Zhang hua meal and Lu zong ye xiao

Bloody last full day again in Pingguo and I felt shit for so many reasons. The clothes shop woman pinged me at 11am to say the footy top was there and I said I'd collect it in the afternoon. I managed to pull myself out of bed late morning and go for a last jiaozi at 12.30, then popped to the clothes shop. The woman said she thought I'd be coming in the afternoon, so I checked my phone and asked her if nearly 10 to one wasn't the afternoon? She seemed genuinely surprised that it indeed was so late so I told her I guessed she hadn't eaten yet. It's almost like "afternoon" means "after lunch" here, especially given that they generally eat so early. She only wanted 50 kuai for the top as the season was over and there would be a new top next season, but for some reason Weixin wasn't letting me pay. She told me the reception wasn't good here and I could send a red envelope when home.

Indeed when I got home I found that mobile data was turned off on my phone. Yesterday I'd needed to put in my UK SIM to receive an authorisation SMS, but recalled how in 2019 I'd left it in as we crossed to mainland China and within a minute had my data allowance used up. So this time I'd remembered to turn off mobile data while switching SIMs but I'd not remembered to turn it back on. For getting on for 24 hours I'd not noticed as I've connected to so many wifi hotspots here I was probably covered most of the time.

I still felt shit but had to force myself to pack what I could at least. Tan had asked me to give the boxes of covid tests to A Xia so I decided to walk to and from her shop in case it made me feel better. I took the scenic route back and met Lu zong for a couple of glasses of tea at his water shop. Then, just past Guanmart, Lin Hong saw me and almost forced a huge cup of tea with stuff in upon me. She was with a Bangxu friend and a dance teacher who most definitely wasn't a local. Most of the chat was in Mandarin but sometimes when the Bangxu friend and Lin Hong chatted together they fell back to Bangxuhua. I asked the dance teacher if she understood and she most definitely didn't as she was from Yunnan. I know how she felt.

Back home I realised my shirt for tomorrow was dreadfully crinkled so asked A Xia if there was an iron in her shop I could use. Of course there was, so for the second time today I was there, and the lady took my shirt and hung it up on the vertical iron. I'm not really sure it's called an iron as she mainly steamed it for 10 minutes or so. I don't think it's the most efficient way to remove creases but it did the job.

"Ironing" my shirt for tomorrow

One person I hadn't seen this month was Zhang Hua, but we'd been in contact and he'd invited me for a bite tonight. I went to the place he'd had his birthday meal back in August and it was more of a family affair with his wife and two kids and a couple of blokes, one of whom was drinking 52% white alcohol. Of course a couple more people turned up during the meal and I sadly realised this would be my last time. Well, second-to-last as Lu zong had pinged me to say he was going to his bar in Jiang Bing Lu and I was invited. Earlier today I'd told him I didn't think I'd be out in the evening and he'd said he wasn't either, unless I told him I was up for it.

Simple meal with Zhang Hua

So at 9pm I made my excuses with Zhuang Hua and we had a little hug goodbye. But I couldn't go to Jiang Bing Lu just yet; it was the last day of the month and there was not enough money in the bank to pay the mortgage. I spent a frustrating half an hour or so at home shifting some stables, and having to receive another SMS to my UK SIM. Of course this time I forgot to switch off mobile data and received an SMS telling me my data was used up before the authorisation SMS was received. But come on? I was at home attached to wifi wasn't I? Why would I be using up mobile data? But finally thanks to Metamask and Moonpay I'd sent some fiat to a UK bank account, so told Lu zong I was on my way.

For once he wasn't sitting the private room, but with a few blokes I didn't know. He had to order beer as all were on white alcohol but eventually many ganbeis were made. He ordered a load of bbq and food was thrust into my hands. Ok, this time was definitely the last meal in China this year. It was quite fun, but I had to make my excuses around 11.30pm as I had stuff to pack and clothes to wash. So much for being in bed by midnight.

Final meal at Lu zong's bar in Jiang Bing Lu

I put the clothes on at 1am then faffed about trying to work out whether I should cancel the hotel in Shekou and find one nearer the train station. Or stay at the airport and get a ferry from there but it would be a really early one. Trying to book a ticket from Shekou didn't work either as you had to put in your airline but they didn't have China Southern. I know it's convenient to be able to check in your luggage if your airline has an agreement, but if it doesn't you can still manually take your luggage and check it in at the airport. So why is airline mandatory on the form? I guess I could have chosen a different airline but feared that could go horribly wrong. Hopefully I'll be able to do it from the port.

Had a chat with Mat after putting out the clothes to dry at 1.45am. Not that I'll be able to take them back with me. Tan's clothes and the mushrooms mean I've been able to fit some football tops and a couple of pairs of socks along with the noodle bowl I got because it came free with a pack of four pao mian. Other than that I could just about fit my supplements and the two packs of tea Ma Laoban gave me. The other clothes I have are for the trip and are in the hand luggage. So I was pretty much ready by 3am and put on the alarm for 8am. That should be well enough time to do any last minute stuff.

Ma Laoban and too much caffeine

Blimey I felt rough when I got up; a combination of a lack of sleep, too much booze, and being ill generally. After lunch I forced a couple of Gs as hair of the dog but it didn't seem to work. But I wanted to see Ma Laoban if possible so drove over to his new office.

He hadn't responded to my message but was there at least and we spent a great two hours chatting as you do. I gave him his present of some old British coins plus Lego for his two sons. I felt a bit weird and asked if the tea we were drinking contained caffeine. Apparently not, so I continued as it was rather lovely. He made me scan the barcode of the tea box with Weixin and it turned up it cost 480 kuai for the box. And of course he took out a couple to give to me.

Ma Laoban at his desk

Later at getting on for 5pm I said I should go, and he did a search and found out that indeed this tea did contain caffeine...I could have told him that! Back home I didn't fancy having a drink so made myself a coffee as I knew I'd only had about four hours' sleep. Then I got chatting to Mat, who was also knackered in la Reunion, and also made himself a coffee so I joined him for a second one. Jeez I wish I hadn't, I started to feel really really rough.

