he’s bundled off to his grandma with a tee-shirt, jumper and cardigan, even though during the day it’s still 30+ degrees C.

One nice thing about this change in the weather is that it is much clearer outside, and less humid than before. The mountains around the town are much more appreciable and walking more than one pace a second does not make you break out into a sweat. Unfortunately, Leilei has developed a bit of a cough again, and of course this is blamed on the change in the weather. I asked if winter had come and was answered in the affirmative – I’m a bit saddened at the thought of having to wear long sleeves at 1am…

Routine life here now...

Well I haven’t written for some time as life has taken something vaguely resembling a routine now. A sort of typical day may consist of:

Wake up at 8am with Leilei. I’ll change his nappy and get his milk while Tan gets washed (takes 65 minutes). She’ll feed him some porridge and clothe him. I’ll take him to Wai po’s house (grandma’s) in a three wheeled cab at 9.30am, and maybe do some shopping in the supermarket before heading back to have a shower, by which time it will be after 11am and someone will be making lunch. After lunch I’ll try to settle down to doing some work in preparation for getting a new job. Sometimes, though, we’ll both have a little siesta. Tan will generally go out in the afternoon with Xiao Wei, and they’ll come back around 6pm with our sons for tea.

The women go out dancing most evenings so I’m usually looking after Leilei and bathing him and putting him to bed around 9.30pm. The girls come back around this time with some bbq (usually duck intestines and duck tongues). We’ll have a beer and I’ll help Xiao Li with some English before going to bed. Nothing special really.

For the last few weeks Xiao Li has been out of the house most days until the evening. He’ll generally come back at lunchtime with Lao Tao (his cousin and business partner) to cook something, and then again at teatime. It’s strange because for the first eight weeks I was here he seemed to be around almost all the time and I wondered what he did for a living.

We bought a sort of car for Leilei recently. You can make it go simply by moving the steering wheel which is really cool. He really likes it and so does Li Mingda, so they both share it sometimes as you can see....

Car money

Hmmm, well my diary seems to be unavailable in China, despite the news that after three years' censorship, blogspot has been allowed back for about a year - link. At least I can't access it.

However, I still seem to be able to write it although nothing particularly exciting has happened over the last week or so.

On Monday, after dropping off Leilei to his grandma, Xiao Li and I went to the bank to withdraw some money. Well the biggest denomination bank note in China is the red 100 Ren Min Bi, and Xiao Li withdrew an amount that many people around us would not earn in five years. Plus he already had 10000 in his wallet.... I got a bit worried that this was some sort of mafia-related thing as we joke about being mafia men a lot of the time which I thought was just some fun.

Well we didn't get mugged, and it turned out boringly that Xiao Li just wants to buy a car (so much for bank cards or cheques). I asked him when and he said at the end of the month but it is the 4th today and we've still not been to a garage (or maybe you don't buy cars from garages here). I wanted to ask him about the interest he'd be losing in the meantime but I suspect I wouldn't have got a logical answer, or that you don't get interest in China.

When they talk about the mafia, I don't think you need to imagine dodgy Italian types in suits. Tan told me a story about the pregnant girl downstairs: Last year, before she fell pregnant, she was in a Karaoke place with her friends, one of whom drank too much or took drugs and in her hysteria jumped up and down on the couch and pretended she was going to jump out of the window. One of the ladies who works in the place came into the room to see what the fuss was about and when she saw the drunk woman told her to go home and die there instead of in the karaoke bar.

Well, this really pissed off the now pregnant girl, and she called her boyfriend to get his mafia mates around to ... well I don't know, really. Anyway, the karaoke place in the meantime had called the mafia around to get rid of the drunk woman and her friends from the bar. It transpired that both sets of mafia arrived at the same time and promptly went out drinking together!

The slightly sad ending to the story is that the employee who told the girl to go home to die lost her job.

It's things like this you have to think about when you criticise our police. At least they would probably have been worth ringing.

On Thursday we went to Huang Chun's new place. She was Tan's best friend when she lived in Pingguo, and is recently married to a man who is younger than her. Well, this place, although not huge, looked like something out of a style magazine - a 50" flat tv attached to the wall, marble floors, lighting at weird angles. I'll put up a photo later. All in all nice to look at but doesn't feel very livable in if you ask me. Still, I imagine that's the way it's going to go in China - more western style apartments in private blocks with security guards and a single pretty garden for the inhabitants. The tackiest thing about it was this horrible elevator music emanating from the garden. At first I thought it was some kids with a radio, but then discovered it was coming from speakers disguised as black rocks dotted around the garden. It was too loud; you could almost hear it from inside the apartment and it made me think of 1984 with the microphones hidden everywhere. I'm sure it was not intentional, but it made my Western mind think that this was some covert means of inducing soporific inertia to assuage any thoughts uprising and rebelling.

Huang Chun's new house. Leilei particularly liked the glass-covered step up to the dining area, under which was an assortment of white stones, shells, and orange table tennis balls which he calls "ba ba qiu" (should be ping pang qiu). I liked the tv.