With no funeral to attend, or rather with a funeral not to attend, I got up at 11am and heard a Weixin message from A Hua asking if Tan was back yet (no) and would we like to go to a mango farm (yes for me, no for the boys). I asked when and she said "from 2 to 3pm". For some stupid reason I thought it meant we were to go there for an hour.
At 1.50pm I got a message saying she had arrived at our complex's main entrance, but I was prepared for such earliness and went out to meet her telling the boys to sort themselves out. But she wasn't there, and it dawned on me maybe she was at the other entrance so I called her and indeed she was. But she knew where we were staying surely? And why did she ask me to send a location? Anyway a minute later a car came round and I heard a shouting of "Xiao Peng!" and saw a face I half-recognised from the rear window. I climbed in the front and found there were four women already there (including the driver), not one of which was A Hua to the best of my knowledge unless she had dramatically lost weight and had a face job.
Well we drove and we talked. And talked and talked. And when we arrived at the green traffic light where they sell dian dong ches the driver stopped. I politely asked her if in China it was customary to stop at a green light and she laughed and said they were so busy chatting she hadn't noticed it was green. I wasn't annoyed in the slightest, just slightly concerned for the rest of the journey.
We then continued to drive, very safely, for the next 45 minutes or so and it looked like we were going to Tian Dong but that would have meant taking the motorway. Instead we took the local road, and experienced being overtaken on the left hand side and right hand side at the same time on more than one occasion. Normally by lorries on the left. But the driver, Pan, kept going at a reasonable speed and I was enormously grateful. From experience, driving on Chinese roads outside of Pingguo is literally the most dangerous time in this country, as in closest to death. For this reason I'd brought a bottle of cola laced with something naughty, but had no need to imbibe any Dutchness for this journey.
We turned off the road at Silin Zhen and took a tiny road for a few more minutes before stopping at a tiny village called Luyang. It was getting on for 3pm and the hottest part of another scorcher so we walked across a dike to a farmhouse outside of which were buckets and buckets of mangoes of varying ripeness. We met the mango boss bloke, and then I came to understand that the driver was the one who sold the mangoes to the rest of China, while this bloke was responsible for growing them. So it seemed this trip was a bit of a business inspection, and the other three ladies? I'm not really sure but at least one of them knew Tan and me. I guess they were along for the ride.
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| Stepping over the dyke to the mango farm |
I had to taste a couple of mangoes and by golly they were good. So sweet with a great texture. The first type I tried apparently only grows in Guangxi, and they told me about the other types but it was really stretching my vocabulary. To makes things worse/better, they started talking to me in the local language as I can say a few sentences now. And of course filmed everything, so Tan would know where I was before I would.
Before we set off to where the mangoes grow we were told we would be eating tea there and would that be ok? Well, yeah why not? So mango boss went and picked up a jacket for me to wear that looked far too hot for an afternoon nudging 40°, but in typical ingenuous Chinese style it had two fans built in to the back of it, attached to a portable battery in the inside pocket. It felt unintuitive, but was actually very effective at keeping at least my back from sweating.
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| Ingenious fan embedded into jacket |
Well the walk was interesting and despite the steep inclines the three women who were around my age showed no signs of consternation and happily hopped up to where the mango trees were. We were given some explanations about the types of mangoes but I don't really recall what they were, only that when we went for a taste they were always delightful. Except for an interesting one; they peeled what was basically (from what I could tell) an unripe mango, then poured some orange powder onto it and took a bite. Well I didn't want any mysterious orange powder but I accepted such a mango passed to me. It was as bitter as could be expected, but after I was told it would be better with the "la jiao yan" (chilli salt) I said I'd better try then and by golly it was actually really nice. I mean so nice I ate half a mango's worth in a couple of minutes. I read the side of the bottle and it actually said it was to go with fruit. Another positive experience chalked up, as if the whole day so far wasn't.
After around 90 minutes we finally started our descent and it was harder than getting up there, but as I saw five women do it before me I built up my courage and almost didn't have to use my hands to get down to the dirt track we'd used to get up here.
We got back to the farmhouse just in time to see a chicken (hen) being slaughtered which is something until now I'd managed to avoid in China. But it's a daily thing here so I shouldn't complain. While they gutted it I met what I thought was a wild cat but she was the mother of four gorgeous kittens and probably only semi-feral. What a distant relative to our lovely A Mi (not that she misses us). Then I saw the main bloke slicing up toads, so I went to take a picture but he said "bu de"; apparently you can't do that. I didn't ask exactly why but put it down to some sort of local superstition.