I remembered I'd promised Joe a Pingguo football top so went to find one but they didn't seem to be as ubiquitous as in the summer. A Xia said she didn't know where to get one either. So I ended up at the place we got our ones in the summer and although the owner said she didn't have any she would try to sort something out. Cool, she had my details and later she said she should have one by tomorrow.

At around 10pm I decided to go for a walk as if that would help me get out of my caffeine "low". Any other day I'd have been tempted by the various people at tables drinking, but beer was at the bottom of my list now. I did end up walking past Lu zong's water shop and was invited in by a group of old men...to drink tea...so I ended up spending a good 20 minutes there but had remembered to bring the last box of shortcakes biscuits for Lu zong. I felt shit, but realised this was a step down. Moving from Pingguo to the UK in one step would have been too much.

Tea with some old blokes at Lu zong's water shop

Soon after I got home Li Kun pinged me to go for a drink at Xiao Bai de Tian at 12:10am. I really wasn't in the mood but made an effort and first went to get a new large bottle of water for the house. Again, a trivial thing but rendered important by me, not to mention although I was nearly about to leave I'd still need the stuff. 

Well I met Li Kun and it was kind of fun, despite one bloke being too drunk. We cai ma'd for a while then I went for a walk but found myself with the owners of the place and had a glass of weak and sweet white alcohol plus a glass of tea. I went back to where the blokes were but by 2am the beer was tasting rank so I just said I'd be on my way, and that was ok.

Back home I realised I needed to book a hotel in Shenzhen. I'm not really sure getting a flight was the best thing to do. There are ferries from near the airport but not at the correct time, so I'm hoping doing Shekou is the right thing to do. At least I've now booked a hotel there. Due to the caffeine I was still up at gone 4am yet again...

Nice afternoon with Yang and more guitar with Nong

Strangely woke up at 9.30am and despite a boring YouTube video about metaphysics and counting in Spanish I couldn't sleep. And anyway my friend Yang had pinged me to say he was back from Tiandong and was I awake? I decided to reply in the affirmative as it would force me not to try to sleep more and I was yet to see him this year. So he said to call him a bit later and we would go to the lake in the afternoon.

So I grabbed a coffee but couldn't really face eating anything. Then, at gone 11.30am I did something silly and had a decaff coffee and added the last of the whisky. I needed to perk myself up and this was a poor excuse. But a bit later I grabbed a shower and called Yang and he said to go to the supermarket by the guangchang and call him when there. This I duly did and after 15 minutes he turned up in a new car. I had no idea what to expect so brought with me my powerbank, a long-sleeved top, and my trunks and goggles just in case.

We drove just for a minute then picked up his wife and a small kid who I think is their grandchild but was too embarrassed to ask as I should know. The car was one of the many BYD (Build Your Dreams) and of course electric. We drove the few minutes to the lake I'd taken Leilei and Nezha to back in early August, and I was told that Pingguo is particularly good due to things like this and I didn't disagree.

Yang parked up and retrieved some stuff from the boot, and we walked down to a place I recognised from August; it was the "pier" that I'd swum to from the other side of the lake three months ago. Yang set up a large picnic floor and a tent, then sorted out chairs and a table and some food of course. Actually I was famished and not feeling great so really appreciated the zongzi plus the pig blood sausages. And I didn't miss the lack of beer.

Sorted for the afternoon

Yang and I left his wife and grandchild to go for a walk, as is our wont. I understand him more than most people here (probably because he's from the north) so it was weird to hear him say "kong que". This was one of those times where I was grateful for Google translate's voice recognition system and when I spoke into it (3rd tone then 4th tone) it turned out it was "peacock". Then wouldn't you know it we were next to an enclosure with about 100 of the said fowls. He said he didn't think you could eat them and I only agreed because I'd never been offered before. But why not?

The walk was great though, due mainly to the conversation and the fact it wasn't boiling hot. We got back 45 minutes later to see four young ladies had also set up in that place, and cooking some meat over a gaslit stove as you do. All in all it was a very comfortable afternoon, but I was quite happy to get back home around 4pm.

It's a bit 1984 but not much more than London

Yes, I like Pingguo too

Singing on the way back as you do

Advertising friend Nong then invited me to eat tonight. Well that was great but a mate had invited me yesterday to eat tonight. But that mate had also done so in the summer then couldn't make it but didn't tell me about it so I told Nong I hoped to be able to make it but would confirm later. Indeed the other bloke didn't get back to me so I asked Nong what time. 6.30pm, so I had plenty of time. Though of course after a shower it was getting on for 7pm so I pinged to say I'd be late but she said she was out buying food anyway.

So I turned up fashionably late at 7.15pm as Nong was asking if I was coming. It was the same place as last time when I had to play guitar and sing but this time there were no musical instruments in view thankfully. Muscle boss was there, as were a number of other people, most of whom I don't think I knew. And of course it was another fantastic meal. There was far too much for all of us but then we got a delivery of sashimi salmon and slices of something else I couldn't work out. Ah, but that was "e gan", well I understand that and said it was goose liver. But it was more than that...it was actual foie gras, and it was the most tasty thing I've eaten in years. What a lovely texture, so good it should be illegal, and is in some countries and US states. On another note it was great to hear some people say "ni hao jiu mei you bian le", or "you haven't changed in many years". I think they meant physically, at least I hope so as I certainly haven't become more mature mentally. I like to think that keeping fit in the UK has helped with that, which of course includes table tennis.

One of the bloke's wives - I had to translate what her tee-shirt said...I'm not sure her kids understood

The stuff with the purple edge is the foie gras - absolutely gorgeous

I should have predicted that guitars would turn up, and they duly did with a bloke around 9pm. They were all pushing for me to sing but I said the guy who'd just turned up with the guitar was the professional. No! I was the professional according to them! Oh well, I had a couple more ganbeis of the 2.5% beer and did a rendition of Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard because why not? Once again I'd sung for my supper.

Then some bloke turned up who apparently was into stones. I sort of appreciate this now as I know Ma Laoban has some, but don't really get it. He said he'd get one for me (he'd had a couple of beers), and left and came back a few minutes later with a palm-sized stone which apparently depicted a mother and child. He said it was from the river, and that when I got back I was to give it to Tan as she is from Pingguo. And apparently it's worth 2000 kuai. I didn't really know what to say. It didn't look particularly special to me but I appreciated the sentiment in a way I'm guessing Tan won't.

