So I decided to go for a walk in the guangchang to see what I could see, as I didn't fancy jogging with a bag on me. I came across a group of men chatting, which didn't seem odd in itself, but I also heard a very noticeable chorus of birdsong, which is notable by its absence here. I worked out that they must have taken out their birds for a, um, sing? There were brown cages dotted around the place, some hanging from trees, some placed on the ground, and the birds were communicating with each other. I understand from Lu Hai that these are fighting birds, and if he is anything to go by the owners sometimes expose the males to the females voices to make them aggressive for fighting. I didn't stay long enough to see any such thing, but I'd like to know what bird this is - maybe Andrew can help here.
Name that tune, name that bird
After walking past an old man singing from a sheet into a microphone attached to a loudspeaker sat on his bicycle for a reason I have yet to fathom, I happened upon a group of people my age or a little older playing badminton. I heard "lao wei lai le" (a foreigner is coming) so I waved and said "hello" to them as I came to watch. It transpired that a couple of them could speak some English, including one who said he was an English teacher, and within a minute I was being asked to join in. I was more than happy to and my level was not far off theirs. My partner and I lost the first game 21-19 to two ladies, but were asked to stay on for another game. This time we beat two other ladies 21-19 as I was more warmed up. By now it was 8.30am and I knew I needed to take the kids to school. I explained this to the group and they told me to come back as they meet every morning at 7am. I intend to do so.
After a shower I got to Waipo's soon after 9am but the kids were still asleep; Leilei with Er Jie and Xixi on the floor with Chuan Chuan. It took a while to get them washed clothed and breakfasted but we got to school around 10am so it wasn't too bad. Back home I pottered about a bit until nearly midday. I was going to pop around to get some jiao zi for lunch and eat at home but I thought better of that idea and gave a couple of friends a ring. Uncle Yellow didn't answer and Zhang Hongping's phone was off, but Ma Laoban was around. He was just about to go and eat at home so I asked him if he wanted to eat with me. He was all for it so I drove down to his computer shop and a few minutes later I was in his car with his wife. I was going to suggest the soup place I like but I didn't know the name of the road, so Ma Laoban suggested a new place that he hadn't been to yet.
This place is near A Xia's shop, and in the baking sun we parked in the shadiest part of the car park, that barely covered the headlights. The restaurant was rather tastefully decorated and specialised in pizza, which wasn't something I was particularly aching for. However, we ordered a 12" cheese pizza and some ham and fruit salad that wasn't my idea. What I hadn't really realised was that we'd also ordered a steak and a portion of noodles too. The noodles were for Ma Laoban's wife, and she got three small bowls and shared it into three portions, then Ma Laoban chopped up his steak into chopstickable portions and we all shared that too. Then the "salad" arrived, which was a huge mound of reformulated diced ham, banana and some other stuff I couldn't recognise. It had an interesting taste and was actually quite nice, if filling. By now I was quite full, but a portion of six mini sausages wrapped in bacon arrived. I guessed we must have not ordered the pizza so bravely ate my two pigs in a blanket and had a sup of my beer.
Then, after a bit of shouting at the waitress, a 12" pizza appeared on our table, complete with three clear gloves like the ones you get at petrol stations for diesel. To be fair it looked ok, although they hadn't cut it properly. I forced myself to eat a slice, which had loads of cheese on it, using one hand in a glove and the other with chopsticks. Unfortunately the glove did not keep out the heat and I kept dropping it into my small bowl, thus disfiguring the shape of the pizza. Although the air-con was working fine I started to sweat now, but there was still three quarters of a pizza to go. We did laugh about how we were stuffed, but then Ma Laoban proceeded to pick up two slices together with his chopsticks and fold them over before putting in my bowl. Of course all the cheese in-between just fell out and went straight into the bottom of the bowl, and I had the choice of eating bread or cheese. I nibbled away at both but had no chance of getting through it. Ma Laoban served himself a slice in order to help me, but his wife wouldn't touch any more. Well we used the time to chat a lot as there was nothing else I could do, until eventually we decided to call it a lunch hour and bagged the last two slices of pizza and mostly uneaten "salad" and go back to his shop. They wouldn't let me pay (and it wasn't cheap - something like 250 kuai) even though I insisted that it was me who invited them....
