Massage, Internet, and Beer

Got up at a reasonably late 10.30 and was moping around until A Wu called at 11.30 to remind me we were going to see A Da at his army camp this morning. I suddenly remembered and told him to wait 10 mins so I could get a shower. There was no rush, despite the "kuai dian"s; when I got outside our block he was waiting in his car and A Ni in hers - there were two more people who turned up five minutes later.

It was pouring with rain and continued till we got to the place at the foot of Horse Head mountain. The security guard let us in without any security check other than A Wu saying he was going to see his son. Once in the compound A Wu and I swapped places for some reason and I parked the car in a basketball court. We got out and saw a litter of puppies and one or two mother dogs, as if that was the most normal thing in the world to have in a military camp. Some bloke in a uniform came running to us with an umbrella, and A Wu told me not to take photos as it was a military place. Then A Da appeared in his military garb too, and A Wu proceeded to take photos of him and me and A Ni etc. We donated a present of 12 boxes of grapes, then had a few hugs with A Da, then drove off to have lunch of lamb on the bone.

Some dogs and a running soldier with an umbrella

Me, A Da, and A Wu

After lunch A Wu took me to a new massage place he'd been talking about, in an area of town that was barely developed this time last year. It was nice. A lady escorted me from the car with an umbrella as it was still raining stair rods and we went to the second floor. Except A Wu took an exception to the exceptionally clean room and we ended up going to the third floor instead. We changed into massage pyjamas and were told to lay down by the slightly burly ladies who would look after us.

In my massage threads pretending to be the same height as A Wu

I explained to mine about my back problem and she seemed to understand well. What ensued were some of the most painful moments I remember and some of the most comfortable. She pulled down my pyjama trousers so far that half my crack was showing, and I was glad I'd showered just a couple of hours previously. She used various oils that I don't know too much about except that they felt good when she wasn't applying too much pressure. She said I had "little stones" in my shoulders, and it was probably due to driving or using the computer too much, and she said she was kneading them out. I don't know why, they didn't seem to be doing me any harm.

When I turned over she then gave me a stomach massage. The other week the "doctor" had pushed my stomach a bit as part of his treatment and told me I had a healthy stomach. I was quite happy to hear that until he said it was because it was soft. I said it would be better to be firm but he disagreed. Oh well. Well this woman was not so much pushing as properly massaging, and getting rather close down below, and it felt quite nice. So it was quite a relief to open my eyes and quell any stirrings that might have been forthcoming had she been more becoming.

After the hour was up A Wu had stirred from his slumbers and wanted another half an hour. I was in no mood to protest so got a head, arm and leg massage for this bonus time. It's things like this I must take more advantage of while here.

Chuan Chuan then called to let me know the internet had been turned on at Waipo's house, so I said I'd go and get a wifi router and sort them out. I'd been looking at using an old Netgear router as such a device, and plugging it in to a basic modem, but after faffing about for more time that was worth it I decided I'd just pay whatever it took for a modern one that would just work. A Wu took me to Ma Laoban's place, and although he was away on business I found the router I wanted, and asked how much, expecting it to be 450 kuai but the woman said 120. Then A Wu came to the counter and told her he bought the same model recently for 80 kuai. I didn't bother trying to quibble - it's a decent bit of kit and gets through four thick walls in our flat with ease, something that wouldn't work in the UK.

A Wu dropped me off at Waipo's and I installed the router with surprisingly little fuss, plus cleaned up A Heng's laptop that was running like a dog. And that was it, everyone was back online again with the same SSID as for the last couple of years "meiguihua". My phone even remembered it and got back online. It felt like quite a relief. I felt a bit sad telling Waipo I couldn't stay for tea as I had to meet up with A Wu. By default we eat here at teatime but the majority of the time we're elsewhere.

A Wu had said he'd be drinking tea just outside Waipo's but when I rang him he told me to take a san lun che to the People's Hospital. Fair enough. I got there a few minutes later and called him and found out he was a couple of hundred yards away buying grapes. We were to go to a boss's house for a meal of course. It was only just gone 5pm so they had just started preparing the food. The owner of the house brought in a big fish hanging from a red cord, and held it down in the sink while about to bash it on the head with the blunt end of a cleaver. But his wife intervened, as he didn't look like he knew what he was doing too well. I wished she hadn't when I saw her use her hands to yank apart the gills and pull out some red stuff from within the fish, and then leave it there leaping in the sink. A quick bang to the head would have been cleaner wouldn't it?