Mother and daughter stone to give to Tan

We finished soon after midnight and although I should have slept I ended up being awake and watched the City v Leipzig match but I think I was falling in and out of sleep, but was awake to witness the comeback 3-2 win.

Bugger I have to pack this...I won't have any space for my own stuff!

Two dogs in two days

I got a call at 9am, after not much more than 90 minutes sleep and for some reason answered it. It was to say that there would be a package delivered today so I knew it was confirmation of Er jie's dried mushrooms. I was as polite as I could be and pretended I understood everything and they seemed to be ok with that. Hopefully that won't come back to haunt me. 

Managed to sleep till gone 1pm and although I would have liked to do so for longer I reckoned it wouldn't be a good idea. So at 1.45pm I went to the jiaozi place but annoyingly they were closed...oh well...does it really matter? I'm in my last few days here and just walking about makes me happy. I picked up my nicely cleaned Converse trainers that had got caught up in my suitcase wheels on the day I arrived here. Well the laces had been black, but now were pristine again.

Lunch ended up being a tiny pao bian with a couple of quail eggs and I was still feeling rough with my cold and cough. A Xia then asked me when I had time to pick up more clothes for Tan...oh yes I'd told her I'd be around today. I told her in about half an hour, which would give me time for a quick shower. But it also gave me time for a tiny medicinal nip as I still hadn't gone to buy some cough medicine. Well that turned into two nips and by the time I had my shower A Xia was asking how much longer as she'd be leaving the shop soon. So I told her I'd be right over and of course that was fine.

I wasn't expecting quite such a large bag of clothes, but couldn't really complain...it looks like I'll have to leave a load of stuff here again though. It was good to have a brief chat though and I met her husband A Dong again for the first time in over four years. I picked up a haircut at Lao Ma's a few minutes later. Almost nothing has changed in her shop - even the original CRT tv is still there. But again it was a nice chat as we talked about normal things like not having a car anymore and such. Again, the most banal things take on a new meaning here.

Picking up a haircut in the almost unchanged Lao Ma's salon

My next task was to pick up the dried mushrooms that had been sent by Er jie. This should be a simple every-day task but I had no idea where to go. I asked at the main security place but didn't understand what the bloke said and was too proud to admit it. So I went to the other security place but he told me to go where I'd just come from. Eventually, from the international language of pointing I saw what looked like a normal shop but inside were loads of packages. I told the young lady I needed to pick up a package and she asked me a question that might as well have been in another language such was the vocabulary she used. I genuinely didn't understand and telling her it contained mushrooms wouldn't help. So I called Er jie and handed over the phone. No, still no further, but she sent me a barcode at least, but it wouldn't scan. Then she told me to try "Wu ye" which meant nothing to me, so I asked at security again and they pointed in the opposite direction this time. So I asked a woman holding a child and got pointed to some external stairs, so tried them and ended up in another shop-like place with loads of parcels on the shelves. Once again, the conversation was crooked so it was another call to Er jie and apparently the parcel was addressed to my Chinese name so had I thought of that I could have just let her know. So finally I had the parcel in my hands, and the amount of space I'd have for my stuff just diminished again. A trivial task that should have taken a couple of minutes had taken 15 but I had learnt something. At least I did later: Wu ye (物业) means "property" I think. Oh, and I'm probably not even allowed to bring in the mushrooms anyway.

My next thing to tick off was helping Li Kun sort out ChatGPT4 with the Merlin plugin for Chrome browser. All of this would likely need the help of VPN. So I pinged him at 6pm and his response was to ask me if I had anywhere to eat. I hadn't meant to invite myself to eat so told him I'd had a late lunch which was sort of true. But I was told to eat with him anyway.

At his office he was working on FL Studio. It appeared he was trying to synch various tracks of young people singing a song. We had some conversation about the cost of the software and that he had got it cheap as it was for education, and in fact the young people in question were students so I guess it makes sense. I left him to mix as I got a zero sugar cola to help perk me up. 20 minutes later he got on my dian dong che and we drove to near the deng ji police place where his friend lives. We took the lift to the 23rd and top floor before walking up a flight of stairs to a nice rooftop where there were already a few blokes sitting around a table. Oh, and in the middle was a pan of dog meat. So much for not consuming that again. I'd managed five years without it and now it was twice in two days.

Two dogs in two days...

The blokes were just about to start drinking white alcohol and there was no beer. But there was no problem as a quick phone call meant the delivery of cold Snowflake beer would be just a few minutes later. It was quite an enjoyable meal and I had more of the dog than I would normally, but it was delicious. Li Kun was ganbeing the likes of which I'd barely seen before. I kept it easy as I'd be driving and also to be in a position to look after him if he overdid it. Well the young Boss Liu to my left overdid it a bit and moved on to the beer, and there were some very red faces a couple of hours later. Li Kun was pissed but not dreadful and I was a bit relieved when it was over. At least Boss Liu, being from Jiang Xi, didn't speak the local lingo so it was a better test of my Mandarin. A lot of the time here I feel like a spectator as I barely understand a word of the local languages and they seamlessly slip between them which makes it even harder. They did tell me not to worry, and that if I spent a month here I'd pick it up. I've spent two and a half months this year already and I definitely haven't.

A Wu had videoed to show that he was having a boss meal, and I was to go there. I wasn't massively in the mood but dropped off Li Kun then remembered about my promise of ChatGPT. It took half an hour as he didn't have a VPN on his desktop so once he installed Chrome he couldn't install the Merlin plugin. But luckily I'd already downloaded the Windows clients of my three VPNs so I copied PureVPN onto a handy micro-SD and he installed it on his. It wanted to upgrade to the latest version and I was surprised it worked as the VPN hadn't connected itself yet. Then came the fuss of logging in with my credentials, tweaking the protocol, then attempting to connect to the Hong Kong server, and it worked! We then installed the Merlin plugin with his Google account settings and I showed him how to use that too after I set it to version 4.0 - 50 goes a day is not too shabby for free. He checked he could do it himself by closing everything down and restarting the process. I told him not to disconnect the VPN too often as it doesn't always reconnect, but since I've moved to the Wireguard protocol it's been pretty solid on both phone and PC. The last thing he did was to check access to YouTube...I've never seen him smile as much as when it loaded successfully!

