Lin Hong's 20th anniversary bank colleagues' meal and the local lingo

This time last year we were going home, but luckily we still have a week and a bit here. But I still have work for three days so it was back to the grindstone after taking the kids to school from Jiuma. So when Tan said she was going out for a meal with Lin Hong at 5.30pm I was fine with that as I prepared to pick up the kids. Then Lin Hong rang me to say I was coming too, and that they were ready to eat. I wasn’t sure about the veracity of that statement so I grabbed myself a shower before picking up the little ones and driving to the usual Li Jia He Xian restaurant where we’ve been so many times this and last year.

Only Lin Hong was there waiting for us in our private room that was the size of a large dining room and living room, complete with karaoke machine. At least these rooms are big enough so the kids can run around in between picking at the sunflower seeds. Two other ladies then arrived, and it was explained that this was a twenty year anniversary as these people all trained together in 1991. Lin Hong took out a photograph from that year, and I had to find the people that were in the room now. It was quite tricky and I only managed Tan on the second attempt. By now a few more people had turned up and I had to find them too…. The meal was great of course, and a welcome distraction from work. As it was a large table it had a motorised spinner to turn the inner table with the food on it. I calculated it took 1m50sec to make one revolution. Then I calculated I was the only person to have made such a calculation, except perhaps for the designer of the said table.

Leilei, Lin Hong, and Xixi about to have another nice meal

Sumptious meal with Tan's ex bank colleagues



They ordered my favourite pi dan, and I noticed that many people actually use spoons to pick them up as the consistency of the dark albumen does not lend itself to elevation by chopsticks. Although it didn’t stop me trying. I also tried to speak a little local language to the delight of those there except Tan, who said I should first learn Mandarin properly. I disagree. At most of the meals that I attend here people speak to each other in the local tongue, which is incomprehensible to me. At other times it is Pingguonese, which at least is a flavour of Mandarin, so I grab some of the meaning. Tan said me learning the local language would be like her learning Welsh. True in a sort of logical sense, but utterly false in a very important way: I am not Welsh, and she does not hear Welsh spoken when out in the UK. I win. I need to learn the local language.

Gu – I
Meng – you
Dei gun – good food
Gun gnai – eat lunch
Gun sou – eat tea
Gun lo – drink alcohol
Gun liu – gan bei
Mei ya gu duk wen Bang hee – my wife is from Bangxu
Gu bo lo – I don’t understand
Gu lo gwa – I see (understand)
Lim bit – duck tongue
Gno ack – breast (meat)
Dai lo! – expression like “oh!”
Nah lo zhan – xiong di (good mate)
Gun em gwa – chi bao le (I’m full)
Dong yuk – I’m hungry

After the meal I popped next door to the tea table bloke where I got mine from last year. The kids were telling me to “buy that one!” and pointing at the ones in excess of 6000 kuai. But I did fancy a solid wood stool, and as he said they were 100 kuai I said I’d have one. But not with the kids on the bike, so I took them to Jiuma’s before doing a little shopping and coming back to pick up a 120 kuai stool (a little bigger), which smells very pleasant.

Baba's corner along with matching stool