A Wu called as I was on the way back to ask me to go to Boss Yellow's factory opening. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a Quentin Tarantino film. I told him "wo you shi" (I have a matter), meaning I was busy. That didn't stop him calling again at 11am saying it was an important occasion. As I wasn't actually that busy I said ok I'd go, just give me 15 mins to get a shower. Surprise surprise 30 mins later he wasn't there, so I called and he said 2-1 was coming to pick me up instead, and to hurry up! Sod that, I got in the car with Mr Football Score and we drove for three minutes to the shop where we're going to buy our tiles from. It transpired we were now going to wait for some other bloke (Mr Pink? who the fuck knows?). We ended up waiting half an hour for this bloke, during which time we had a nice few glasses of tea with the shop's proprietoress if that is a word. Then I found out this place was outside Pingguo town, on the way to Bangxu, where Tan is from originally.
Tan's 2nd sister's lovely new Mitsubishi Outlander. She doesn't even intend to learn to drive...I hope I will have use of it in Pingguo while she is here as I did a couple of years' ago with her smaller car
As we drove the half-hour route we kept getting phone calls telling us to hurry up. I told 2-1 "an quan di yi" (safety first), and he was one of the few men who actually seemed to know what I was talking about. I think most of them think driving accidents are all to do with "fate", and they are the ones who won't live to show that that is a load of bollocks. Although A Wu had said I would be leaving by 1pm it was already gone midday when we arrived.
I hadn't actually realised this was such a big deal. I quite like Boss Yellow, and although I couldn't quite work out what his factory was for - something to do with cutting wood judging by the tools - there were a good thirty people there if I'm not mistaken, many of whom were women. They were possibly relatives of Boss Yellow as they were not particularly slim, as most Pingguonese women are. By the time we got there it seemed they had been holding out on eating, but not drinking as they were all half-cut. Well I understand that starting a business is a big deal and this is all part of the culture but I could hardly physically gan bei as much as they wanted me to. I toured every table and gan bei'd with various women and bosses much to their delight, before managing to tuck in to some rather nice lamb, beef, chicken and finally some rice.
Where the meal took place
I cai ma'd with a few blokes who I'd not met before (increasingly rarer now), and was immediately accepted as family as I was able to explain that my wife was from Bangxu, that the food was good, and that I knew they were from Bangxu too, all in the Bangxu language. But I got to the stage where although hardly light-headed I could not drink more fizz, so I went for a walk by the road in the particularly beautiful countryside so prevalent in Guangxi. I'd asked to go home at 2pm but we were apparently waiting for someone to go with us. This person didn't turn up so 2-1 eventually got A Wu's keys (luckily meaning A Wu wouldn't drive but I hate to think of the amount of inebriated people who did drive back that afternoon).
Some of the folks I ate with. Boss Yellow is the one wearing the pink top (obviously).
Afterwards I had a bit of a saw head
Typical road scene in Guangxi
2-1 got me back by three and I managed an hour an a bit's kip before going to pick up the brats. Xixi was fine again despite pulling a tantrum in the morning as I left. She will get used to it. I found out that Tan and A Ni had got back and that they were doing their hair or something. I took the kids to the old peoples' leisure place where I played a little table tennis with a couple of them. But it was hard as both the kids wanted to play too. So I gave up and went home. We went out with Chuan Chuan and Qiqi (Er Jie's kids) for some fried noodles and ducks' tongues outside our house and unusually both Leilei and Xixi ate well. It took a while for them to get to sleep after the excitement of having Qiqi around but finally Leilei dropped off, then Tan came back and gave me a reward for being a good baba.
I watched the second half of the Paraguay - Japan match with Er Jie's bloke Lao Pan. I know he is the father of their second child but I'm not sure they're married and I was embarrassed to ask. Anyway I got a text from Tan during the match to STFU as Lao Pan was being noisy (he does have a very funny high-pitched laugh for a bloke with a deep voice). So when it was 0-0 after 90 minutes I asked if he fancied going outside to watch extra time. He didn't as he was watching currency movements on his laptop. Since I set up wifi in the house he is now able to connect from any room, which he really appreciates. Although his laptop is only a year old there is a problem with the internal wifi (as far as I can fathom with a Chinese OS and having no luck installing updated drivers), so I happened to bring a USB wifi stick that I've installed so he can be online to keep his eye on whatever currency he likes. For what ends I don't know, but Er Jie has a beautiful Mitsubishi jeep that if I understand correctly cost around 40 grand in UK money.
Anyway I stepped outside to watch extra time at my local outside eatery with the big screen. As soon as I tried to order a beer at a table by myself I was invited to sit with the people at the neighbouring table. Well, what could I do? I sat down with them and gan bei'd a little and cai ma'd a little while ooing and ahhing at the footy. We were having a really nice time when Tan rang me to ask what I was doing in the second period of extra time. I explained I was watching the last few minutes of footy and she said Leilei needed to go for a wee as if it was my fault. I mean she complained about me watching the game indoors and now she was complaining about me being outside. She also asked who I was with as if I knew. Maybe she was being protective but certainly too much so. I've been here long enough to know who are ok people to sit down with and share a beer. Five minutes later, during the penalties she rang me again! Bloody hell dear, I said I'd only be a few minutes. Last night she said she was just going out to pick up a book at 9pm and didn't come back till midnight as she decided to go for barbeque without telling me...let's put things in perspective here. Anyway Japan lost unfortunately as they'd been the more entertaining team in my opinion.
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