So it was off to A Wu's office, and when I got there he used his remote control to open the shutter to let me in. There was a bloke on his phone on the sofa when I got in and I seemed to stir him. He got up and looked slightly dazed and I guessed he was drunk. He walked in the direction of the shutter and promptly hit his head on it, then bent down and got out as it was lowering. I got into the lift to the 4th floor and indeed it was just a few blokes left drinking and playing cai ma. On another night it might have been interesting but I basically did my bit and stayed no more than an hour. Even A Wu was pretty pissed and talking about how we were great brothers etc. It was good to be home and I put the dian dong che on charge and had a bit of a chat with Mat and Awl and what I thought was an early night but was at least 2.45am.

Last ever dog meal with Uncle Yellow

Woke up with a nasty cough and used what energy I had to put out the clothes to dry that I'd washed last night. Awl called at 1.30pm which was 5.30am his time and we had a chat and I made a mini pack of pao mian, which is what the locals call convenient noodles.

Uncle Yellow pinged me to eat dog this evening but I told him I really didn't think I'd be able to make it as I was feeling shit. So he told me to get some kip and let him know but not too late. I did try to get back to sleep but even the Spanish counting didn't quite do the trick, coughing kept interrupting. Some time before 3pm I gave up trying to sleep. I'd already finished the bit of local cough medicine that was left on the shelf, then Tan told me she'd left some Ibuprofen in Nezha's room from the summer so I did a couple of them. I was still feeling rough so tried a little nip of whisky and actually after the second one it seemed that the cough was diminishing.

It dawned on me that I had precious little time left so got back to Uncle Yellow to say I would do my best to make it. But he had a go at me getting back so late and he'd have to check if others could make it. Ah, they were only going to eat dog if I was going. Well I thought I wouldn't eat dog again, and told myself this would be the last time, if he could find others to eat with. But of course he did and within half an hour he told me to come down to Jiang Bing Lu for the said dog.

Well I turned up slightly late, and Uncle Yellow was waiting outside for me and shouted at me as you do. His name is Huang Lei but since 2003 I've known him as Uncle Yellow and I guess that won't change now. Having said that, I call many of my friends by different names from when I first knew them, e.g. A Wu used to be Xiao Li. I mean he still is but I guess as you get to know someone better your relationship changes and therefore the way you address them does. But it doesn't apply to everyone; Li Kun has always been Li Kun for example. I'll probably never understand.

Uncle Yellow remembered from 2019 that I rather liked Wolf Blass red wine and bought a box of 6 bottles of their 2017 "Gold Label", which looking online seemed to be £21 a bottle! Having said that, many people here have said that imported brands are often fake. Anyway, with my cough and cold I could barely appreciate it but had more taste than beer would have had. But, like beer, we still chinked glasses and drank fairly regularly, albeit smaller lugs, and I made my beer glass-sized glass last four sips each time.

Great dog meal with Uncle Yellow on the right and Boss Zhou high-fiving his wife

A Ning turned up a couple of minutes after me, with his wife and second daughter. Then a couple of more blokes did, plus one who only drank tea as he maybe needed to work later. Uncle Yellow asked me if I liked the monarchy. Hmm...this was not directly political but very close. I told him I had mixed feelings - on the one hand I do rather like having a non-political figurehead, but on the other hand it seems a bit unfair that you can just get born into such an easy life that we the taxpayers pay for. He very much agreed about the second point, and said they were very expensive. Yes, but I said they also bring in a lot of tourism so it's not black and white. He also agreed with the point about it being an easy life if you have blue blood. But again I countered my own argument saying it's effectively true for anyone born into a rich family. But here he disagreed, at least in the context of China. He said before anyone who had a lot of money could buy anything, but recently that wasn't the case. He made it very clear that these days just because you were rich didn't mean you had the means to do anything. I'm not quite sure how true that is, but I'm very willing to believe it's more like that here than some more capitalist places (and I'm aware that China is also capitalist). It's a conversation I would very much like to have engaged in for longer but we had to drink again and I realised I was running the risk of moving to something too political so we moved on to other subjects.

The meal was great of course, and didn't really need the dog. At 8.55pm the tea drinker got a message that he wouldn't need to work and immediately poured himself a glass of bai jiu and ganbei'd us. This went on for another hour but I needed to meet A Wu so before 10pm we all finished and one of the blokes insisted on driving me to where A Wu was near the football stadium. The driver got a didi che back I think, and when I walked in I was told we'd go back to A Wu's office so I ended up driving him there. So much for having a driver. At his office it was just a few bosses, and after having a small bite to eat I was flaking so made my excuses and went home.

I was home at midnight and although I'd planned to chat with the lads I fell asleep a few minutes later. I then woke up at 3.45am and saw a missed call from Sisi at 3.22am. I told her I'd been asleep so she sent me a picture of a bottle of wine and said she fancied some cigarettes, which was confirmed when she called me again. Well it was 4am but this is Pingguo and I thought "why not?". I put on my clothes and took the dian dong che to the football stadium but I couldn't find anywhere selling fags. So I asked at a local bbq place and they said they could get me a pack for 10 kuai. Err, ok, I scanned the Weixin code and paid, and a couple of minutes later the bloke handed me a box of them. I shouldn't really ask questions. Then to the other side of the stadium to the same bar as the other day to resume drinking red wine, although this time much more slowly. Sisi was a bit drunk and talking wistfully about her late father and I knew she really missed him. I ended up taking her back at 6.45am and was home myself very shortly after...another 7+am finish.

Long meal by the river

Bloody coughing got me up at 9am after five hours' sleep. I somehow found a 3 hour in-depth video of Christopher Hitchens that kept me awake-dreaming till the afternoon when Li Kun told me to be at his at 12:30. A Wu also called me to say we'd start at after 1pm so I didn't rush too much, and only grabbed a shower at 12:20pm. I was feeling pretty shitty with Nong's cold, so allowed myself a couple of sips of the duty free whisky that had not found someone to be given to. Due to the lack of sleep I also had some cola with a bit more of the W. Intending to be fashionably late, I told Li Kun I would leave around 12:45 but he responded to say to wait 15 minutes as he wasn't there yet...so much for being told to be there at 12:30. So at gone 1pm I left the dian dong che to charge and walked the 10 minutes to Li Kun's, remembering to bring a long-sleeved top and phone charger just in case. Oh, and the bottle of cola.

