While the kids were eating I had the chance to look at our flat a bit more. The cross stitching of the stalks is very nice. Apparently there are 100 of them in the frame but I've not yet had the time or patience to count them. Xixi's room decorations are also quite cute, though I had to do a double take when I saw the little detail above the light switch in our bedroom - it looked like the little boy on the right was particularly excited to see the girl on the left! Well...I suppose it is the master bedroom...
Two days ago I bumped into an "English teacher" who asked me to go to his middle school just outside our flat to take some pictures with his kids. Yesterday he called me to ask if I could meet him at 10 am today and I said ok. As it was 10.30 I gave him a quick call and said I needed to take my kids to school so should do the photos now. So he said to meet him at the school gate in 10 minutes, which we did. Although instead of coming from within the school he turned up on his motorbike from outside the school, and lead us (on our bikes) to a completely different building 5 minutes away. There I spent a rather hectic time introducing myself to each of the kids in his class and having copious pictures taken. Leilei and Xixi weren't particularly impressed but the whole episode lasted only around 10 minutes with a finale on the pavement outside doing a group photo.
We then took the bike to the teacher's house and I thought I remembered where it was. Even Leilei said he recognised the place as A Da's school when we got there. However there was no-one around so we drove further up the road until we were lost. I called A Ni and she said she'd come to fetch us. Meanwhile we popped into an interesting looking place by the side of the road to shelter a little from the sun. Inside were around 10 kids with soldering irons working on making cheap, non-branded earphones. There were hundreds of the earpiece bits and the accompanying plastic parts, and I realised I was watching child labour. With the heat you could call it a sweatshop but everyone seemed happy there chatting away and possibly grateful for the impromptu interruption judging by their beaming smiles. I noticed that the boss was not exactly urging them on and when I took a closer look at the work I noticed the kids were working at a slow pace, something that encompasses the whole town. On closer inspection when looking at a photo, I noticed that they were undoubtedly making these earphones for airlines. The non-branding was a clue but the obvious giveaway is the double-pointed ends that plug into the armrest. Maybe I should have been a detective...
A Ni and A Hua arrived and lead us to the teacher's house, which was indeed exactly the same place we thought. Then they pointed to a button hidden on the side of the door and said we should have pushed the bell... Ah, so obvious... We did so and the teacher's assistant (around 10 years old) came down to see us and let us in. Leilei and Xixi were particularly cautious and reluctant to be left in a new place with around 12 other very excited and noisy kids. The teacher asked me to accompany them for a while but she didn't need to. She pointed to various wall friezes of a Confuscious theme and bade the kids read out some of his pearls of wisdom, which they did - not from heart apparently but from actually reading the Chinese. The kids ranged from 3-9 years old as far as I could make out. On the ground floor were a few, mostly broken, toys that seemed to provide sufficient entertainment. I got Xixi engaged in a bit of jigsaw making but Leilei wasn't interested. Then we went upstairs and I had more joy getting the kids doing some drawing.
I sensed I still couldn't leave the kids there. It's very hard as a parent when the kids are so shy. I don't believe in just accepting they are, so I would have been ok to leave them if they hadn't been so clingy and I couldn't just tear them off like leeches (actually I think you burn leeches so definitely not the way). I had to wait till they were being amused by themselves. Lunchtime came and Leilei managed some rice and fried potato while Xixi did two bowls of "yu mi zhou" (sweetcorn porridge). Then, afterwards, A Da (A Wu's son) put four tables together to create a makeshift table tennis table with a wooden net. After I played for a few minutes Leilei wanted a go so I let him. He's shown interest before at home on a full-size table but this was more his level. For the first time I saw him engrossed in something other than his daddy at the school. I waited for a few minutes then decided I would leave. But I knew Xixi would notice so I took her back with me and told the kids to tell the teacher.
Back home, Xixi had a nap that I tried to emulate but couldn't, despite being more than tired enough to do. So I geeked about checking emails until 3pm when it took longer than it should have done to get her up. We went to pick up Leilei at around 4pm even though he wasn't supposed to finish till 5. He was in good spirits, which justified my decision to sneek out leaving him there. While the kids were playing I went downstairs to the ground floor and sat, and then lay on the hard wooden bench. I was incredibly tired and almost felt myself slipping into sleep despite the slats digging into the back of my head. I kept my eyes closed for over 20 minutes until roused by the sound of "wai guo ren" (foreigner) emanating from the gates of the building. Evidentally a few mums and dads had come to pick up their kids and seen this westerner seemingly asleep instead, as if I'd eaten them all up. I got up from the bench, gave them a smile and hurried upstairs to tell the teacher that some kids needed to go home.
