Well I almost had a normal night's sleep...certainly the most normal since being here. It was a bit fractured but I was up by 9am. But I realised I had no more money in Weixin and certainly no cash. I had sent some to Li Kun last night but I guess it was too late so I pinged him at lunchtime as I needed a bite to eat. At least he confirmed that he'd received it but wouldn't be able to send till 5pm as he was driving/working till then. But luckily I found a pack of instant noodles that I bought in the summer as a pack of four came with a free bowl. I wouldn't normally do this many carbs but I'd not had breakfast and it was now the afternoon and I was hankering after a nap again so I had them with a couple of beers.
And I even managed nearly an hour nap too, when at one minute to 5pm Li Kun sent through the money. I asked him what his plans were for tonight and he said he was performing at a concert. Oh, I thought he might have told me about that before. I didn't have any plans so asked if I could go and of course I could, but it wasn't to start till 7.30. No probs, I had a couple of phone calls to make and in the end only just got there to see him playing the drums to music teacher singing with the guitar. But this wasn't his main appearance - that was next when he played the flute to accompany a lady on the zither very nicely.
It was a professional show, with all the lighting and production you might expect for a huge audience but there were maybe only 50 people in total watching and I felt a bit bad as during the whole show there were far many more performers than audience. Still, I'm a little bit used to that now and I think some people like being on the stage. I almost get it now that I've had to do it. Of course half an hour after I arrived I got a message from Huang Qian asking me to go to sing song in a bit and I said I should be able to. But Li Kun had said we'd be going for a drink after the performance and I didn't know when that would end. Well actually it ended under an hour after I got there, but Li Kun told me the people filming it wanted me to give a little interview.
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| One of the performers doing her interview before me |
Jeez, I sneaked back to the bike where I'd planted a little drink and had a sip. But only a sip...I shouldn't need Dutch courage to say a few words. The woman from the tv then showed me the words she wanted to say on her phone. Err...they were all in Chinese characters of course but actually I could understand most of them: 我想来通过这场演出更深入地感受那段光辉岁月，而且这样的文化活动也丰富了我们的精神生活，所以就来啦 - actually I knew all but 5 of them but I wasn't going to remember this or be confident, so I got her to add me to Weixin and send me the text so I could translate it to pinyin to be on the safe side. I really hope that soon I won't have to do this...and in fact I would have preferred to have a more natural question and answer session rather than reading some prepared text. I sent the text to Tan and she said the same...that it sounded a bit ridiculous coming from me. I hadn't realised that this performance was some sort of 95th anniversary thing for some cultural phenomenon.
Anyway I tried to rehearse my line while a couple of the other performers were being interviewed, and I made a point of congratulating one of the ladies for her powerful singing performance. When it finally got to my time we did a couple of takes but I said it looked unnatural, which it did because it was. So we did a last take that they seemed to like. Oh yes, it was the answer to the question "Why did you come to watch this benefit performance commemorating the 95th anniversary of the Baise Uprising?", and my answer was "I want to experience that glorious period more deeply through this performance, and such cultural activities also enrich our spiritual life, so I came.". Damn, now I really wish I'd just answered naturally...did I really want to experience that glorious period therefore I came?
By this time Li Kun's wife had taken their younger two back home, so I took Li Kun to his studio on my dian dong che and realised the batteries are pretty much knackered. They had only just been filled and were having trouble getting both of us back, even though we only weigh about 160 jin each. Well, it won't we worth doing in the 11 days I have left here, but hopefully will last that long. Then I think it will be bye bye bike, sadly.
Once back at Li Kun's he went out to buy a fish and then came back to bring out some beers. Luo and Meng turned up a few minutes later and we cracked open a couple as you do. I realised I hadn't eaten since lunch and was bloody starving, so waited patiently till the fish was fried, but that wasn't it. Li Kun then added a load of water to make fish soup so it took another 20 minutes before it was ready but it was bloody good. We then added raw fish for 20 seconds before dipping it into a mix of oil and vinegar and grass of some sort. It didn't totally fill me up but filled a bit of a hole. But I said I needed to go to see Huang Qian who was with Haiwei and his girlfriend as usual, and of course there was no problem as it was already gone 10.30pm.
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| Fried fish...soon to be soup |
Of course I took the wrong lift and ended up at a massage place. As nice as it might have been to stay there they showed me where I should be, so I went down again and as I passed the car park I heard my name called. It was Ling Ming...he was on his bike waiting for his wife to pick up some food for their son. We ended up chatting for a good 5 minutes and he jokingly had a go at me for "secretly" coming back to China. He's really busy with work at the moment but I said if he had a spare evening to give me a call and go for a beer. Then his wife materialised and we had another 5 minute chat but I realised I was being late for KTV.
So finally upstairs at nearly 11pm I found the room and there was applause as I walked in. And ganbeis and caima and then I realised I had forgotten it was Huang Qian's 40th birthday celebration and I hadn't even brought a present.... Not that the others had either I suppose...and I had given her a box of chocolates when we ate at her place last week. But no longer had I got there than Nong video-called me from another KTV to ask me to come over. Ha...typical...I said the usual 等一下 which meant a bit later. And I intended to, but I wasn't going to leave a birthday celebration so soon.
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| Huang Qian and Baoli singing at the former's birthday party |
So I did my usual Pengyou and No Matter What, and Qian's parents seemed to appreciate it and shook my hand. Gosh, I hope they don't think I'm a potential partner...I don't know if she's had a past but a 40 year-old without kids in China is a worry to their parents. At least the others knew about Tan. We ended up caimaiing in order to get through the rest of the beers as I was being asked where I was, so I finally left at 1am to go to the usual KTV place that Boss Zhou owns. A Wu was there, but other than Nong I didn't know anyone else. I went through the same repertoire as about an hour ago to their delight, but then a couple more women came in and we started dancing in a way I haven't done for bloody years. Why not? We finally left at 2.30am when the women decided to go for zhou. A Wu and the other bloke were nowhere to be seen, so I headed off home and managed to stay up to watch the crap that was City losing 2-0 at Juventus. We were the better team, but looked devoid of ideas in front of goal...oh well...it was a great few years. Finally asleep at 6am for my sins.
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