As I was nearing his office his second daughter spied me and ran at me to give me a huge hug which was absolutely delightful. It's little unexpected things like this happening that can really make your day. We got in his car with his wife and two youngest and drove a good 15 minutes south before coming to a stop at the side of the road to call A Wu as apparently we didn't want to arrive before him as it wouldn't be right. So we basically sat in the car for another 15 minutes or so with his little son on my knee and Li Kun himself trying to learn the words of Hey Jude. It was actually quite tricky to explain what it meant to take a sad song and make it better, but I did my best anyway. Finally A Wu's car turned up and we then continued on our way past a fishing lake and finally to a few houses on the riverbank.

Li Kun's younger daughter and son in the car while waiting for A Wu

It looked like we were among the first to turn up and as it was getting on for 2pm I realised that we were coming for tea rather than lunch. I saw a couple of oldish people manually ripping the corn off the sweetcorn cob and of course joined in to help. It was a lot harder than it looks and I started to tire after just doing one, so I thanked them and went to look around instead. There were a couple of blokes cooking and A Wu's and Li Kun's kids running about with some of the local kids. I ended up taking them down to a small pier where they spent a good half an hour fetching stones to throw in the water under the glorious Guangxi sunshine. Both A Wu's and Li Kun's kids are really comfortable with me now and often take me by the hand to lead me to places. It was just simple fun, but maybe like Li Kun's daughter's hug earlier it just seems to feel more special here, like being here tunes up your sensory perception. I suppose it's generally like that when you are abroad, but when in Europe I don't normally stick out so much and the sensory uptick is more of an aural thing. Here it's pretty much every sense. But for the kids they don't seem to see me as being much different; they've got past the "your eyes are blue, your hair is blond, your nose is tall" stage and I'm just Uncle Peng to them now. And I guess now that my kids are mostly grown up I do miss some sort of interaction with the younger ones and their innocence.

Li Kun and A Wu chatting by the river

A veranda built around a tree

The pier from which the kids and I threw stones, Yi an in the foreground

More people turned up during the afternoon, many of whom knew me and I pretended to remember them. The men smoked and talked and the women just talked, and I mainly stayed with the other kids outside, though aware about the risks of getting sunburnt (though getting sunburnt in November is such a luxury). Then, finally, at 3.44pm it was announced that we were to eat. I was bloody hungry by this point and accepted half a bowl of rice that I wouldn't normally do. We had the lovely spicy bamboo root stuff although they keep telling me it isn't bamboo but something else I've not yet managed to learn or write down. Presently the beer was poured for most of the blokes and white alcohol for a few others. It didn't take as long as usual for cai ma to start, and A Wu suggested I go round the whole table (well both). Well sod it, why not? The only real rule seemed to be that you one of you had to win twice but both had to lose at least once. I was trying to do the maths for the best possible situation - there were about 12 blokes, so at half a glass per loss the best case would be six glasses of Snowflake beer. The worst case would be significantly worse. The actual case was pretty bad; I did pretty well against the majority, but there were two or three blokes that just kept winning and it took a good 7 or 8 losses before I beat them. Then finally to A Wu, but for some reason I caned him, to everyone's delight. I totally lost count of how many glasses I'd imbibed but after ensuring I'd eaten enough I made me genuine excuses and said I needed to rest for a while. I found one of those lazy chairs and pretended to sleep for about 30 minutes. Maybe I did drop off. But Yi an, A Wu's son, wanted me to go and play with him. So I said "15 minutes", and indeed exactly 15 minutes later he came back so I went out to play for a while.

Getting ready to eat

Excusing myself for a shoot with A Wu's and Li Kun's younger daughters respectively

Predictably, as the meal wore on some of the blokes got pretty drunk. I'm generally ok with this although never allow myself to become so imbibed as I like to feel a good degree of control. So after another session at the table I made more excuses to lie down, and once again Yi an wanted me to play. So another 10 minutes later I spent some time with him before it was nearly time for the City Liverpool match. I noticed Li Kun and family had already gone home, which I was slightly annoyed about as I had been due to go back with him but he had probably seen me "sleeping" in the chair and let me lie. So I went for a walk past the pond and sat at the side of a house and managed to find a half-decent stream of the match on my phone. It had been worth taking the portable charger.

Then at half time, around 9.30pm A Wu and family were ready to go back so I got a lift with them. Very annoyingly, a pissed bloke was acting just like the pissed bloke in the broken lift the other night, and may well have been the same person. He grabbed my arm and kissed it and had I had a few more beers I might have done or said something that wasn't appropriate. He had a horrible high-pitched laugh too. Once we arrived at A Wu's I sensed he wanted to walk with me and I made it clear to A Wu that I would walk home alone and walked in the road rather than the pavement to avoid him tracking me. I didn't look back, and just marched on, hoping that A Wu was restraining the other bloke. I would have liked to watch the second half of the footy but by the time I got home it was already in injury time. An unsatisfactory 1-1 draw after a good performance but trying to keep positive at least it's good for the title race.

I was really starting to feel shit now though and was coughing badly. I don't know if the whisky was the cause or the cure but I tried a bit more to help get to sleep after a chat with Awl.

Democracy and 4 evening meals

Although I woke up at 11am I felt shit and had a cold I blame on catching from Xiao Nong. I stayed in bed until she pinged me at 1pm to go for lunch. Fair enough we'd talked about lunch for a few days but either her or I had got up too late. I really wasn't in the mood but forced myself to wash my face and shave, and put on the nicely dry clothes from the drier Tan had only let me know about yesterday. Xiao Nong was waiting for me at her building's gate, but she had forgotten I'd left my dian dong che there last night. So it was slightly fun to have a go at her as normally she has a go at me for forgetting things.