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| Semi-feral I think, but friendly at the same time |
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| Two of four gorgeous kittens |
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| Two of four gorgeous kittens |
And then I realised my full bottle of cola + a bit of V was not around. I went to the bloke I left it with while he was cooking, and he just said he'd forgotten where he put it. Fair enough but there was a bottle of Coke on the table which the kids were drinking and I worried they would start on mine if they found it. When he told me I could take some of the full-sugar version I told him I couldn't take sugar hence buying the sugar-free version, which was true to a small percent, actually zero percent, like the Coke. I walked the length and breadth of where we had come back from and couldn't find the bag with my Coke, and thought I may have to admit to its contents, lest it fall into the arms of a young'un.
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| Poor hen about to meet her maker |
But food was called and we had a lovely meal during which I was called to cai ma a fair bit and duly accepted. The main bloke didn't drink as he was going to follow us back to Pingguo after the meal to deliver a load of mangoes. But he really praised my cai ma and said I had a quick brain. There were some comments about me using chopsticks with my left hand (it can get in the way at a round table where everyone else uses their right), and I explained that although I'm right-handed when I was in my teens I just couldn't work out how to use chopsticks, and not wanting to miss out I decided to start from scratch using my other hand as years of writing had probably given me a bad habit that was getting in the way of using them. That was my logic at the time at least, I guess if it had much merit then many more right-handers would have chosen this route. Then the mango boss said I was half Chinese, and that it must be my left side! Ha, we had a laugh but in a way there may be a little bit of sense here. I definitely feel in a different mode when speaking Mandarin, like it could be using a different part of my brain or something. Like how the left side of the brain controls the right and is the more logical side, and the right side controls the left and is more artistic or something. But that would mean I'm less logical here and I'm not sure that's the case. And anyway, surely the logical side controlling the right would be better for cai ma but again I tend to use my left for that. I'm thinking too much about these sort of things....
Not too long later the meal was completed and we were about to get in the cars again. I had a last long look for my Coke but couldn't see it anywhere so gave up hope but as the ladies put their stuff in the boot I recognised a bag and saw my sweet bottle about 45° but there and not in the hands of a kid and thanked whoever I should thank. I do admit to partaking a little on the journey back after holding it up against the A/C for the first 20 minutes or so. Indeed during the first 20 minutes it felt a bit strange in the car...it was of course an automatic but it would struggle with high revs for a few seconds before moving up a gear for a few more, then high revs again, despite being on a road where we should be doing around 60kph. I tried not to think too much about it but after a while one of the ladies in the back thought to disengage the handbrake and suddenly everything worked a lot more smoothly for the rest of the journey!
Before long we were home in Pingguo and went to the mango-seller's place. We seemed mostly to drink fruit tea until the mango farmer turned up and then they started moving the mangoes from the crates to the floor of the shop. Of course I offered to help and thankfully they let me for 20 minutes and for once a felt a bit useful other than just being part of the pictures they took. But I was sweating quite a bit in the top I'd had on all day so I made an excuse to go back home as it was 2 minutes away and they didn't complain but made sure I took their dian dong che to go there.
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| Some of the mangoes I helped unpack before changing my top |
It was nice to change into a new top but I was back as soon as I could be as promised and a few minutes later we walked across the road to a bbq place where we all sat inside. For the first time in two hours beer was poured again, this time accompanying some decent bbq. Mango man seemed really keen on me playing cai ma, so I indulged with him and another mate, before we settled into two teams of three, with a couple of the ladies playing scissor, paper, stone instead of cai ma. Lord knows who won, but it was a laugh. One of the ladies started a Weixin group with us and shared all the videos and photos of the day. It looked like we were actually doing some advertising for the mango place. Of course Tan pinged me to say that Chuan Chuan had had a problem booking their train tickets from Guangzhou to Pingguo. Something to do with an ID? No problem, I would sort it when I got home. But I checked with someone and they said the tickets wouldn't go on sale until tomorrow, which given it was gone midnight meant Sunday now. Having said that I wasn't too sure as if they weren't on sale how come Chuan Chuan was able to attempt to buy them. It all felt a little Chinese so I planned to check later. After a bit of cai ma'ing with the next table we finally left and I went home to consume my plan.
Back at home, A Heng, his wife, and their daughter were back, and the young thing didn't look like she wanted to go to bed any time soon. But I had an objective and after cooing over the little thing for an appropriate time I went to trip.com and booked the tickets for Tan and Xixi. It took all of 5 minutes. I let Tan know and maybe had a celebratory can of 2.8% Li Quan before bed.
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| Cute kid |
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