Unexpected guitar at Li Jia He Xian

Up lateish due to yesterday but so what I’m officially on holiday now for a bit. I got a call from Li Kun at 1.30pm and at first I thought he was telling me to come and practise music but then realised it was to go for a meal with musicians from the town of Baise (an hour and a half north of Pingguo). I wasn’t really thinking but I knew I was on holiday so I thought “sod it” and I said I’d be there “soon”. I  didn’t tell him I needed a shower so would be longer than the 5 minutes he was expecting, so obviously when I arrived he was already waiting outside the famous restaurant Li Jia He Xian where they were.

Wow. They were well into their meal and I thought it a little strange that Li Kun had only called me at 1.30pm rather than the day before. A few beers were drunk and then a violinist started a very professional piece with the classical guitarist (though the former wasn’t drinking the latter was). It was a spellbinding session for me and I clapped heartily when they finished earlier than most people who were filming it (ok I was too).

Unexpected wonderful violin performance

The guitarist was great too

But then came the problem. Li Kun said it was my turn to perform. Actually one of the men at the table had said it was very interesting that literally the minute I had arrived he had been watching a video of me playing Scarborough Fair (Canticle) and when I turned up it was like some sort of vision (his words not mine). Li Kun picked up the classical guitar that had just been played beautifully and thrust it in my unwelcoming hands. Apparently it was worth more than a thousand quid.  I hadn’t played a classical guitar for well over 10 years and explained so. But apparently that wasn’t a problem, and as soon as they heard my excuse Li Kun was on the phone ordering an acoustic guitar and not 10 minutes later one arrived at the restaurant.

What could I do? They’d only bloody arranged a delivery of a guitar so this white man could try to entertain professional musicians…. I was quite embarrassed so actually drank a glass of red wine which I don’t normally do here. I’ve never sung Scarborough Fair before, only played it to accompaniment so I put the capo at a much higher fret than I would normally have. Oh it was not good...my voice was quiet and probably not on key as I am no Garfunkel, but I got polite applause afterwards.

I downed a beer and decided that I would show them I wasn’t that bad, so went to another scale and belted out Sounds of Silence and Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard and got an actual appreciative round of applause. That gave me the confidence to break into a couple of more S&G songs that they really liked.

As is sometimes the case here I got a “review” from the main guitar player from the violin piece. He said I was “too weak” for Scarborough Fair but really came alive for the other songs afterwards. Chinese people are often this frank and I do appreciate it, especially in this case.

There was a bald bloke (I think another guitarist) who got really drunk and then just leant forward and fell asleep as you would I suppose, but no-one batted an eyelid. Well this was a really unexpected afternoon, which normally, due to work I wouldn’t have taken up. But I’m very glad I did, strangely to hear the criticism more than the praise. I got home at 4pm.

I stayed up to have the luxury of watching City beat Huddersfield 6-1, and David Silva was a peach. I love many of our players but he will probably always be my favourite, despite Aguero scoring a hat-trick. But Man U lost to Brighton which made the day that much better!

Nice bonus watching us win convincingly

Muslim beef and meeting Chen Again

Up a bit late and took the kids to the Muslim place I took Xixi last year for lunch. While we were making our way through some beef some boss entered the establishment and I recognised him from somewhere recently. He chastised me for eating so late (it was only just gone 1.30pm). He too was eating with his son and a few minutes later as he left he shouted out that he had paid for my order too. I tried in vain to reject this but knew there would be no availability of avail. I wish I could have thanked him by name….

The beef was gorgeous and the kids had quite a bit despite it being a little chilli. The kids ate a fair bit of the hand-made noodles too. Then Leilei decided to try eating some cut-up chilli on the beef and spent the next 15 minutes in agony trying to stop the burning and finishing my water...we couldn’t understand how the beef was so mild with those chillies all around it. We had to doggy bag the rest of the noodles as I couldn’t bear wasting it even though I was nearly certain it would find itself in our bin within hours.

