Meal at Bak Sec Zhai's house

I woke up late at 9.30 with a bit of a head. But there was no time to worry about myself as Xixi had a temperature and wasn't looking her normal chirpy self. Normally we have tons of Calpol but this year we haven't brought any and Tan said she didn't trust the Chinese medicine. I did argue that it was only paracetamol and let Xixi have a couple of sips of my Lemsip.

I stayed with Xixi while Tan went out later in the morning and she eventually fell asleep holding me like a baby, and I managed to get some kip too until Tan came back to take her to Waipo's. She seemed a bit better and cooler after the rest. I went to A Wu's office where Tan and A Ni were drinking tea with A Wu's new secretary. I suspected a bit of jealousy as she is a rather pretty creature, and apparently she'd just finished her interview with A Wu with the girls in attendance. I suppose one of the important tasks is making tea and she seemed to manage that ok.

I'd been told we were going to Bak Sec Zhai's place overlooking the guangchang at 5.30pm but we didn't leave till 6pm. Although it would have taken under two minutes on foot we had to take the car. A Wu let me drive and it took me a little time to get used to the handbrake which was little more than a switch. It's also strange getting used to not trying to look out of the tiny slit at the back of the car that passes for a window and instead focus on the screen in the dashboard with a full colour picture of where you're driving together with projected trajectory based on how much you have turned the steering wheel. When we'd parked A Wu was concerned that we were close to an area of curb that had been lowered to allow bikes to gain access to the pavement, and that therefore it would be possible for such vehicles to scratch his car. So instead of moving somewhere else he just backed up the car even more to completely block off this entrance. I didn't try to argue.

I took it for a spin and it was remarkably easy to drive

Piggyback Chinese style on way to Bak Sec Zhai's

I greeted Bak Sec Zhai with a hug as we are quite good mates and I've known him for eight years or so. Leilei and A Da were also there but kept amused by the latter's ipad. I was asked to call and invite A Wu's elder sister's husband, Jie fu (literally elder sister's husband) who I also know well. So I did and asked him to come over straight away with his wife and he obliged almost as if he was expecting this.

The meal was all home made and mainly delicious, with his daughter and mother in attendance together with another friend, Jie fu and his wife, A Wu and A Ni, and the kids who barely ate anything. I was a little worried when Bak Sec Zhai produced a crate of beer and said no-one was going home before they were drunk. But I had a plan. I would use reverse psychology and actually drink quickly making him drunk and wanting to stop. Unfortunately it seemed he had the same plan and was also able to put it away with ease. So I had to change tactics half way through the meal and resort to playing cai ma as this normally slows me down. But A Wu challenged me and rather annoyingly won 80% of the time.

At one stage when the beer was flowing Bak Sec Zhai started talking about government officials and asked me if I wanted to be a politician. I didn't know where this came from so I opted to throw back the question to him. He said "no way" which was funny as I thought he already was. I then remembered the time in 2006 when I asked a question about politics at 2am to some drunken friends of A Wu's and they suddenly appeared to sober up in a second and say that they didn't talk about politics. So I used this to my advantage and in order to avoid possible embarrassment I said that we didn't talk about politics at meals and everyone seemed to heartily agree and have another round of gan bei. Lucky I didn't bring up religion....

I then learnt something new about Chinese drinking culture: you are not supposed to chink people's glasses holding yours in your left hand. I asked why and was told it was because it was awkward for the person on your left. Fair enough but what about, I asked, the person on your right? Oh it's ok to use the left hand for them. So it's not ok to use the left hand to chink the person on your left with your left hand but it is ok to chink the person on your right with your right hand. I realised I was looking in to things too deeply but was then told you should try to chink other people lower down on their glass than they do on yours. This makes for an interesting game when gan bei'ing as you try to chink them as low as possible before hitting the base of your glass on the table. Unfortunately while attempting this I managed to get my glass dirty by gan bei'ing above a dish of black pigs trotters or something similar. A Wu had a cheating way to "win" by using one hand to hold his opponent's arm up while chinking his glass. How come it took me 10 years to learn this? Luckily the boys had gone out with A Ni by now but we left around nineish anyway. At least Bak Sec Zhai got his way about no-one (no man at least) leaving sober.

We probably had some tea at A Wu's office to wile away some time before deciding to go to wash head. It was gone half 10 so I wasn't sure we'd find anywhere but of course we did and fell into that blissful 50 minutes I need to do more of here. They said we could have had longer if we'd come earlier but I wasn't complaining.

A bit sobererer, A Wu and I drove to some boss's office where we met Lu Wen for more beer and some bbq. A Wu left soon after midnight but they asked me to stay and I ended up getting a lift back after 1am in the boss's smart new Range Rover. Tan was asleep with Xixi so I didn't bother them and slept in Xixi's room and fell asleep just as England won the second game of the ashes.