My new guitar and unexpected meal with singing

Oh it was horrid without A/C. I woke up early but still managed a bit more dripping sleep.

Tan called a bloke about electricity and he said he’d come at 12.10 which was in 20 mins so I stayed in rather than go to get lunch, which was horrible DFC delivered for the kids as Tan was about to go out.

The electric bloke arrived and quickly determined that one of the electric switches was not working as it was too hot. He removed the surrounding plastic of the main fuse box to expose a load of wires but didn’t turn off the mains (if that was even an option). Then he tested all the main switches and did some other tests before stating that something was wrong with the water heater. He left, then came back 15 mins later, Tan was by this time gone so I was all by my own trying to understand something quite important. He showed me that when he stuck one end of a voltmeter(?) In the socket and one on a tap there was virtually nothing but when he stuck the other end on the actual water boiler it went to 256 (volts?). Then he said it was dangerous and we shouldn’t take a shower near it when it’s on yi fan wan yi (just in case). Then he said something about safety first, which I understood and appreciated, but was still mindful about his working with the mains without turning them off first.

The one on the left was buggered apparently...cost us three nights' sleep without A/C and saved us probably a quid of leccy

Disgusting DFC again - I will not touch it

As we were talking he mentioned something about Yang Shuo and Guilin, and I belatedly realised he’d turned the conversation to where to visit on holiday, which was slightly weird. Anyway the work cost 80 kuai and I gave him 100 and he tried to send me the change via WeChat, and although I told him it wouldn’t work he insisted. So now I have a useless red envelope that will expire soon. I have read that it’s possible to get a Chinese bank account on a tourist visa - it’s just that it may take several attempts. I should at least give it a go, then I could pay like a local.

So, with a semi-fix for the electricity we now were able to turn on three or more A/C units at a time but we should not leave the water boiler on when it was not necessary...well we could live with that.

Next I planned to take the kids to meet up with Li Kun. I’d decided I wanted to upgrade my rather crappy guitar I’d had for nearly 11 years here so went to the guitar teacher’s place by the stadium we’d gone to on our first day here.

Li Kun insisted on giving us a lift in his white 4x4 though, which given the now searing heat actually seemed like a better idea. We broke into a sweat just walking to his car, and from it to the guitar place. Once there he brought out a selection of guitars as if he owned the place and gave them to me one at a time, as if I could actually value them in a glance. I did make the time to tune them up and pluck a little, but didn’t have enough of it to check each fret for each string. He told me this one was 2600 kuai and it was really good and I told him I was here for a few weeks each year and wasn’t going to frivolously spend £300 just like that. The last one he brought out was a dark shade of green, but it played nicely and the action wasn’t too high unlike some of the others. I took a bit of a liking to it despite its colour, then when he told me it was 680 kuai I pretty much made my decision on the spot. It had the hole for an amp, which I’d been told was necessary (did that mean I was expected to play??) and it just felt and sounded nice.

I told him I wanted the green one and I had the slight feeling he would have preferred me to take the expensive one, but I explained what I saved could go towards other things, and I think he got it. It was a Chinese brand hence the price but I think they all were really. Next he got out a cable and plugged me into an amp and then shoved a microphone in front of my gob. I wouldn’t have minded late at night after a few beers but we’d just barged in the guitar teacher’s shop and disturbed him teaching three young students, and now I had to perform. Well I couldn’t not really, so grabbed a capo (which was included in the price) and banged out Sounds of Silence for the first time soberly in front of people in Pingguo - and they seemed to appreciate it as they asked for more…. So I thought I’d give my fingers a bigger test and let out a couple of verses of Bleecker Street, which guitar teacher appeared to appreciate more than Li Kun as it is rather more complicated than SoS. Li Kun managed to arrange a new case for the guitar as well, but it would be delivered in a couple of days so I took an old one for the purposes of getting it home.

But we didn’t go straight home. For some reason I’d told Li Kun I missed playing the piano, which is very true when I come here even though in previous years I’ve managed to find piano schools and have a little practice now and again. So now, keeping in the musical theme, and rather to the chagrin of the kids, he drove us to the music shop of the keyboard player of his band. Once there I was tempted to have a go on the electric piano, but he seemed to think I would prefer the real piano. Most times I would have done but Pingguo pianos have never been in tune in my experience. In this case it was certainly not in tune but so much better than any other one. I went through some of my Scott Joplin repertoire, knowing full well that no-one had heard any before, and got polite applause from all except my kids, who had started bashing about on the electric piano rather rudely.

