Really woke up to a nasty cold at 9am but at least managed an hour more of on-and-off dozing till the noises outside meant I couldn't anymore. Fair enough, it's their house more than mine and I've so far not really paid for much. Eventually they left just before midday so I grabbed the 2nd portion of jiaozi I'd bought yesterday and heated them up for lunch plus a yoghurt as I figured I'd need the energy.
I'd hoped for a siesta again which somewhat justified drinking the beer I'd poured last night as due to the weather it was still well under room temperature. That led to another but I wasn't really in the mood so just chilled until my mate Yang pinged me to go for a walk later if I wasn't feeling too bad. I was feeling bad, but think it must be worth getting out of the house at such times, so told him I'd pop over to the ping pong place around 6.30pm.
I admit to taking a carry-on of jing jiu for the walk, even though the dian dong che had finished charging (mercifully without the alarm going off this time). I got to the end of the guangchang when I realised I was bloody hungry, so walked to the football stadium where I knew there would be food vendors. Indeed I stopped at a place where the lady was saying something to me. In fact I had been on the phone to Andge for the last 10 minutes but he had to remove some plasterboard in the next 45 minutes before going on a date with Lis so I let him go and asked the lady what the stuff was. Well it was fried chicken and it didn't look the healthiest of options but I was ill so asked to try some. But no, of course she had to re-fry it so she ended up putting in 8 portions. I wasn't really in a position to argue and anyway it was only 10 kuai so I happily paid.
 |
| Getting an unhealthy portion of fried chicken while having a healthy conversation with the vendor |
Yang pinged me to ask where I was and I told him I was having a bite. I didn't expect it to take 10 minutes to re-fry the chicken and wondered if in fact it was raw but already battered. It didn't really matter. As someone who had had a couple of beers and some jing jiu it really hit the spot and I ate it on the way to the table tennis centre, being careful to put almost all the bones in the copious bins provided. Once at the table tennis place I saw Haiwei practising with his son as they have a competition soon. It wasn't as busy as usual but it wasn't yet 8pm either. I marvelled at the skills of a probably 10 year old boy playing with probably his grandmother who was also pretty nifty. It cemented my opinion that this is in some way the greatest sport on this earth. Open to nearly everyone, and most levels of ability. It's the one sport that connects my life in China to that in the UK. I must remember to get my bat re-skinned this time!
Yang turned up wearing a face mask and a pink woolly hat. I wouldn't have recognised him had he not shouted out "Duoming!". Inside the table tennis place he met someone he knew and said "hao jiu bu jian" (long time no see), and the other bloke simply said it was because Yang hadn't come over for a while. Pretty logical really. Yang and I ended up going for a walk and having a chat like old times. He was saying that when you have a cold you must drink warm water and abstain from alcohol. I agreed with him, while sneakily grabbing a sip of my jing jiu. Then I said that in the west when you have a cold it was ok to mix whisky with lemon and honey and hot water, and then he said that was ok.
We ended up at the guangchang watching some elders perform music and singing and I liked it more than I would normally. Yet another reason I could envisage myself here in latter years. They're not professionals, but love to get together and perform and entertain, for free. I was the only person who clapped the first performance we saw, but for the next two other people joined in with the applause. It's a bit pathetic that had I not had a couple of nips of jing jiu I probably wouldn't have dared clap on my own.
I left Yang on the corner of the guangchang as he needed an early night as would be up at 5.30am to jog and then play ping pong. I walked home to chill but at 10.21pm my friend Nong pinged me to say they were about to start drinking and sent me the location, which was where I'd just said goodbye to Yang an hour ago. I was ill, I needed sleep, so of course I told her I'd be over in a bit.
I've known this Nong for about 18 years now and we're good mates. I walked over and went to the place I'd where I'd eaten with the Shandong bloke a week or so ago but couldn't find the roof garden where Nong was. So it ended up being a phone call and I had to go downstairs again to meet her and take a lift up. She was with a couple of mates in a sort of pod on the roof as you do. Interestingly, the only alcohol was the jing jiu I'd already partaken of earlier and I asked if it was really true that it was medicinal. Yes, it really was! Well, normally I'd ask about clinical trials but I really thought that would be inappropriate. The one thing I didn't do was add Red Bull to the jing jiu though as others were doing. I know that here it's meant to be much stronger than in the west, and only had it once about 8 years ago and that was enough.
Despite my cold it was a lovely meal and muscle boss turned up a bit later with three more bottles of the jing jiu. We laughed about how much we'd forgotten about the music meal the other day, and once again I realised I was just a bloke with mates and didn't feel like a foreigner. It may seem pathetic but it's evenings like this that I feel justify my coming back on my own.
 |
| With Xiao Nong and friends in our pod eating and drinking jing jiu - is that a bloody Xmas tree on the left? |
At 1am or whenever, we decided to leave, and muscle boss insisted on giving me a lift back in his car. I admit to buying a last bottle of jing jiu as I thought the lads might be up and indeed they were and we dissolved into a silly quiz as Mat's classes had all be cancelled tomorrow and it was the mid-afternoon for Andge and Awl. Somehow I made it till 3am but only had the energy to apologise to say I would crash out and indeed I did 30 seconds later.
No comments:
Post a Comment