I drove her to the centre of town where we went down to the underground mall and she got won tun and I had jiaozi. For some reason it was just a really nice experience despite me feeling hungover. We then went for a drink of cola and green tea. We were talking about irrational fears; she doesn't like insects and I don't like flying. She's never flown before, and only been as far away as Guangzhou. She didn't even understand "turbulence" in Mandarin and I had to explain it sometimes got bumpy. After that she said she'd never set foot in a plane. I explained that I use logic (and G&T) to get over it, and opened up the Flightradar24 app to show her how many planes were currently flying over China and how none of them would crash. Then she told me that seeing those aeroplane icons gave her trypophobia. What? I had to look it up - an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns. Well I suppose we had just both learnt a new word in our mother tongues.

She then invited me to eat with them again tonight and asked me what I liked to eat. Well, I'm quite partial to the raw fish so she called the people who were at the market to get some. Then we went there ourselves and I had another hit of the sensory overload that is a market here. We met a mate at the market who was buying the food and I made my excuses to leave for a while before tea.

The first time I've seen "democracy" in Pingguo

So I had a little time to go home and take a shit on a proper toilet, and take a shower. I went to Nong's neighbour a bit before 6pm but really wasn't feeling well. They'd bought the raw fish for me so I forced myself to have some of it. And had to force the beer down too. Nong didn't drink for a while but then we started playing mo pai, which I'm getting used to but still don't know how to play properly. I managed till 8pm but A Wu had invited me out so I made my excuses and left.

Typical scene at Pingguo market

A Wu had just come back from Nanning and was with his family having a bite to eat so I joined him for a bit. Yet more food, including oysters, but he took family back then some other bloke came and when A Wu came back I took him to Pingguo International Hotel and we met a couple of other bosses for some boring beer. Then advertising friend Nong pinged me to meet up at the same place as last time so that was a fine excuse to make my excuses and leave. But A Wu reminded me that his Boss Zhou (as opposed to Uncle Yellow's Boss Zhou) had cooked and we were to go there later to eat. Oh.

So it was off to my third eating place of the evening and I spent a pleasant 45 minutes with Nong and muscle boss where I had two cups of you cha and very few strong Li Quan beers. I couldn't really get much more into my stomach though. Nong said if I needed an excuse to remove myself from company I didn't want to be with I didn't have to wait for her to ping me, which is nice to know, if a bit late. We tried to arrange a meet-up before I left and agreed Tuesday would probably be the best day. Whether that happens or not is probably 50/50.

At getting on for midnight I left for Boss Zhou's having remembered to bring the bottle of red wine I'd got from Sainsbury's a month back. Even Xixi recognised him as a decent bloke during the summer when we went for a meal there, so I wanted to give him a small token of appreciation for his company and food. Of course the table was full of drunk men and a couple of women, and of course I had to ganbei with most of them over the course of the next hour or so.

I noticed the beer tops are changing

Cute cats and meals with Xiao Nong and A Qiu

After last night's shenanigans I was up before the afternoon but didn't feel like eating and only managed a yoghurt. Very annoyingly the washing machine then refused to work; it would turn on then turn itself off again a few seconds later. I thought about calling Lin Hong to ask if I could wash my clothes at hers but wanted to check with Tan first if that was culturally acceptable. I recall being given towels as a wedding gift and Tan saying that could never be an acceptable gift in China, so I just thought washing clothes in someone else's house might be similar. But apparently it wasn't so I called her and she said to come round right away no problem. But then Tan called to ask what was wrong with the washing machine. I didn't know, but had intended to sort it out myself, or at least find someone to sort it by myself. Oh no, Tan would call Jiuma, who would find someone to come around. I thought about arguing but really with something as important as a washing machine I guess it's safer to be in someone else's hands. A couple of days ago Tan had also asked me to give Lin Hong's dad a red envelope with 200 kuai as he has dementia. I was about to sort it out but in the same phone call she told me in very definite terms I could not hand such an envelope to Lin Hong...it had to be hand delivered to her father. But Tan didn't know if they lived together or where he was so it could be an issue. 

A cute red-eyed cat I met while on a walk...

...and possibly a relative a few doors down

Then Tan told me I could use the second washing machine. The second washing machine? Why didn't I know about that? And then she said I could dry my clothes in the portable dryer in the back porch. Why didn't I know about that either? With the colder nights clothes are taking much longer to dry and I was starting to plan what I could wear and wash for the last few days. As I was looking for the second washing machine Jiuma called me to tell me if I wanted to use it I'd need to ensure the waste water pipe was plugged in and I'd need to turn on the water. That sounded a bit obvious but she was quite adamant and used the typical "Wo gen ni shuo!" - I am telling you! Then she told me someone would come round to fix the other one, so I needed to stay in. So anyway I plugged in the waste water pipe and turned on the water inlet and plugged in the electricity and said a little prayer. It turned on and started to move, which was a good sign, but when I checked the clothes a few minutes later they were perfectly dry. Oh, the water inlet had been on and I'd turned it off...finally it sprung into wet action.

Portable clothes drier? Why didn't I know about it? It works really well!

A Qiu rang me to remind me I was invited to eat with Tan's ex-colleagues at 6pm, and I pretended I'd remembered. So that was tea sorted. Then Xiao Nong pinged me to eat at her neighbour's at 5pm so I said I might be able to make it for a bit. I saw that the washing was a 64 minute cycle so hopefully the person would come to fix the washing machine before 5pm. But the clothes were just about finished when Jiuma rang to said the person would be around in 5 minutes and I should wait on the balcony for him.

In one of those really annoying moments, the bloke turned up and after stuffing a stone under the washing machine to make it stable turned it on and it bloody worked. He said we'd need to put in a load of clothes to make it work but I only had the clothes I'd just washed and spun dry. So quite annoyingly I had to risk them becoming soaked again just to test the washing machine but of course it worked fine. Bloody bollocks, but at least I had the video to show him why it wasn't working before. I thought it might be because it wasn't stable before but he said that wasn't it. Well what could I do? We waited 20 minutes and had a decent chat during that time but clearly it was working fine so he said he had to charge a 50 kuai calling out fee which was more than fair enough and would have been 10x that in the UK.

