Zhang Hongping meal

I got up early for some reason, so not wishing to waste the day I went out and got some breakfast for the family. Nearly everything was eaten up so I must have got the right stuff. By 10am Leilei was ready to be taken to Nong Kaicheng's house to play. Xixi naturally came too, but when we got there we were accosted by the woman whose daughter runs the medicine shop near A Hua's shop, who is mad about foreigners. She was asking why we never came to visit (she sometimes calls me in the morning to ask us to come around) but I said we'd been busy, and now had to go to the house to sort stuff out. Actually that was true, sort of, so Xixi and I made our excuses and drove to pick up some Longyan fruit. On the way out of the market I heard the wistful strains of "You mei you ren cen gao su ni", the sad pop song that has been quite popular for a year or two. I noticed that it was being sung by a one legged man with a wireless microphone, who was hopping along with a piece of string around his waste attached to a speaker on wheels that he was dragging with him. We drove on by but a few seconds later I was hit by a poignant stab of sorrow and remorse, realising how lucky we were, and how hard his life probably was. We made a U-turn and drove back into the market area and I deposited 10 kuai in the basket on his speaker. He looked genuinely thankful and said "Xie xie" many times on the microphone. Maybe because of me or maybe not at all, as I thanked him for his singing (he did have a lovely voice), I noticed a couple of other people coming out of the marketplace to put in a kuai or two. It lifted my heart a little bit.

I was finding it difficult to get a siesta, despite being shattered, as the kids didn't need one. I finally nodded off at around 3pm and got a call from Zhang Hongping half an hour later. This is one of the Bangxu blokes I know from going to eat at the seafood place regularly. He was inviting me and the family to go out for a meal that evening. I said I wasn't sure but that I'd get back to him at 5pm to confirm. He rang up an hour later to tell me the room number.

As Tan was around at 5.30pm I asked if she wanted to come. To my surprise she said she did; she knew of Zhang Hongping but had not met him in person - apparently he was working in the Bank of China while she was working in the Agricultural Bank of China. The kids were out having fun, so we let them be and got a san lun che to the restaurant by the new residential place just outside town on the road to Nanning. It is a very good restaurant, and we sat at a huge table, with the middle revolvable section seemingly so frictionless that it never stopped turning! I was a bit worried that the beer was poured into huge bowls, and then poured into glasses from a large ladle - normally this is what the men do when playing drinking games, but I wasn't really in the mood not having had much sleep. Some more people turned up, one bloke with a posh bottle of white alcohol. I never normally touch the stuff but I didn't want him to feel bad so I allowed half an inch to be poured into my glass. Just opening the bottle I could taste the stench of the stuff. The blokes laughed as I held my nose as I drank it, and was more than happy to move on to beer.


Fancy meal with Zhang Hongping, he is on my left

Tan left a little early with a couple of the wives and a son, while I stayed till around 9pm. I explained that I was tired and needed to sleep, and I didn't have too much pressure to finish all the beer, though I did have to play a few rounds of cai ma. I said I'd go for a doze, and Zhang Hongping told me to call him when I woke up to go for another bite to eat. Actually I didn't sleep that early, but had no intention of going out further that evening. However, as Leilei was busy playing and Xixi was already asleep I sneaked out for a swift head wash at a local place. The boss was waiting outside the front door and invited me in, so what could I do? And they only charged 10 kuai for it!

Well now I really was ready for bed but Tan received a phone call from her friend A Xia, who had a nasty temperature and a skin reaction to something; I popped out at midnight to bring her some paracetamol we'd brought from the UK.