The art of not letting people know what is going on...

With Awl gone I now felt a bit more like the only gay in the village again. In fact, for possibly the first year ever, I haven't seen a single foreigner in Pingguo. Maybe Andge, Awl, and Venky scared them out.

I was forcing myself to stay in and doze for a bit when I got a phone call from Awl. He said he was still in Beijing but I could tell he was joking as he was calling from his UK number. But he actually was in Beijing and he was calling from his UK SIM as his Chinese credit had run out. Apparently the plane he was due to take was cancelled, and the replacement had to make an emergency landing in Russia and he needed to be in work in 14 hours. He asked if I could phone China Southern and find out what he could do as it was all a mess there. So first I bunged in some credit to his Chinese number, then called to see what we could sort out. There was nothing going to Europe from Beijing, so I asked what about Shanghai? Yes there was one to Amsterdam but the only flight to Shanghai was full and he could be put on the waiting list. In the end there was nothing to do but be sent to a hotel to wait till around 4am apparently.

Just the everyday scene of the crossroads outside our house. They stuck a traffic policeman in the middle but I don't think he's made a great difference.

By 3pm I'd barely eaten anything and called Uncle Yellow to ask when we were to go for "lunch", but he was still not sure. Haiwei then called me to see what was going on and I told him I'd be going to eat soon and did he want to come and he said yes. Then Uncle Yellow called back to say we'd be eating around 4pm now as he was working. Well actually I had work to do too so did so solidly until 5pm and decided to go to Waipo's for tea with the family. I didn't call Haiwei to let him know what was going on, or rather not going on, and realised that was quite a Chinese thing to do. Finally Uncle Yellow called and told me to come over to the cool cave when finished at Waipo's so it looked like a normal evening meal time rather than late lunch. So I called Haiwei and he said he'd pick me up after the meal he was currently having. But I got no call or lift so decided to just go to the cool cave, picking up Leilei on the way from having his hair cut with Chuan Chuan.

Many of the guys were there at the cool cave, but no Uncle Yellow. It would have been nice of him to tell me, but that's the way it often is. I didn't bother calling Haiwei back either, almost out of etiquette. Leilei and I stayed for a little while but we weren't really in the mood. Then Haiwei called and said we would go out for a meal tomorrow lunchtime. Then a tad later he called again to ask me to go for a couple of beers. I had a bit of a headache but don't have much time left here so used it as an excuse to depart and Leilei and I went to the guang chang for some bbq. Haiwei appeared a little inebriated already, and kept calling me "brother", telling me we'd eat at midday tomorrow in a way that made me unsure whether he'd remember or even be up at that time. Anyway, we stayed for 45 minutes during which time he told me he really wanted his son to learn English and go to a foreign university (not the only one) and would like me to help out of course.