Xiao Nong was pinging me to come over before my second meal so I told her I'd leave in a few minutes, so put out what clothes I hadn't just washed for a second time to dry. I ended up getting there at 5.43pm, fashionably late, and had some rather nice huo guo mushrooms and "snail and lamb hoof" dish. Apparently "ti" is the bottom half of the leg rather than "jiao" which is just the foot. I'm glad to be learning this level of detail.

Yang ti at Xiao Nong's neighbour's

At 6.15pm A Qiu rang to see where I was and to let me know how to get to the place we were to eat. So I made my excuses with Xiao Nong and her neighbours and went to buy 4 jin of oranges that aren't called oranges because the skin is a bit green. But in my opinion they are better than oranges as they aren't so sweet. And a few minutes later as I turned into the road a lady shouted at me to follow her. I guess even though she didn't know what I looked like there weren't too many white men turning left into her road. I followed her on her dian dong che for 150 metres as A Qiu had said in her message. I really could have done it on my own...

About to start a meal with A Qiu and other ex-colleagues of Tan

The meal was really good...I like the raw fish you dip in oil and vinegar, and A Qiu, as much as she likes to drink, is genuinely good-natured at heart. Uncle Yellow and Boss Zhou turned up a bit later, clearly the worse for wear, and I managed to drink much more slowly than usual, till 9pm when Xiao Nong and her friends were asking me to come back.

Blimey, it's just like this I guess. I got back to Xiao Nong's neighbour's and we had a couple of drinks before it was decided we would go to sing song. Sod it, I went along with it and did my usual "Pengyou" a couple of times. Then a bit later Xiao Nong said we would go to a disco place. Damn, I really don't like these places...I'm just too old, but for the sake of it I took a san lun che with her to the place I'd been to once in the summer. I bet Leilei and Nezha would have loved it (maybe they went there in the summer) but I don't like the objectification of women, however much they were being paid. I stayed maybe an hour then said I needed to get back, and thankfully someone sorted me out a didi che. So I got back before 3am and had a chat with Mat for a bit before sleep.

Traditional Guangxi kiln meal and then locked out of house

Managed to get up in the morning just. I had just started on the boiled quail eggs at 2.30pm when Nong pinged me to go to her place. Oh, it transpired we were to go somewhere to eat. As it was getting on for 3pm I should have guessed it wasn't lunch. I'd forgotten her house again so she had to come out to find me, and then her chubby friend also came out and we stood on the roadside before I realised they'd booked a didi che. We spent the next 20 minutes in the car driving outside of town to somewhere I'd never been before. Ah, I suddenly remembered that last night that woman had told me they would take me to a traditional Guangxi meal. I've been told so many times that so-and-so would take me to such-and-such a place, but it rarely materialises due mainly to them being tipsy. So I'd not booked a slot in my schedule at all, and certainly wasn't prepared. Plus my phone was only on 70%.

At one stage I had a mild fear that I was being kidnapped. We were well into the countryside and there was no xinhao (reception), and I'd barely met the two people in the car taking me. But of course all was well as we finally happened upon a tiny hamlet. The women were talking about a meal and said there would only be white alcohol. Part of me was relieved as I would have an excuse for a dry meal, but part of me thought that never have I attended a meal where beer wasn't at least available. But when we met more people from last night they seemed to confirm there was no beer. I put it at 50/50.

A few of us went for a walk in a field to look at dried mud. Apparently some of it was too wet. Too wet for what was beyond me but wouldn't be for a while. It transpired we were going to build a kind of kiln which is specific to Guangxi. We spent the next 20 minutes finding suitable chunks of "tu" that were not too big and not too small, and not too wet. Then a bloke set upon building up a sort of hive using the mud blocks. It took him a good half an hour as occasionally the wall would partially collapse. It was a really rural setting in every way except for some reason for the first 20 minutes there was a drone high above us and I got the feeling we were being filmed.

Looking for mud with the right texture

I helped get some bamboo and around 5.30pm the bloke started the fire at the base of the kiln. I asked what the procedure was, and the kiln builder said we'd feed the fire until the blocks of mud were red hot, then put in the pork and chicken and sweet potatoes. The mud would infuse a certain flavour upon them. At 6pm it was deemed that the mud was ready so a couple of the blokes picked off the top few blocks of red hot mud until there was a hole about 8"in diameter. Then people started trying to drop in the foil-wrapped meat and a few sweet potatoes. They managed to start the wall collapsing but it seemed this was partly the point. Eventually as everything had been put in the red hot mud had totally collapsed and the blokes set upon bashing it down and covering it with more dusty fresh mud in an attempt to stop the smoke (and heat) escaping. We were told it would take 40 minutes to do so, so went back to the farm place as it was getting dark.

The built kiln

Burning the mud

Getting ready to put in the meat and sweet potatoes

This is how they get it ready once hot enough

And finally bashing it all down over the food then sealing with dried mud before leaving for 40 minutes

Going for a walk I met an old woman picking up cornless cobs from the floor and putting them into plastic bags. I guess they are used for pig feed or something. I said hello but she answered in the local dialect. So I told her that it was getting dark and I'd help her fill up. It was a great few minutes but despite me speaking to her in Putonghua she always spoke to me in Tuhua, even when I said I didn't understand. But smiles are global and I received many, as I did from the other old lady who walked past. I would like to have understood an iota of the conversation they had....

Part of my work for the evening

Then one of the ladies (the one who beat me badly at cai ma yesterday) asked me if I was hungry. I thought it would be polite to say "yes" as it would mean I was looking forward to the meal shortly. But then she thrust a piece of honeycomb into my hand and said to eat it and it would stop me being hungry. I didn't really want to stop being hungry and I'm not a great fan of honey but sod it, it's the first time in my life I've had the chance to eat freshly-picked honeycomb. But I had to ask if you just lick the honey or do you also eat the comb. Well apparently you eat it all and I did and it was bloody delicious if rather sweet.

Fresh Guangxi honeycomb

Then I saw some of our cohort on top of the building next door, so I had to go and join them. But bloody hell the stairs not only had no bannisters, they also had about a two foot gap between them. I managed a storey then went down before I saw a sprightly 65+ year-old canter up without a care in the world. Well I cared, and kept close to the walls, and got up to see a load of people loading freshly-dried corn into sacks. As you do. I made it up the stairs more because my fear of looking scared to the ladies is slightly worse than my fear of going up the said stairs. So no-one noticed my fear getting upstairs (had I had a drop to drink it might have been easier), and of course I joined in.

