Today is Pingguo friend day. I've tried to find the origin of this festival but when A Wu explained that 1000 years ago three friends who ran neigbouring countries got together and somehow China ended up as the main one I had to wonder why that was related to Pingguo. I have a suspicion it's a more modern excuse to go out and eat and drink, though here you could call that any day of the week.
I needed to get some random things like a coffee mug and some house slippers that actually fit my size 43 feet, so went to the supermarket by the market on the bike. At the top of the escalator in the cool A/C I noticed things had changed...there were market-like stalls to greet me. So I walked on a bit further looking for the entrance of the supermarket, before realising it was basically no longer there, and the whole place had become an indoor market. No big deal, and probably a good thing for local traders, and at least I found a pair of size 42/43 slippers for 28 kuai.
We had our evening arranged; Yang Haiwei had invited us to his friend's house to eat, then we were to go to see Li Kun perform in his band in a bar at the stadium. Sounds simple. We were still without dian dong ches so the three of us walked to Haiwei's friend's which was about 15 minutes away. He'd sent a di zhi - basically a location, but it seemed to be in the middle of an apartment complex, so I gave him a call and he said he'd send his son down. We'd met him already this year so sort of knew what he looked like and indeed five minutes later we saw what looked like him appear outside the main gate. He wasn't looking at us though, so I walked over to about 6' away from him, swearing it must be him but not trusting my western eyesight 100%. I tried calling his phone twice but it wouldn't connect, and by now the boys were with me saying it must be him. Just as I was about to ask him and risk embarrassment he just told us to follow him into the complex. It was a really surreal experience. Or maybe the culture is that you wait for your elder to greet you first but surely we were the ones sticking out like sore thumbs?
The meal was like the other day with Haiwei except this house was new and had a tv the size of a minibus. Of course Haiwei was still cooking but there were a few people to talk to for the next 20 minutes until it was served. As is their wont the boys made their excuses after a decent time during which Leilei had at least communicated with some people. He didn't have any beer and Nezha only had a couple out of politeness. And later at 8.30 there was no problem with me leaving after a few ganbeis as it's quite expected to have double dates on such an occasion.
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| Friend day meal at Haiwei's friend's |
I showed the boys where to meet and they turned up before me but even when I got there there was no music. Li Kun said they'd wait till more people turned up. So we had a little food and drink with the people on our table and the boys did their disappearing act again. Then Xiao Nong and Ling Ming got in contact separately as they were both in the area. Ling Ming asked me to come upstairs to have a drink with him and some friends, so I was happy to do so while waiting for the music.
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| Wondering how strong the beer is |
But upstairs in the stadium I could see nothing that looked like a bar. Not wishing to give up I started walking round the stadium and asked if it was the north or south door and they said the former which was annoying as I'd started there. So I did the tour of the stadium first floor and when I came back to the stairs I'd still seen nothing. But I heard voices behind some nondescript white door and bothered to open it to see a room the size of a janitor's office if that, full with a single table and seven men and Xiao Nong, and an empty chair for Ling Ming who had gone out to look for me. Despite the relatively lowly surroundings we spent a fun best part of an hour there just chatting. Ling Ming and Xiao Nong I'm sure have been told to keep an eye on me but they were putting them back much quicker than me. And when I decided I'd better go back downstairs to where I'd been invited, Xiao Nong decided to come with me (presumably to check on me again) and continued to down the beers making me look slow.
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| Sharing a couple of beers with the guys in the janitor room |
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| Cock balls upstairs... |
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| ...and cock balls downstairs |
Well we stayed for a decent while and though I didn't know any of the songs they were pretty good. Poor Li Kun had just had an extraction so apparently couldn't drink anything more than tea but that didn't seem to dampen his spirits. I left around 11.30pm and the dian dong che was clearly on its last electric wheels.
But I got a ping from toast friend at gone 12.30am who said if I couldn't sleep come to join some friends in the bar we met Li Kun on the first night, so as I'm not going to be here forever I thought "why not?" for the umpteenth time already this month. I decided to trust the dian dong che and to my relief it just made it, the last 100 yards at barely walking pace. And yes I ended up there till 3am but I certainly did accept the offer of a didi che home then, and would have had the bike been fully charged.
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