I decided to put up our picture that would never make it to the UK. I called Ling Ming to ask about a drill and funny enough he had one at his ladies' clothes shop, so I popped around to pick it up. He mentioned a word that could only mean rawl plug, and I mentioned I didn't have any, and then he somewhat needlessly mentioned that there were some in the drill box. But he did mention if I needed more stuff like that it should be in the kitchen. With the help of the drill and a nearly-correct bit I got a reasonably-sized hole in the wall next to where the cross stitch had been taken down, above the dining table. Then, after checking with Tan I drilled a couple of holes above the tv area, but not before downloading a spirit level app to make sure it was level first. Technology.
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| The family photo taking pride of place above the dining table |
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| Tan originally wanted the family photo here but I didn't like the idea of being looked at by myself while watching Man City play |
A Wu had said that we were going to an important meal tonight, and I should call Tan to tell her to come too. It was important because it was "family", and we were to take some of A Wu's collection of foreign booze to actually drink there. I really wasn't feeling physically up to it as I still had a bad head and achy body, but I didn't want to let anyone down so went to his office at 6pm to help him select the bottles. He ended up taking a 15 year-old Glenfiddich and a "special anniversary" bottle of the same brand, as I advised him to keep the 19 year old in the office. For good measure, he also took a bottle of tequila. I was rather worried.
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| A Ni and Tan dressed up and ready to go for the meal |
At the meal A Ni and Tan were the only ladies, and the gents were not family at all, but fairly high-up "friends". I explained that the best way to drink single malt whisky was to add some water and/or ice to bring out the taste. This was done but everyone complained that it tasted better neat. Oh well, these are the people that down cold red wine with ice cubes and slices of lemon, or mix it with lemonade, so I should have expected this. The litre bottle went down rather quickly due to some culturally insensitive gan bei'ing. I couldn't really do anything about it, but saved a shot's worth in my tea mug and had little sips to help counter the germs in my tonsils. I had a few beers with the bloke to my right who was the only other person not doing whisky apart from the girls.
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| Please don't gan bei the whisky, please don't gan bei the whi...oh dear |
The second "anniversary" bottle was really nice and peaty, and I learnt a new word: "ni tan" (peat). I tried to explain this to them but I might as well have invented a new word for all they cared - it was straight into neat gan bei'ing again and I looked up to the whisky gods and uttered a little prayer of apology even though I'm not into the drink. I did snatch myself a bit of the peaty one in my tea mug again though as the flavour was fascinating and deserved to be appreciated with small sips over time. This bottle went down pretty quickly too so A Wu opened the tequila. I had explained a few times how to do tequila slammers, and said he could order some lemonade, salt, and lemons, but when the others saw the new bottle it was snatched and poured and gan bei'd in a raucous manner and I lost any hope of that.
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| The only two upstanding citizens at the meal |
Tan and A Ni had had to do a few gan beis of beer too. A Ni is quite accustomed to this and has a larger body mass, but Tan got flushed quite quickly. Luckily she knows her limits so after gan bei'ing everyone (except A Ni and me) once, went on to A Ni's medicinal tea. I think she also noticed how remarkably and sensibly sober I was, though I wouldn't have minded taking a little of the "anniversary" Glenfiddich back for a night cap. By the end of the meal one of the blokes had his head in his arms leaning on the table, and it took some time to get him up.
We then all went back to A Wu's office for some tea, but as I wasn't feeling great I went pretty much straight home. Half an hour later Tan called me to say she was coming back as they'd moved on to red wine, even the comatosed bloke. I can't imagine what sort of hangovers they are going to have - Pingguo's darndest I should think. As for us we had a nice, early night and no regrets about not joining in with the shenanigans.
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