Having gone to sleep at soon after 6am I would have expected to be awake around lunchtime but gosh no...it wasn't even 9am. I wouldn't have minded quite so much had I had something decent to eat in the house but I only had another boiled egg. Well I suppose that's breakfast. Eventually the VPN on the laptop connected again and I dozed a little to a science podcast. It's days like these I feel I'm not really making the most of being here. But trying to meet up with a mate for lunch would have been a jar feeling so tired.
Tan pinged me to say A Qiu had made a present for her that she hadn't finished when we were here in the summer, so she gave her my number as she wisely thought I wouldn't want her Weixin. In the afternoon A Qiu called to say she was by the main entrance, and luckily I guessed which one. She handed over a box that Tan had said may be too big to bring back but after having disposed of all the medicine Tan had got me to bring over I should have plenty of space. It's actually quite a nice tapestry-like thing but I didn't want to open it all out. A Qiu then invited me to tea at 6pm on Saturday and said an English teacher friend would be there and it would be good to communicate with her. I'm not sure why we said "communicate" instead of talk, similarly to when Haiwei wants me to "communicate" with his son. I guess it's one of those nuances that I'm hoping to pick up on more on this trip. The fact that both examples involved me speaking English to a non-native speaker is probably a clue as to why the emphasis was on communication rather than talking itself.
Tan also chastised me for wearing a football badge that said to "beat them up". Hang on, no I wasn't was I? I checked a new version of the badge I was wearing. The font was particularly hard for me to decipher but after some work with Pleco I managed to establish that it said:
平果哈嘹
无名球迷something
古跌
Which I translated to:
Pingguo Haliao
Nameless football fans
Ancient Times
 |
| Apparently the bottom two characters mean "beat them up" |
Ah, but of course 古跌 is local dialect for "beat them up". Well, as if it actually meant that. There was also a large flag draped down saying "Welcome to Hell" - did they mean that?
A friend had messaged to go to dinner tonight but I didn't really fancy that. Also, Huang Zhongxing had said yesterday that we'd be eating at one of his friend's, which again I had no desire to attend this time.
Awl called late afternoon and we agreed I should not feel obliged to go to either evening meal so I postponed the one with the friend and told Huang I may not be able to make it. With weights off my shoulder I made a quick dash to Guanmart to get some provisions and knew I'd be safe for a while.
That while lasted till nearly 5.30pm when Huang sent a picture of the food that had been prepared for this evening. I felt bad but told him honestly that my stomach wasn't comfortable and if I could I'd pop over later. To which he replied "ok" and then sent me the location. A couple of hours later he called me again, so this time I called him back and thought I'd at least make an effort and show my face. So I had a couple of small beers and found the place on the other side of town.
Of course it was another sausagefest, and again I wasn't really in the mood. And Huang was in a worse state than I've seen him in before. But the owner of the shop we were eating at the back of was there, and he seemed to be a cool character. He was one of the few on the beer, and he wasn't feeling very well so it was pretty easy to keep the pace down. Huang had challenged another bloke to drink a can of beer to his glass of white alcohol, and in the end was rather red-faced. He even covered his glass when someone tried to top him up, suggesting he knew he was beyond his limits.
He said I could give him a lift back, and got up and walked into the front of the shop, well with the help of the wall he got there anyway. I told the boss I wouldn't take him on the bike as he would just fall off, and he agreed and booked a didi che. Huang staggered back to the back of the shop and the boss just told me it would be fine to leave, so I did, within an hour of having arrived, almost totally sober.
At getting on for midnight Li Kun pinged me to see if I wanted to go for a drink and I answered honestly that I wanted to but was suffering too much from jetlag. However, I still couldn't sleep till well into the early hours.
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