Gathering the dried sweetcorn on the roof as you do

It was appreciated and we went down (carefully) to wash our hands, and I told one of the old women it was 6.40pm so time to get the food. This they duly did and found the eight sweet potatoes too, and we were back shortly after 7pm, when the meal started. Well we don't normally start drinking till 15 mins of eating but a couple of them, including Nong, had. Miraculously a load of beer had turned up and it turned out I was by no means the only beer-drinker.

Raucous and fantastic meal in the countryside

I'm not totally sure I noticed the difference the mud kiln had made but I sent Tan a picture of it and she said it reminded her of childhood fun. The meal turned into a raucous affair of cai ma and drinking. Nong eventually passed out after a lack of sleep and too much of the white stuff, but woke up after an hour or so to carry on as you do. The only sober bloke at the table was so because he was driving, and duly took some of them back after 11pm. I appeared to be in the second group, and found out we'd be getting a lift back with a beer drinker. Well I guess it was better than nothing. We crammed into the 4x4 and to be fair he did drive safely. I made sure Nong got back safely and I got home safely somehow after 2am after picking up my dian dong che from her place. 

Except the bloody key wouldn't open the door. It was pretty bad in the summer and wasn't getting any better. And it wouldn't open earlier today before I went out and forgot my tissues and went back to get them. That should have set alarm bells but I was already late so dealt with my tissue fetish and did without. What to do? It was too late to call friends to see if any had a spare room. Well, it probably wasn't, but I would have been too embarrassed to ask. My phone was dangerously low on juice (had I been told we were going to the countryside earlier I'd have taken my charger), so I had to make a decision. There was a hotel a five minute walk away so I thought that would be my most likely course. I tried in vain again to open the door but it stubbornly refused. Then I had the idea of asking security. Well the bloke said he might be able to help, so came over to the block and then realised when I said there was a problem with the key I was referring to the front door, not the building entrance. He said he couldn't help with the door but pointed to a sticker on the wall with a phone number on it and told me to call it. What? Well, it was 2.30am and it was either that or find a hotel.

Luckily, I remembered I'd left my powerbank in the back of the dian dong che so at least I no longer had the worry of a dead phone. So I called the number and I'd clearly woken up the person who answered. I explained my issue then thrust the phone into the hands of the security guy to corroborate what I think I had said. By now I was very sober, and was interested to hear that apparently someone would be here in a few minutes. So I waited in the security place and indeed a bloke turned up on a motorbike. We went to the front door and he confirmed the key didn't work. Then, just like a few years ago at our old place when the lock stopped working, he simply unscrewed the eyepiece (is there a word for that thing?) and stuck a lever-like thing through and opened the door from the inside. Luckily I'd not locked it properly. And that was it. I was in and it was confirmed that the other key inside worked so it was simply my key was screwed. 150 kuai for the call-out and work was absolutely worth it, not least because it was nearly 3am.

It looks like the broken key (on the left) was simply worn out

So grateful, I poured a mother of a gin and lemonade and it ended up being another 4am sleep. But yet another great and unique (for me) and cultural experience. This is what I came here for and I'm certainly getting it....

Lin Hong meal and another late one

I awoke at 2pm and although it would have been easier to slip back to sleep I had no real excuse. I pinged Yang to apologise that I wouldn't make it to Tiandong today, then got up and boiled the quail eggs I bought the other day.

I noticed on Weixin that I'd spent 300 kuai at just gone 3am last night. I was in the bar so reasoned that it must have been to pay for some of the food and drink. Lord knows I've taken advantage of being invited out so much, so it's more than fair enough to make some pay-back.

Well instead of going to see Yang at least that meant I could take up Lin Hong on her offer to eat at the place I met her yesterday afternoon. She'd pinged me to say to come at 6pm then pinged me again to say I should come earlier to help out the bloke who was cooking. How I could possibly help out I didn't know but I said I'd get there around 5.30pm and indeed did. Not much was ready and there wasn't much for me to do so I noticed that quite a few people were holding up signs saying "cars let people" - or at least ”车让人“ which is a literal translation but really should mean priority to pedestrians. For some reason five of the people holding up such signs wanted me to take a photo of them. Not a photo of me with them but just me taking a photo. Well I did and they commented on how well I took photos in a way Tan has never done as she thinks I can't do that. I asked a lady with such a sign if it was important to wear a helmet. Indeed it was, and as a girl on a dian dong che went past she said in a very low voice "mei nu chuan toukui". It's not like she could have heard her at all, but I didn't tell her than.

车让人:vehicles let people - a sentiment I most firmly agree with

On a walk around the market there were signs saying it is prohibited to use wildlife as food. Hmm...bit of a grey area surely but I suppose some sort of recognition of a possible cause of a recent pandemic given the specific type of "wildlife" depicted in the warning

It ended up being a lovely meal and only a couple of the blokes were drinking. I managed six cans of Li Quan 2.8% but felt the effects more than I expected. At 9pm I made my excuses and left, and stopped off at the supermarket by the guangchang to pick up a naughty bottle of G and some zero-sugar drinks. Back home, at 10pm I almost literally crashed out, sleeping for an hour in my coat under the bright light of the bedroom.

Great idea to have a sort of bbq to grill stuff round the outside and a huoguo in the middle...the beef was guiltily good

Such a good idea I think we'll have to get one....and nice memories of Pingguo 2023

At 11pm I must have woken as I pinged Nong to say "good night", even though I'd not seen her today. But straightaway I got a video call saying to come over and have a drink as there were various people there. So I had another "sod it" moment and popped over. And promptly lost badly at cai ma for 30 minutes. One of Nong's friends said she'd take me to the countryside tomorrow to bake stuff in mud, which is apparently a local custom. So I said thanks and thought it probably wouldn't happen. Shortly after just about everyone left as they had work the next day, so I stayed for a while and eventually got home after 2am. It was good to have a chat with Mat and then eventually Awl and got to sleep not long after 4am.