Managed to grab another hour's sleep after waking up at 11am , which was really nice, until I realised it still was not much more than 7 hours' sleep in total. But hey-ho, I saw I had a message to eat with Haiwei tonight, so that was the evening meal sorted, and I forced down a couple of quail eggs I'd boiled the other day for lunch though I had little appetite.
Later in the afternoon I went for a walk to the supermarket to pick up beer and yoghurt. Already more than half the other shops are closed for the New Year and it's only New Year's eve tomorrow. On the way back Li Kun called me to eat with him but I told him I had a prior invitation and of course he was fine with that. I told him I'd call him after I'd eaten and "communicate" with him, thinking that was a reasonable term, but he chastised me and said I would call him later to "arrange something". Ha, fair enough, I'm gradually learning these little nuances. Another one I've learnt this year is not to say 我要走了 (I'm going back), but to say 我回家了 (I'm going home). I have no idea if this is specific to Guangxi or is more general but it's good to notice progress, if very slow.
After a couple of beers I left to find Haiwei's mum's house situated in a school living complex from what I could make out. I remembered to get some fruit but couldn't find anywhere open, so I headed back to a supermarket I'd seen before, but heard a shout and it was Haiwei's second son waiting for me. I told him I wanted to get some fruit but he said "no!", we were to go to eat. Well fair enough. There were three generations in the house and I could see it would be a lovely family meal. Clearly they were still preparing it which is why I arrived after the advertised 6pm but not too late to be rude, and soon after 6.30pm we sat down to an excellent meal with raw fish and two huoguos, one with beef ribs and one more normal one for heating up the already cold chicken.
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| Nice family meal at Haiwei's mum's place |
I mostly stuck to the raw fish, but Haiwei kept putting boiled squid in my bowl and I couldn't really complain about my protein-rich supper. After 20 minutes the alcohol was brought out but they only had Hoegaarden cans of beer that were 4.5%! I so notice the difference and didn't even manage two cans before Haiwei moved from the baijiu to beer and helped me finish of the second one and we shared the third. It was quite a relief not to be playing cai ma, but instead talk, and indeed I did talk English with Haiwei's first son, whom I noticed had had his nails painted, so I wasn't the only bloke in Pingguo with at least one painted nail. I wonder if I should get all of mine done.
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| Apparently the 2nd and middle finger represent devil eyes |
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| He's also shown me where I can get mine done and sent me the contact details of the woman that does it. Should I? |
During the meal A Wu called me. He'd originally arranged for me to go to his wife's home town tomorrow for New Year's Eve, but now said that there weren't any beds and it wouldn't be convenient. Oh, I wasn't expecting to stay the night anyway but I guess that had been that plan that was now changed. So now I was planless for the biggest night of the year! Oh well, hopefully something will sort itself out.
Back home I pinged Li Kun to "arrange" something and he said to relax for a bit and later we'd go to Xiao Bai de Tian. Cool, so I enjoyed a much weaker 330ml can of beer but before I could finish he'd pinged me the location of the bar, not that I needed it any more and I told him so. 20 minutes later I was there and it was the busiest I've ever seen it. On the left was a table of people I'd met a couple of weeks ago at Tian Yang Po's bbq place, and they called over to me and I said I'd have a drink with them "in a bit", and sat down with Li Kun and his wife and three kids, well his eldest on her pad as the other two were running about like...kids do. The owner and the Shandong bloke from last time joined us for a few drinks and then some bbq lamb turned up which was fatty but delicious.
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| Great food and company at Xiao Bai de Tian |
I did go over and perform my ganbei to the other table, and thankfully didn't have to ganbei each of the six of them. Then the Shandong bloke went round the back and came back with two large bowls of noodles, Shandong style (meaning cold I think). I didn't avail myself of these, but when he came back a second time with some cold horse meat I certainly did as it was really nice. And then shortly after he brought what is possibly my favourite dish, 皮蛋, preserved brown eggs - the texture of boiled eggs but brown and semi-translucent, served with garlicky relish.
The owner then got up and performed some guitar songs, and Li Kun said I should do the same, to which I shook my head. Then Ma Laoban (Li Kun's Ma, not my tea drinking friend) turned up to sit with us as Li Kun's wife had taken the kids home by now. Then a bloke from the table I'd ganbeid with earlier got up to sing a couple of songs. Li Kun then told the owner that I could play the guitar and sing and he looked at me as if to say why hadn't I told him after coming here so many times?
So when this bloke had finished his set on the guitar, Ma Laoban started shouting "Duoming! Duoming!" and within seconds the whole of the place was doing the same. I had no option now, but had suspected it since the owner had found out I could play so had been doing ganbeis rather than half glasses for the last 10 minutes. They wanted Sound of Silence and they got it, despite a few fumbled words. And I guess it wasn't too bad as they insisted on another so I did The Boxer again. Fair enough, Li Kun made the excuse that it would be good practice for the Bangxu festival in four days and I can't really argue with that.
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| Fun "wanted" posters for Harry Potter characters in the same place as actual communist leaders...some sort of joke? |
I was a bit of a relief to get back to the table though, and then a woman who told me she was called Maria then got up to the front to sing some songs and we ended up staying till getting on for 2am. I gave Li Kun a lift back that I probably shouldn't have, then got home to have a chat with the lads and it ended up being another near 4am end again.
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