Dom, Tan, Leilei, and Xixi in China: Mango fever again

Lunch was once again a home-made affair, but barely had I finished when Ma Yong pinged me to go to Tiandong to eat mangoes, as one does. But yeah, why not? I said I'd need 20 minutes in order to get a shower and of course 10 minutes later I received a photograph showing that he was already waiting outside. Well he'd have to wait. Tan had also asked me to pick up another couple of deliveries so that added on another 5 minutes, but hey, time doesn't seem to be so precious here.

I finally got into Ma Yong's car at around 2pm and we drove the hour to Tiandong. It probably would have been quicker on the train but that's not the way you turn up here. When we did turn up it was just a big warehouse with quite a few people boxing mangoes as you do. We had a few glances before going to the air conditioned office for a few cups of tea and lots of tasting of mangoes. Blimey I had at least four halves of different types of mango: 桂七、台农、、贵妃、大金煌。 They were all delicious of course.

With Ma Yong going to Tiandong

Pan ge's fruity place

Lots of types of mangoes

Then came maybe the real reason I was there today. I'd already posed for photographs and done a couple of films, but Ma Yong now produced a Bluetooth microphone he attached to my shirt. I had to practise a couple of lines saying how much I liked Pan Ge's mangoes. Then I realised Tan had said that in no way should I do any adverts as last year one video went relatively viral and the mango company probably made a lot of money out of it. She'd even complained to Douyin but it wasn't upheld. Wo ge ren don't really care about it but fair enough I should respect that. But anyway I did my bit for a short film and said to only share on Weixin groups but not Douyin.

Copious cups of tea later we finally left, me with a huge bag of mangoes plus two boxes full. On the way home Tan called and asked to speak to Ma Yong who was driving. It was hard to make out exactly what the conversation was about but it transpired she had already seen a couple of photos from this afternoon and was concerned it would be another repeat of last year. So I told her I'd told them to only put stuff on Weixin groups and not Douyin, and to be fair Ma Yong rang the boss Pan Ge to tell him not to put anything on Douyin. I felt a little bit bad as maybe the many mangoes I'd been given were partly in thanks for providing some advertising for his company.

With Pan ge and a mate and mangoes

Back home I realised I was slightly hungry, despite the mangoes in the mid-afternoon, but some bloke pinged me to eat with him and a couple of mates so that was sorted. Except it was a couple of miles away and I hadn't charged the dian dong che. No problem...I'd try to get it there and charge it while eating. And indeed that's exactly what I did. I didn't recollect who the blokes were, but guessed they were from watching football a few days ago. The food wasn't amazing but it filled a hole, and after charging the bike for 90 minutes I made my excuses and went to Li Kun's place as he'd pinged me to have a beer. That was more fun of course and we ended up talking about the Chinese army and how it was so strong now. I didn't bother asking too many questions.