Meal with legal boss then disco at my age?

Ah, just a nice relaxing and fun day in the house without any stress of work. At 5.30pm I realised I needed to call China Southern as I was due to take a flight tomorrow at 8am from Nanning due to them cancelling my flight planned for the early evening. So I called them on the five-digit number I’d been given at the airport a week ago and I got a response that thankfully gave me the option of English. I got through to a bloke and I explained that the cancellation of my flight tomorrow was very inconvenient, and that I wanted to take the equivalent flight next week. To my surprise he was understanding and gave me the options which indeed included my original plan, but put back one week, for no extra charge. I booked it there and then, but when I gave my passport details I made sure to say it both in Mandarin and English...in the former there is much less chance for getting it wrong. But basically I had “enforced” another week in Pingguo for me. I was told that if I wanted to make another change it would cost me though….

I let my PM know and he didn’t seem to be so happy mainly because it was a “change of plan”, and PMs don’t like that. But I explained I’d be able to communicate with my Thai colleagues far more efficiently in this way as I’d be in their time zone. It made total sense in every way, and he was forced to accept this.

Zhang Hongping then IM’d me to go for dinner and fortunately I had no plans so thought why not? He pinged me to meet him by the guang chang and eventually after a couple of calls I found him by the roller skating place Xixi and I frequented earlier this year. I saw the purple pair of skates she used most times and it made me feel really sad she wasn’t with me this time.

About to go to the guang chang

Xixi's purple boots in the middle...I sent the pic to her and she missed them too

But there was not much time for sadness as a car rolled up and we got in with another bloke. Apparently we were to go 10km to somewhere to eat then I guessed it was the Pingguo Aluminium place I’d been to a few times before but not recently. It’s not as far as 10km but maybe they were trying to impress. Anyway it was a Didi che, the Chinese equivalent of Uber and as cheap as a san lun che.

We arrived at a normal looking place and of course went straight to a private room. There was some legal boss there who appeared to be the host, and as I arrived he gave me his business card made of some shiny silver card with Chinese on one side and some sort of English on the other. He got out two bottles of white alcohol but I politely refused and no offence was taken as a crate of beer was ordered. The meal started but after half an hour a bloke and two women turned up and I recognised the pretty one as having been with Hongping a couple of days earlier, and it was clear that not only had they already had something to imbibe, but they’d already eaten too.

Where we ate

Legal boss on right, he put away a few glasses

The legal boss insisted on drinking a mouthful every minute, and  the predictable happened as he eventually flaked out in his chair. I was able to keep the conversation going and the woman named Si next to me for some reason thought I was intelligent because I could work out what she was going to say before she said it.

I suppose I am getting used to seeing this sort of thing in the toilet...

A bit later a Didi che was ordered and five of us got in, not the legal boss, whom I guess was based in that area. I said I had a bit of business to attend to and they said “ok” but I was to meet them again a bit later. As good as my word I did indeed ping Zhang Hongping a bit later and he bade me to come to some place that was just a few mates in someone’s shop. This was perfect - no hassle just good-will and beer. And there was a catwoman-like woman too who was literally dressed like her but also a bit scary. I tried not to pay attention to her and to be cool and I think it worked as she didn’t stay too long. There was a large aunty who was in high spirits and made me play a few rounds of cai ma with various people I apparently had met before, before some of them said they were going dancing. Dancing? It was gone 1.30am so I was having none of it, and told them I was a little tired. So after a few more gan beis they let me go.

Back home it was 2am and Si then sent me a message telling me to come over to some place really close to our house by the guangchang. I pretended I’d already showered but curiosity got the better of me and I ended up going anyway. As I arrived I could tell it really was a loud disco. I parked the bike and IM’d Si and she thankfully came out to find me. We had to go through security a bit like an airport except the buzzer went off and no-one searched me.

What ensued was just too loud and too young for me to really appreciate, but I stayed a good hour and a half. Jeez I’ve not danced in a long time and it sobered me up despite the beer that was plied into me. But I’m white and over 30 so I should be aware of that. At least here it didn’t feel so embarrassing. It wasn’t hard to sleep at 4am….