I refused the invitation to drink tea at his shop, so we just chatted for the next half an hour before I let out a yawn I could hardly stifle, and made my excuses and way home where I had a small digestif before getting some kip. It was not a good sleep though as I kept waking up with heartburn. I don't think I'll be trying any more pizza this year in China.
I had 14 missed calls by the time I got up at 5.45pm. Six were from Yang Haiwei but his phone was busy so I next called A Wu who'd only tried four times. He was with Buss Hu at Hu's company and asked me to come down. I said I would as I'd called Boss Hu yesterday to see how he was. So I drove the seven minutes in the dian dong che, only slowed down by a couple of calls to "hurry up", and met up for a few more cuppas. A Wu had arranged to go to play badminton so I was prepared with my swimming shorts and a change of top. Boss Hu invited us and A Wu's family to eat with his family at a time of our choosing within the next couple of days, which was nice. But we had to leave to go to the leisure centre, so back on the dian dong che and up to the non air-conditioned courts. I kept score while A Wu played, and lost, to some other bloke I didn't know. Then I played the bloke and lost much worse. Then a short, rotund bloke appeared, who seemed to know A Wu and the other bloke, and I was asked to warm up with him. I like playing warm up because there are no scores and you're just hitting it nicely. But that lasted all of three minutes before he told me to "kai shi" (start). I was sopping wet from the previous game and warm up but started anyway. The only good thing about losing 21-6 is that it's not as long as losing 21-(6-x). But going against my better judgement I did play a second game and I did lose 21-8.
Even my portly opponent (who was as sprightly as a spring hare), did not request me to play again. I felt too tired and achy to sit down so slowly paced the circumference of the part of the hall that was not being used for the next few minutes while sipping through my bottle of water. My only break from this routing was to go and get a second bottle and sip through that too. After about ten slow laps I'd regained some consciousness but was glad to see that the others were getting ready to go. As if to seal this I went over to the counter and paid for the water and the court time. 20 kuai for an hour is very decent even for China, despite the lack of air-con. Looking on the positive side, the extra sweat produced was probably a good thing for tummies.
We were to go straightaway to eat duck, so I took the dian dong che while A Wu sorted himself out. A Ni was there with a friend, and I managed a few mouthfuls of duck breast and some lovely greens before A Wu turned up. I was in dire need of a shower so didn't wait for everyone to finish. They didn't seem to mind me leaving the table early.
Once showered for the second badminton reason of the day I went to Waipo's house to see the kids. I decided to take Leilei out by myself as Xixi was being taken out later. We went to a tea house opposite our place for a bit, and A Wu turned up too. As it was a tad boring we drove the 100 yards to the guangchang to go for a walk. I was charged 1 kuai for the privilege of parking the bike and nearly turned away to park on the other side of the road for free before deciding that would look a bit cheap.
Last year I don't think I ever visited the guangchang in the evening once, but it hasn't changed that much except to become even more popular with the locals for dancing, exercising etc. I got Leilei a helicopter type thing that you fling in the air and has a blue and red light on it that you can see as it hovers down. It cost 3 kuai, which I'm sure is three times more than two years ago.
We weren't that interested in the guangchang so I said we'd go down to the seafood place that I went to a lot over the last couple of years. The boss was there, happy as ever to see me and immediately grabbed a couple of stools for us and sat us down with some friends. A large bottle of lemonade was brought for Leilei and of course beer for the men. I had a quick gan bei with each of the five blokes, and a bite to eat, but as I was with Leilei, and he wasn't particularly interested, we only stayed 10 minutes before I promised to come back soon (hopefully they didn't think later that evening).
I took Leilei home and we got washed and ready for bed. It was nice to see him choose to do some reading himself (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) while I caught up on the news and the cricket. He fell asleep at 11 and I think I did so myself for a few minutes as I hit dreamland before realising I had stuff to do at 11.15.
Tan came home after having had a meal with all her friends in the Ming Dian hotel, and although I should have been more tired we didn't sleep till 3am in the end.
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