Aware of the table tennis tournament, I went to the Old People's Leisure Centre at 8.30, in time for the arrival of the visiting team. In fact they were from only 10 minutes away at the aluminium company. Many of the better players were deep in practice and I didn't get much chance to play until the competition began upstairs at some time past 9am. I hadn't been practising for more than 15 minutes when I felt a ping in my lower back and couldn't go on. I apologised to my opponent and limped upstairs to watch a bit of the competition. It was played in great spirits and the match I watched ebbed and flowed between our home man and the aluminium man. There were match points on both sides and lots of shouting and clapping until finally our man came back from match point down to win the fifth and final game 15-13. It was so exciting and I had a minor fantasy about representing Pingguo Old People's Leisure Centre in some future competition in a decade or so's time.
When I got home at soon after 10am and told Tan about my back she said I needed acupuncture. Such expressions of opinions provoke testing times in a relationship. I am very sceptical of the value of acupuncture, and especially the relationship between certain points of the body and how they relate to organs etc. But, I understand there may be some correlation between acupuncture and pain relief. I agreed to go but only because I had never done it before and no-one's died from acupuncture have they?
But first lunch. We went for noodles at a local place for only 5 kuai each and I realised that actually you can still eat really well for really cheap (and in an air conditioned place) here in Pingguo. During the meal I got a call from Li Kun, my friend since 2004, whom I'd been meaning to call for a couple of days. He'd seen me walk past a tea shop fromwherewithin he'd been drinking tea and we agreed to meet up for a few mins before acupuncture.
It was great to meet up with him again for a few minutes but I knew Tan was waiting for me so I told him we'd go for a couple of beers soon. Actually Tan had already gone to the acupuncture place and said she was waiting for me, so the other bloke who'd been drinking tea with me gave me a lift there. It should have been that simple but Tan's instructions were not quite as clear as I thought and although I was only 50 yards away A Xia came and picked me up and took me there.
I don't want to go into detail. I explained to the "doctor" that my lower back had been a bit bad for three months since I played badminton without stretching first, then today it took a turn for the worse after having played ping pong for 10 minutes (plus every morning all week). He nodded and said "ah" as doctors do, and bade me lie face down on a bed. According to Tan (as my medical knowledge extends only as far as diarrhoea) he reckoned my fifth vertebrae disc had moved or slipped or something.
For someone who vehemently dislikes needles I had no fear about acupuncture as 1) they don't inject you with anything, and 2) they only go like 1mm into your skin. But when this bloke took the first needle to me it bloody hurt! Like it was going in more than skin deep. My hands were as clammy as in a violently turbulent flight but I kept my noises to deep breathing...until the next one went in and my leg kicked backwards in reaction. I felt pain but tried so hard not to show it. "Only one more", he said, as if he could smell my fear. Ooh, my head pulled back as the third and final one went in. Now I just had to wait 15 minutes.
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| Looks fairly innocuous... |
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| ...until you see how deep they go! |
Well it felt more like a day and Tan and A Xia were plain laughing at me and my trouble all the time - it was genuinely amusing to them and they actually refused to believe I was in any pain. The only relief I got was when the "doctor" put some sort of wooden box over my lower back with some burning "medicine" whose heat actually made the pain subside somewhat. As that went on I felt him massage my lower legs and somehow determine a bit that correlated with my lower back. Hocus fucking pocus abracadabra bollocks, he dug deep with his finger till it hurt and asked me if it hurt and I said yes, and Tan said I'd need a needle there, so I retracted my statement and said it felt fine. Then he dug deeper until it bloody hurt and I still said it didn't but he had felt my bodily reaction and knew it did and stuck a bloody needle there. Then he moved to the left leg and I was adamant that nowhere would hurt, but not as adamant as he was that it needed a needle. In fact he said that a certain area on my left leg needed to have blood let out of it. It was at this stage when I told Tan, in English, that there was no fucking way I was going to go to Victorian England to have my blood let by this man, and in no uncertain terms. So he was left with only being able to stick another needle in.
