Peel, teeth, beer

A Da woke me up at 10.47 after four hours and 42 mins sleep. He couldn't find his mum so I let Tan know and sent him her number before going back to sleep till 1.30. I loped about mostly after that. I played Tan at her own game of not eating during the day except I sneaked a cereal bar at 2ish. Then I had a few monkey nuts I hadn't finished during the game last night. I was horrified to feel rock hard stuff with the nuts, and see white stones coming from one of them, and then again in the next one. I spat out my mouthful into a bin bag before feeling my right back molar and realising it was part of that or a crown that had collapsed. I felt physically sick as I hate teeth, and I hate injections, and dentists are a combination of the two.

I mentioned the tooth thing eventually to Tan and she said it was fine I could go to the dentists by A Hua's place to sort it out. Not bloody likely! By hook or by crook I'll chomp on my left for the next week or however long it takes. It reminded me that the most difficult thing for me about living in mainland China would be dentists. Nothing else comes close. Imagine being paraded in the shop window without anaesthetics...it's like some sort of obscene porn!

Went to Waipo's for tea at 6ish and got the kids to eat too. I excused myself after gingerly eating some lovely aubergine and soft greens with rice on the left side of my mouth as I realised the monkey nuts were just about the only thing I'd had to eat all day. I went out as I realised I needed a tinkle on the old ivories so drove around to the last place I'd been to last month and found it open. I walked in and asked what time they closed: "We don't close in the evening, about 9pm we close". I should be used to these oxymoron sentences by now but they still cause me to wonder about the mentality of people here, and how anything gets done. But I had the information I needed, the place would be open for a couple of hours, so I popped home to pick up my music. I also remembered my Farah slacks that Tan bought me many months ago and that I would wear more were the pockets not as shallow as the beach at Fang Cheng Gang. I had talked to a seamstress in the market the other day and asked if she could lengthen the pockets and she said she'd have a look, so now would be my chance.

I discovered a new type of Li Quan beer - the gold one on the right is only 2.8%

I went to the market first but after some discussion it became clear that she wouldn't be able to do it. However, the woman next to her took on the challenge. It was a bit tricky to explain exactly what I wanted done as they were still asking questions after I had used hand signals to clearly confer what needed doing. I explained that when I sat down wearing these trousers my phone and money would fall out of my pocket. They kept saying the word "bu" that I couldn't understand other than it was a noun. Anyway, I left them there and will see what becomes of them tomorrow.

I was starting to get into my practice in the piano room when I got a knock on the door from the teacher. I was worried she was going to criticise me, or worse, offer me tuition. But she was just telling me the heavens had opened outside and did I want to bring the dian dong che in? I still have the plastic bag seat cover with the elastic so I ran out and used that to cover the seat after wiping it dry with her cloth. I wouldn't dream of dirtying her place with wet tyre tracks. I got a good hour in before Tan called to say I needed to pick up the kids as Chuan Chuan was going out.

So I did and they went with me to the supermarket to get a couple of things like a fruit knife and a straw cup for Emily. There I noticed I had skin virtually dropping off my forehead and the kids said it was disgusting. I realised the skin peeling was from the exposure to the sun and decided I needed to go for a head wash. Thankfully the kids agreed to come along so first we went home to drop off the stuff. As the lift opened another of my nemisi came out - I don't quite recall his name but he's been asking me for two years now to go for a beer, and I have said I would every time. This time I promised that as soon as I'd had a head wash I'd go to meet him at "er xiao".

At the local supermarket looking for things for Thomas and Emily

As I still wasn't feeling 100% I had a couple of slugs of medicine alcohol. I still don't know if this is genuinely medicinal or not but the shopkeepers say it is so who am I to argue? I haven't actually broached the question with Tan yet as I know what she will say, but she does believe in Chinese medicine somewhat so I'd be interested in asking her in the presence of a Chinese doctor, though that sounds like it would somehow end in an argument later at home that I could better do without.

The head wash place was ok as there was wifi so Leilei could get online on the iped and Xixi could do the same on my work phone. But the actual wash was not as comfortable as it normally would have been. The shampoo stung my raw forehead, and certain parts of my equally raw shoulders pained at the touch of the hands of the woman who just a week ago had me like putty. When asked if I wanted a massage, for the first time in 11 years I said, "no", and just went to pay the bill. Partly because of the pain and partly because I realised the sooner I went to see my friend the sooner I'd be back.

We drove down to Jiang Bing Lu and called him. By now it was 10.40 but he told me to meet him by the school gate. As luck would have it A Xia was driving past us as we turned around, with Tan in the car too. Also, Huang Xiaoyun shouted at us from the girls' favourite bbq place Tian Yang Po. The kids preferred to be with mama so I let them off as I drove next door to er xiao. My friend appeared and ushered me into the house of his big brother I think.

It was quite a humble abode, with various family members who introduced themselves as "second sister", "third sister" etc. Even the ladies gan bei'd with me, and I could see the men wanted me to catch up on the beer front. It was one of those random nights that makes me love to be here and able to communicate with the locals. One was an ex-schoolmate of Tan's, another an ex-colleague of Er Jie, and apparently related but that term is used loosely here.

Some of the family at the really nice meal I had at er xiao, close to Tian Yang Po's bbq

I ate some rather nice dried raw fish and some other stuff which for them was probably a delicacy, and really enjoyed it. Then, after I'd been there for an hour, an old man with silver hair and a broad grin ambled into the room and he was immediately poured a glass of white alcohol. He was evidently the big baba, and I had to do a couple of gan bei's with him. I found out he'd been on the white alcohol earlier and this was why he'd gone for a nap, but had just woken up and intended to continue. Well, I would have liked to too, but I was getting a bit full up from the food and fizz, so made my excuses to leave.

The old father awoke after a bai jiu-induced nap and continued on it

My friend said it wasn't a good idea to take the dian dong che after a few beers, and almost insisted on taking me in his car, bidding me to leave the bike there. I wanted to tell him that he'd been there much longer than me, and had imbibed the white stuff, which made him a much less safer bet on the road, but I held my breath and made some excuse that I needed the bike early tomorrow. So instead he said he'd drive and I could follow, which was pretty much the worst of both worlds, but sod it, he didn't accept my offer of taking the back of the dian dong che.

Back at our block, after out of eyeshot from my friend I stopped off at the place I'd been to yesterday to eat some greens. I remembered I'd promised I'd go there for a couple of beers when feeling better so thought I would fulfill this. I bought a six-pack of Li Quan and insisted on sharing it with a few blokes who came to sit around my table. Almost immediately I saw the somewhat familiar scene of one bloke leading a rather sozzled friend across the road after a night of too much. Strangely, they sat down at a neighbouring table where people were doing the Bangxu drinking ritual of putting a spoon in a bowl of white alcohol and feeding it to someone opposite. Then of course the drunk bloke joined in even though he should have been on the water. Well I never....

Tan was well home by the time I got back at 1ish, and not too happy about me having had a couple downstairs with those friends. I could have argued that it would have been impolite not to, as I'd promised yesterday, but I have been married too long to start engaging in such words. Xixi's room beckoned once again.