Friday, June 18, 2010

Ping pong and crap football

At 7pm I went to play table tennis in the old people's social place next to the guang chang (where I passed two Indians looking slightly bemused). I guess this is a very important building as although all around it there are newly built high-rise apartments, this place has remained untouched with its paltry three floors. I noticed they were playing croquet and volleyball too. They actually take it pretty seriously, at least they have a referee and proper scoreboard. I met Boss Yang and we went upstairs to one of the table tennis rooms. Now these are not air-conditioned and you can imagine it gets extremely sweaty. I asked Boss Yang why he was allowed to come to the old peoples' place to play and he explained that he teaches there. I'm sure it is very unofficial, but it is true that all the regulars know him and like him, and he really does train you well with no time for politeness.

Today I was learning how to do proper forehand. Hold the bat at a 45 degree angle at all times and move your arm properly. It's amazing how effective this was. I remember him teaching me two years ago but not exactly what he taught, so it was somewhat back to basics. I felt I'd improved 100% within half an hour. My serves were still crap though but he said we'd look at that another time. I got beaten by two or three old-timers who popped in to watch, but wasn't too embarrassed - they had a great teacher. Boss Yang said he'd help me get my own proper bat tomorrow - I was using his but it was not very comfortable as I use the European grip as opposed to the Chinese grip, and Boss Yang's bat has a much shorter handle as it was made for the Chinese grip (that's my excuse anyway).

Tan called me at 9pm screaming that there was no electricity in the house or in the surrounding area and it was pitch black; apparently Waipo knew that this was going to happen and had not told her. In all honesty she had said something to me about electricity earlier in the day but in my defence I didn't really understand what she was talking about. So I told Boss Yang I had to sort stuff out, and sweating like a cold glass of beer in a hot pub garden I leapt on the bike and rode to a place I know that sells lights. It was quite eerie riding through the town - I've known Pingguo with parts of it devoid of electricity for periods of time but it seemed like the whole place was dark. And quiet. No pumping of Chinese rock music from the mobile phone shops or hawking of various wares. I got to the shop I knew and explained that we had no electricity at home and realised at once that was about the most stupid and obvious thing to say as the boss turned on his torch to walk inside his shop to find me something. He came out with a couple of rechargeable torches at 12 and 13 kuai each. Thankfully they were at least partly charged. I got home and found that the place was candlelit, so much for pitch black. Tan had presumed that there would be no hot water but I hadn't so I took one of the torches into the bathroom and had a nice shower before being called by Boss Yang saying he was going to take me out to watch football at the only bar in Pingguo with electricity. Shit. The England match was on later (much later at 2.30am) - would the electricity be back by then?

The bar was pretty rocking. Most people had tables close to the large screens for the Slovenia - USA game, and there was one free a bit further away but right next to the air conditioning unit. In typical style various friends including A Wu came to our table during the course of the evening. Boss Yang's wife was there too - she is about 8 month's preggars and I normally wouldn't be too happy about her sitting in a bar where most men were smoking but because the air-con was blowing away from us we were pretty smoke-free. I love the fact that the Chinese have really got into the World Cup, despite not qualifying. They cheer every goal and are genuinely excited about the whole thing. We stayed till well after midnight consuming copious amounts of "qi du" beer. This is one of the "Li Quan" brand beers and is only 3.1%, but more expensive than the stronger ones due to something that I have yet to understand. The leccy was still down, but A Wu found that his house was in one of the few places that still had it, so he and A Ni drove there at some time after 1am. There were one and a half hours to kill but he had beer in the fridge so we made use of it on a slower scale as we were getting weary. Eventually the game started and as far as I remember I've never seen such utter crap in a competitive game from England in my life. You stay up so late and are treated to that. Pathetic. Tan texted me just after the second half started to say the electricity had come back and I told A Wu I'd walk home rather than watch this shite, but of course he insisted on driving me as the streets were not safe blah blah blah. Back home I watched the rest of the match online, not thinking for a minute we'd score and being sadly shown to be correct. Got to sleep at 4.30am.

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