Mafia meal

Managed to get up lateish again and yet again do no sports. Lunchtime wasn't too far away so got some more jiao zi and bao zi from the local shop before Leilei and his mates came around to play on the Wii again. That was fine and enabled me to geek about a bit as one does, before A Wu called to ask me to play badminton at 4pm after he'd had a kip. That sounded good to me after having missed out this morning. He also said we'd be having a meal with "friends" at 5.30pm.

At 3.45pm A Wu called to tell me to hurry downstairs to meet him and he would take me to badminton. The dian dong che was running low on battery but I wanted to use up more juice so that charging it up would be more effective overnight, so I drove it the one minute to the front of our building to meet A Wu. It was still raining but I'd found a sou'wester under the seat so put that over it while I jumped in to A Wu's car for the 30 second journey to the badminton place.

Pingguo Olympics about to start

After virtually no warmup I played A Wu and this time only lost 21-15. I am hopeful that I will have beaten him and his new-found skills by the time we have to leave. After a little break, not quite so knackered as usual, I played some practice shots with one of the blokes I have been playing with in the morning in the guangchang recently, who happened to be there. After a while, some teenagers who were also there, and cheering me one, asked to play with us. So we ended up playing three games of doubles, swapping partners each time. It was incredibly good fun, and smiles were abundant! I may have only won one of the games but I didn't feel that tired - doubles is four times less tiring than singles for sure. After the matches we swapped QQ numbers and the teenagers promised they'd send some of the many photos they'd taken of this sweaty foreigner....

A convenient place to have a nap while daddy`s working (or playing pool on the pc)

Although it was getting on for 5.30pm A Wu was still playing badminton. I told him I'd go home for a shower so he said ok. That sounded a bit weird for someone who's normally at meals before time. He rang me a bit later to pick me up at nearly 6pm and we proceeded to go to his place where he changed clothes and had a shower himself. During this time I found a young couple wrestling with a couple of beds they had just taken home on a san lun che. I jumped out of the car to help them and they really appreciated me getting their beds into what appeared to be their new home. Even A Wu's driver got out of the car to help them with the second bed. It was just a few minutes of my effort but I had a small warm glow about having unnecessarily done some good.

Tan called to ask where we were and for once I could lay the blame squarely on someone else. We waltzed in at 6.30pm with a huge table resplendent with lovely nosh, and everyone started eating as our bottoms found our seats. I didn't know most of the blokes. But Lu Wen was there, and I apologised for not having gone out with him the other day, due to my run-of-the-mill excuse of diaorrhea. His new wife was also there, six months preggars - that's one way to have more than one child I suppose. Tan (other than the new wife and A Ni, one of only three women there) said that most of the blokes were mafia. I wasn't going to ask them directly but they seemed reasonably friendly and after eating we dissolved into typical gan bei's and cai ma. Feigning drunkenness, I said I'd need to leave and got a lift with a number of the blokes to a new coffee place that had just opened today - apparently that meant the drinks were free.

Another nice meal with friends

A Wu showing off his seatbelt things to stop the warning sounds when not wearing them

For the first time in a couple of years I actually did drink coffee as I was knackered and I didn't want to have more booze. It was quite nice actually, with milk. A few more people came around, then an hour later so did Tan with Xixi and most of the other ladies. Wine was produced, which was decanted into a wide based bottle and then shaken around in a manner that French people would request the death penalty be brought back for. I had a couple but then took Xixi to go home. But we were barely one minute out of the coffee place when A Wu's driver found us and said he'd take us back. Fair enough, but I'd promised to meet Lu Wen by the guangchang to eat some dog before going home.

As it was, with a four year old who is a bit tired at getting on for midnight I did not have to do too many gan bei's, and after a few mouthfuls of dog was able to say our goodbyes and get home for a shower and a sleep, but not before I got my first glimpse of non-football Olympics by watching some of the table tennis. Brazil vs Poland was actually Japan vs China, judging by the names, but how could I possible deride this? If foreigners were to judge English/GB team members by their names and/or colour they could say exactly the same thing. I wonder how multiculturally diverse some countries will become in the future, and what that will mean when countries with similar diversities play each other in sports. What will it mean if Germany beats Poland in table tennis if all players from both countries are ethnically Chinese for example? I'm secretly hoping that Leilei will turn out to be great at table tennis and represent GB in a future Olympics as he'd have a better chance of making the team. But at the same time, if he's good at football he could represent China and have a better chance of making the team there.