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