Industrial tour and meal with Teacher Ling

As I was about to get lunch, Tan's secondary school teacher, Ling, called me to confirm tonight's meal at 6pm, and to take me out to "zhuan yi zhuan", meaning to look around I think. So he turned up in his 4x4. After buying a few bottles of baijiu we drove to his stone factory in the north of the city and he was explaining about his work, talking about how the board of directors selected the CEO etc. It was a lot of new vocab for me but this time may actually be useful. I mentioned I had a friend who was also a boss of a stone factory and gave A Wu's whole name, Li Junwu, and Ling said he thought he knew him. So I called A Wu and explained who I was with then handed the phone to Ling and they spoke for a minute or so in the local lingo before he put the phone down and apologised for speaking tu hua and said yes, he knew him, but no more info.

One of Ling's mountains

We then drove down south to around the aluminium place where Ling was pointing out this factory and that factory, before driving into one where they were making industrial bags. He motioned to a bloke to close a large door, then told me that bloke was deaf, and I realised he was also the boss of this place. We then drove on to the electricity generation plant, where they use gas to generate electricity just for this industrial area. I was told that this was the "heavy industry" place and where we'd just been was the "light industry" place.

He continued to talk like this, giving me information all the while for about 2 hours, which by the end was quite tiring but satisfying too to be learning not just more Chinese, but stuff about the place I call my second home now. I sometimes get this level of information from Yang Haiwei but not for so long. On the way back we passed Haiwei's new work place and of course Ling knew about it too. Then back in town we stopped off to drink some tea at an alcohol shop for about 40 minutes before he said he needed to prepare something before our meal in 2 hours.

So 2 hours to chill in an air conditioned bedroom as the daylight heat hasn't let up since it stopped raining 2 weeks ago. Well, at least for a few minutes as I'd promised I'd go and find some sun cream for the boys since Jiuma has appropriated what we brought with us. And it was a bit of an excuse to get on the dian dong che again. £4 for a tiny bottle was a bit steep but if it does the job I suppose it's worth it. Strangely, by 6pm Ling hadn't yet rung, as most of my other friends would have, but 7 minutes later he said he was waiting outside. He drove the three of us to an interesting place by the river that I'd never seen before, with a lush garden and outside dining. We walked in and to my surprise they had fresh beer on tap, including Goose IPA and Hoegaarden.

Nice selection of beers

We were told we could have whatever we wanted so the boys chose an ice lolly each and I said I'd stick with the local Li Quan for the meal. The meal was of course in a private room, and comprised some fabulous dishes including the softest baked chicken I've ever had in Pingguo and delicious thin slices of pork that was gone in minutes. Nezha noted the way they leave the head of the chicken on the plate, something I would have probably noticed during my first time in China too but is one of those things that has just become normal now. He asked me to tell Ling that this was the best meal he'd had so far in China, which I did and agreed with him.

Best meal so far

For drink, I was the only one on beer as Ling, his son, and other men of his son's age were all on the baijiu. I know it's a cultural and a business thing but it's one step beyond where I'm willing to go in this context. The boys asked for Coke and for some reason, despite all the foreign beer, there was no Coke in the place so they had to settle for lemonade, so hopefully they don't really have a taste for beer. A few minutes after a customary toast, I was the first person to stand up, then walk over to Ling's son and offer him a one-to-one toast, which was gladly accepted. This triggered other people to do the same and after a good half an hour I was starting to feel quite full.

The only other person older than early thirties was Ling's friend Lu, who was also a boss of course. He asked which bosses I knew in Pingguo and of course he knew A Wu and Yang Haiwei and showed me them in his phone, then called A Wu as if to confirm. A bit later we descended into cai ma and a few of the blokes converted to drinking beer as it's more practical for such silliness. Unlike seven years ago, Ling didn't fall asleep after drinking his baijiu, maybe because he has diabetes he doesn't drink so much now. But he was sensible enough to order a driver to come on an electric scooter to drive us home. Except the younger chaps and myself would go to a bbq place just across the road from our complex.

Well I thought I was full, but the beautiful fried fish just kept beckoning me. We played mo pai for a short while and I started to get the hang of the game a little but I still need to find official rules. Although it's quite possible this is a regional variation. Well I managed not to drink for a while, then, as is quite normal, four young ladies turned up, three of them smokers, and continued to mo pai with us and I started to lose and have to drink again. Then someone mentioned "shaizi" - ah yes that dice game I played with Chen Mei many years ago. I'd be happy to play that again. It took a couple of minutes for my brain to recall the rules but after a couple of rounds I was having quite the laugh, bluffing and counter-bluffing.

That went on till midnight when we decided to call it a night. Except one of them didn't and sent me their location on the other side of town near the river. I had another "why not?" moment as I now had a vehicle I was confident would get me there and back, and ended up having yet another bbq treat till nearly 2am.