Back to Pingguo for meals and new apartment

Waipo was in her element looking after Xixi as much as she could and genuinely loving every minute of it. It seemed we wouldn't be able to drag her out of her arms despite her 70+ years and apparent frailty. But it was a very nice feeling to see the family bonding between them and it seemed to be reciprocated by Xixi.

Xixi with Waipo - where she stayed much of the time

Tan wanted to stay in Nanning for a week but we were in a smallish place with all our bags so I said we’d first move our stuff to Pingguo where we could at least try to settle for a few days. So Lin Hong (a cousin) and her husband A Zheng and daughter Tian Tian came to pick us up in the afternoon. A Zheng's job is to drive the head of Pingguo county around. One of the perks of this job is that he can use the car for personal use when not working. Additionally he can pay for meals by signing for them but of course we won’t be taking advantage of that…hmm. This time the car was a brand new Isuzu 4x4 with huge wheels that really looked like it was designed for off-road use and not taking kids to school.

A Zheng's work car

Fortunately, since the last time we were here two years ago they have finished building the motorway that links Pingguo to Nanning. Now it only takes around 50 minutes, but getting to the motorway from central Nanning can take over half an hour, so in fact the door-to-door journey is around 1h40. But you ask someone from Pingguo how long the journey is and they’ll tell you 50 minutes (they are proud of the new road).

We arrived around 2pm and immediately found our good friends Xiao Li and Xiao Wei and their son Li Ming Da. I gave them both a big hug as we hadn’t seen each other for two years. For the Chinese, though, big greetings don’t really exist – Tan merely raised her hand at Xiao Wei. That used to be strange to me but it’s just culture. We went out straightaway to a nice restaurant for a good meal, but I was told not to eat too much as we were going for another one at 5pm.

After the meal we went to see the apartment we’d be staying in for the next three months. It’s a nice, rather simple two-bedroomed place (not three as Tan had told me) with a sort-of adjoining study room to the main bedroom as well as an en-suite bathroom with a western toilet! Yes! There aren’t many of those in Pingguo.

Luckily we didn’t go for our evening meal until 6.30pm, and it was a very nice social occasion with our landlord and lady (friends of the family), Xiao Li’s big sister’s husband (we call him Jie Fu) and various other friends in our own private eating room. Food was great, with my personal favourite – fried bees. I ended up playing Cai Ma – the famous drinking game where two people show a number of fingers at the same time, like scissors paper stone, except you have to guess what the total will be. They were quite impressed by my prowess in this game, especially as we normally play in Cantonese.

Our first evening meal in Pingguo this year

Leilei and some friends

I pretended I was drunk (on 3.6% beer you have to sometimes) and managed to leave at around 10pm I guess (actually I was a bit pissed – but more tired). At home Xiao Li wanted to open the bottle of wine I’d bought when we arrived in Pingguo for a little over a quid but as we had no opener we decided not to (normally I’d have used a coat hanger but I just wanted to sleep). So I got to bed soon after midnight hoping for a good night’s sleep.