I liked it more than I showed...gosh if I lived here I'd definitely get an electric one to wile away the evenings that I wasn't out

My lovely new guitar with my old one which has served me well over the last 11 years (the clothing in the background is the teeshirt Li Kun's group wears - it's as if I'm a semi-member)

Well, it had been a productive afternoon for me, but not so much for the kids, so when we got back I forced Leilei to do some maths homework that he really didn’t want to, and as I had two guitars now, helped Xixi to learn G, C, and D chords on the old one. To be fair she did ok, having had her callouses developed by violin playing over the last couple of years, though it was a bit of a stretch, being full-sized. She took it away and practised in her room, and I didn’t try to force it too much. If you want to learn a musical instrument that’s the point - it should be because you want to. I would be ok with her stopping the violin if she really put an effort into another instrument.

As teatime came around we were rather lazy as Tan was out so I made the kids convenient noodles. I suppose we would call them instant noodles but I prefer the literal translation. I didn’t have any though as I’ve had enough carbs from weak beer, but I realised I’d had no lunch either so I forced myself to have a couple of really light, salty biscuits, the size of those rich tea fingers, before we went to the guangchang again but this time at 7.15pm when it was still quite light.

We went to the basketball area first for Leilei to try out the ball we got him the other day and he was sort of forced to join in with a couple of other people as there were only two hoops, then 20 minutes later we were back at the rollerskating area and Xixi had another 5 kuai to spend on hiring a pair. This time Leilei had brought his skateboard, that he’d brought from UK, so they were both on wheels for a good hour or so and I learnt two new words - liu bing for roller skates, and hua ban for skateboard.

While they were skating I got an IM from a contact in WeChat, but wasn’t really sure who they were. They said they’d invite me to eat in a few days. Fair enough - that seemed jolly nice and I responded as such. Then a couple of minutes later I got a video call to go for a drink with them and some colleagues now. It was a woman who was apparently an ex-colleague of Tan’s and I guess we’d met a year or so ago. I told them I was with the kids and I’d be an hour or so and that seemed ok.

At about 9pm we went straight from the guangchang to the location they’d sent on WeChat. Sometimes locations are not that accurate and indeed this was one of those cases. So when we were off the bike I called them and within a minute someone was outside shouting to us to come over. It appeared that it was a woman from Bangxu with about 14 other friends, mostly other women. As the three of us entered we received a cheer - just for being white (or half-white), which is a bit like positive racism. I guess being on the receiving end of that is literally the opposite of being on the receiving end of “normal” racism.

They proceeded to order food we didn’t want, and beer I did, as the alternative was red wine. The main bloke of the party then stood up and sang a song and which made everyone laugh (except for my kids), and all in all it was a very jovial time. Very random, very silly, and very funny, especially when I gave them my well-rehearsed one-liner - “I fear nothing in the sky, nothing on the ground, I only fear my wife speaking Bangxu language” which put them in fits of laughter. I’ll probably never understand 100% why it’s so funny….

This bloke was the life and soul of the party

We had to make our excuses and leave by around 9.45pm as Haiwei had invited me to his office to talk with his eldest son in English, but I first left Leilei at home as he was tired. Xixi though was hungry and wanted jiu gui yumi, which is a lovely fried sweetcorn dish, so we took the bike to Zhou Laoban’s place, where we bumped into him and some mates having a meal so I was obliged to have a couple of glasses while they did the yumi. Then on the way back we bumped into Zhang Hongping, whom I hadn’t seen for years so gave him a hug, and told him to call my phone so we could meet up soon. I honestly thought he had died six or seven years ago as contact had stopped abruptly between us. Then I finally got Xixi home and left her as Tan was back, and finally went for for a couple of beers with Haiwei, strangely drunken out of champagne glasses, and I think he was happy as I did speak with his son in English for a while.

Back home I should have slept but for the same reason that always happens here I didn’t. 5am swung around and I decided sod it I’d stay up till 6 and go for a jog, but that was the last conscious thought I had.