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| Some sort of heating box that was comfortable |
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| Why the legs? |
I was not in a good mood but tried my best to understand where he was coming from. I did not try to put him down with questions about how acupuncture has worked in double-blind experiments. Such "doctors" will have to deal with these kind of questions in due course, but as he was wielding the needles I felt no need to antagonise him.
I'd asked Tan to take a couple of photos for the record. When I finally got the leg needles removed I had a look and was absolutely shocked to see how deep the first needles had gone into me. Into my spine. The "doctor" said I didn't need to come back tomorrow but the day after. I have no intention of ever walking in that place again. I paid 40 kuai for the experience and 40 for Tan who was just about to have something similar done. I wonder whether she will see this for what it is one day. I found it quite difficult to get on my feet and as I gingerly walked away I could still hear the ladies' laughter.
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| Cured |
It took me some time to get back home but I managed it on my own two feet via the supermarket and poured myself a strong G&T when got there. As much as I wanted and needed a siesta I had to book flights back to Europe for work on Monday. It's cost me £986 but I have the small "bonus" that I should be on the same flight as Awl coming back to China on the 13th August.
Boss Hu had invited us and A Wu's family out for an evening meal, which was nice of him. I count him as a good friend and in fact I introduced him to A Wu in 2010. We went to a restaurant I hadn't been to before and as soon as you entered you were thrown into Mao Ze Dung territory. It was quite fantastic with statues and great pictures of a former age that still manages to manifest itself in 2013. It was like a themed restaurant with all the staff dressed in army garb and the food was from a certain era and place I believe. For some reason Boss Hu ordered himself a bottle of red wine, while A Wu and I stuck to the beer. Hu also had his si ji with him who shared a couple of glasses.
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| Entrance to restaurant with A Wu |
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| Boss Hu, his driver, me, and A Wu |
I took a calculated risk by trying some of the fish that came part way through the meal. The other day at lunch with Haiwei I'd had some fish for the first time in a long time (apart from bbq fish), and had survived without a scorched anus. So I had some sort of confidence that my stomach was now ok with freshwater fish in Pingguo. 10 minutes after my first mouthful something below told me I was wrong. I excused myself and didn't even entertain the thought of a sit down toilet...I just needed a hole. There were two cubicles and although I could have run into the open one straight away I had the presence of mind to notice a toilet paper distributor outside, rather than inside the cubicles. Despite my sphincter's protestations, I spent a whole five seconds pulling more and more toilet paper in preparation. Once in the cubicle I noticed that the bolt did not marry up with the slot that was necessary to lock me in. Now I was in desperation but I wasn't going to drop my trousers without being locked in so I mustered up superhuman strength to raise the door until the bolt would lock, then undid my belt and everything else and crouched for the first time in 2013 and let the fish do its ugly work.
I was a new man when I got back to the private eating room and had a Mr Bean smugness that I'd taken enough toilet paper with me into the cubicle, so much so that I almost felt the need to show them I still had some left over. I gan bei'd with gusto and enjoyed the rest of the meal hugely.
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| Me, Tan, and a fu wu yuan in army garb |
Afterwards A Da and I picked up Leilei, who's needed a haircut since before we got here, and went to a place A Da knows. I ordered a hair wash and haircut for Leilei, then noticed they were doing "head washes" too, so got one for myself. It wasn't quite as professional as others in Pingguo but it was bloody good, and when we both finished the total came to only 31 kuai!
I took A Da and Leilei back home and they showered and A Da had a sleepover at ours. They were pretty well behaved and I'm really glad Leilei doesn't seem to have any problem with communication with his mates. Tan came back a few minutes later complaining of stinking of cigarettes - yes that's something that still happens here but you take the rough with the smooth. She seemed to take a bit of pity on my still bad back at least.
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