I saw that Leilei was having fun with A Da and didn't want to go back. I was happy enough to leave him till whoever came to pick up A Da brought them both back so I left them and took Xixi back. Within five minutes we encountered Ling Ming and Chuan chuan on another electric bike so we stopped to say hello. Chuan chuan wanted to take Xixi to go wherever they were going and Xixi was happy to go so I let her, thinking I would be able to get some shuteye at our home... As if. Too many phone calls and I couldn't turn off the phone as it may have been to do with the kids.
At 8pm I went to the old people's youth centre or whatever it's called, where they play table tennis and volleyball among other things. As soon as I walked in the door I was greeted like an old friend ("old" in the the sense "good" friend that hasn't been seen for a while I hope) and was invited to play immediately. I said I'd wait a while first but after three minutes someone came into the room and touched the light switch and the room with three table tennis tables was plunged into darkness. Evidentally this wasn't on purpose as further attempts to illuminate the room failed. As if by magic my phone started ringing and it was A Wu inviting me to meet a boss and play ping pong. Fair enough. Two minutes later he was outside the old folk's youth centre and I was in his car on the way to see a rather rich boss who ran a house-building company.
At least that happened eventually. When we got there the place was closed and we had to wait while A Wu rang some people to come around and let us in. Well there was a ping pong table (less awkward than writing "table tennis table") and although the room was rather too small to really play seriously we had a nice knock about with Nong Kaicheng (A Hua's son) who had come along too. Until, that was, A Wu decided to play for points. One strange thing here is that many (not all) people count the points lost rather than the points won. This proves to be quite confusing to me, especially as there is no consistency when saying the score (i.e. the server's score first), so I could not really follow, not that I really cared too much. But I think A Wu did. He won the first game, as I was finding my feet, then after beating Nong Kaicheng (who is about 9 years old) 11-1 I played him again. I was leading 4-0, then won the next three points and he said the score was something like 5-2. Fair enough, but I won the next six points in a row, by which time he wasn't saying the score. I continued and won at least seven of the next 10 points until at one stage he said "one point left", so I lost the point and he was happier than he should have been as he celebrated his "victory". I calculated I won the first-to-eleven game 17-5 and couldn't help laughing at what I guess is a rather pathetic competitiveness that drives one to not even see one's cheating... I guess he knew he was not up to the challenge and didn't want to lose face by losing to an Englishman, even though the audience consisted of a nine year old boy...
While playing, some bosses arrived and we drank some tea over a nice chiselled tea table. Then A Da arrived and I gave him a quick game of ping pong until an old man in his late sixties arrived and took the bat off him. He then proceeded to beat me and smash me around (in a table tennis sense) over the next half an hour giving me great practice and rendering me sopping wet, as even his shirt was. This is not the first time I've been bettered by someone who would have a free buss pass in London, but I'm learning from it and getting better I hope. After this exercise we retired to the tea room and he took off his wet shirt and sat right in front of the air conditioning unit on full blast. I don't think you're supposed to do that. He then, predictably, got out a packet of fags and lit up after offering one to me. I don't think you're supposed to do that either but who am I to talk?
I Picked up the kids around 10pm and took them home for a shower and bed until Tan came back around 11.30. At midnight, despite my fatigue, I was hungry so ventured out the two minute walk to Tan's aunty's bbq stall by the guang chang. I asked Tan if she wanted anything and she replied in the negative. I ordered five skewers of duck tongues and five of "fei rou" pork with some fat on it. It would take 10 minutes or so so I decided to order a beer and sit down. I never even made it to the table when I heard a shout of "hello!" from a neighbouring one. Four blokes and a girl were sat there and we ended up drinking and eating for well over an hour until Tan called asking me to order some chicken claws to take back. My new-found friends comprised three policemen, an ex-teacher now doing something I don't quite understand (the girl), and an aeronautical engineer. I hope the latter did not have to go to work the next day as my fear of flying would not have been helped at all. Anyway, they were a fun bunch, and took delight in the fact that my wife comes from Bangxu, and that I was able to state that fact in the Bangxu language.
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