I sat with a couple of the blokes drinking some red tea and engaging in difficult conversation when A Wu said he was going for "poo poo". An hour later we were getting ready to eat and he still wasn't around. I discovered that my phone had run out of money when I tried to call him. It was nearly 7pm by the time we started eating and we didn't wait for A Wu. He turned up about 20 minutes later though, at about the time the beer did - two crates of cold, and one of room temperature. I prefer cold but others prefer room, or a mix of both as they can drink it faster.

We had quite an interesting conversation about how some words were different here down south, like we say "fan qie" for tomato but up north it's "xi hong si", and more importantly we say "dong" when meaning cold, as in "cold beer", but up north it's the more normal "bing". The strange one, but most useful, was that here we frequently say "bu dong" to mean "don't know", whereas elsewhere "bu dong" means "don't understand" - this is quite a different meaning and I'm glad I know about it now to avoid looking foolish in the future (although there are plenty of other ways to look foolish).

We were served a pack of six cans of beer each, and told they were ours to finish, before we could even start cai ma. There were times when someone would try to pour some of their can into mine, but I quickly cottoned on, and tried the same trick to others. It was a game in itself and kept you looking at your glass. Unfortunately the glasses were huge by local standards - a full half a can filled one up - so I was starting to feel the 3.1% effect but also so was my bladder so I got up to excuse myself.

After the wee I didn't fancy sitting down to more beer just yet, so I went downstairs and popped my head out of the front door to see if there were any shops nearby to charge up my phone's account. It was as if I'd done it on purpose, but the door blew shut behind me and I was locked out in the street with no means of electronic communication.

I could easily have rung the doorbell but thought I'd explore just a few minutes to find a China Mobile place. It took over 10 minutes in the end but I found one and stuck in 100 kuai. It had been a nice, peaceful 10 minutes not being called by A Wu or Tan or anyone else, and perhaps because they'd tried, and found my phone was off the network they hadn't continued trying as my walk back was just as peaceful. I noticed that it had stopped raining for the first time today too. My too-brief sojourn over, I called A Wu from the front door and he came down to open it, and when I got back to the table all the blokes feigned indignation over my disappearance, so I jokingly said A Wu took 90 minutes to do a poo, and they all, including A Wu, saw the funny side and we gan bei'd yet again.

A Ni arrived to find some drunken men with big glasses

A Ni and a friend or two turned up but by that time we'd gone passed the six cans and were on to cai ma. Eventually the meal ended and I went with A Wu to "sing song". I don't know quite how but somehow we ended up at a crossroads where a minor accident had occurred and both cars were still sitting there in the middle. It seemed as though we knew one of the owners of the cars and we stood at the side under the shelter of a shop (for it had started raining again) and just talked. I got a bit bored so wandered off no more than 20' before being invited into another shop where some young blokes were eating and drinking beer, with a solitary lady at the table. So of course I sat down with them and did a couple of gan bei's and cai ma and had a laugh for five minutes until A Wu came to say we were off.

The policeman took about 50 pictures from all angles but at least he had an umbrella

I made some new friends while waiting for A Wu

We went to the new KTV by the new cinema near A Xia's shop. I didn't know many of the people there so had to do a few more gan bei's and had more than enough Dutch courage to sing the usual three songs I do, at less than on-key. I realised that staying in the room would mean more drinking so I used my toilet excuse and left for a wander. I wandered up and down and somehow into another room where there were a couple of blokes and women and it wasn't quite as smoky as the others. More gan bei's ensued and I felt I was out of the frying pan, but into a slightly smaller frying pan that had more oil in it. I managed to leave and find my original room with A Wu and they greeted me like a long lost friend which meant more gan bei's so my plan sort of backfired.

Lord knows what time we left but we found ourselves in some covered eatery later with some other blokes, ordering cooked, chilli oysters, as I'd had at Luwen's place for the World Cup final. Tan says I shouldn't eat seafood and drink beer as it gives you la du but she wasn't there and I had some. Somehow I had the self-awareness to make my excuses and leave the table and walk home and A Wu didn't even try to drag me back to drive me as I was quite insistent I was tired. Xixi's bed awaited me again.