The kids enjoying some beef at the Muslim place

Although the rainy season appears to have left us for the sun, and it was blisteringly hot once again, we went for a ride around until we could feel that the sun was doing us a disservice and stopped at my favourite watermelon juice place. The girls I remember as mere tots were now serving there and seemed to remember us with a smile, as they told me they’d just run out of watermelon and would honey melon be ok? Yes it would, and Leilei took a zhenzhu naicha too before getting back on the dian dong che and knocking over a standing bicycle. Whoops sorry.

The best watermelon drink place in Pingguo...I first came here when they were literally half the size (the girls not the drinks)

We stayed most of the rest of the afternoon in the sanctuary of our air-conditioned flat until Tan went out to see friends and then Chen pinged me to say we’d meet at 蚝门螺吧 at 6.30pm. I didn’t really understand the Chinese as it looks like Oyster Door Snail Bar, but I didn’t care as it was really close to our house and nearly next door to Tian Yang Po’s, Tan’s favourite bbq that we’ve been going to for close to 15 years….

We ended up having a great meal for me, but not so much for the kids but they had their various sweet drinks so they were relatively happy. And I was sensible with the beer.

Great meal with Chen

Xixi "sort of" enjoyed it - Chen waving...

The toilets warning it is forbidden to poo

Later I went to a bar with the waterman and bar owner but I didn’t stay as long as I might have done due to paternal duties and tiredness. But it was weird that when I left I had to take a fairly heavy woman home and I worried that I wouldn’t have enough in the battery to get her home but thankfully I just about made it.

Just for historical reference I'm checking on how many km the dian dong che is doing between charges...not amazing but don't need to change batteries very soon

Mario Land and a lizard

I took the kids to A Xia’s place but in the end they wanted to stay with me which I didn’t mind at all. As we were getting back on the bike a shiny white car bibbed me and nearly hit me then the window wound down and I noticed it was my mate Chen from a couple of years ago, the bloke married to the Nanning dancer with a son who likes to smile a lot but talks in a way I find very difficult to understand. Well we hadn’t met up last year so he invited me to a meal tomorrow. I didn’t think I had anything arranged so I said it should be ok thank you, and we exchanged WeChat details as his last one was no longer in use due to him forgetting his password. A slightly dubious excuse as these days you can get your friends to confirm who you are if you forget your password...but I certainly wasn’t going to enquire.

I noticed this pasted at the ground floor. Annoyingly at the time of taking it I didn't understand it, even though I could read 40% of the characters - progress of sorts, but lots still needed. Must do better.

I took the kids for a ride in the afternoon and found a really weird place with concrete holes like Mario Land. We stood there for several minutes trying to work out what it was but were nonplussed. Later, back on the road, we noticed a lizard crossing the road and made sure we missed it, but then turned around to see where it was going.This was actually more fun than expected and it dodged death several times and miraculously made it across to the other side of the road. We thought we’d lost it in the bushes but we found it again climbing a tree. Several minutes amusement for us to the bemusement of anyone looking. The kids then ordered me to take them to a shenme dou you shop… Leilei nearly bought a set of wireless headphones and tried them on and they looked a bit silly but I’m glad he did. Xixi bought some face mask stuff as she doesn’t seem to be able to leave a shop without buying something....not sure where she got that from..

The weird Mario Land-like holes in the ground

Modelling the face mask she had to buy...

Some other dubious wares in the shop I'm glad they didn't see...

The lizard that survived the crossing of the road and gave us more enjoyment than reptiles should normally do

I went to Haiwei’s for tea as his son was around and wanted to speak English and Spanish. I couldn’t tempt the kids to come with me though. Of course it was a nice meal and we had a couple of beers but nothing silly as I had to get home for a meeting at 8pm. It went better and quicker than planned but there was no point going back to Haiwei’s as his son had gone to his mum’s to sleep - he’ll be going back to school tomorrow at 6pm...grim.

I had to do more work later before deciding to do some guitar practice before realising I didn’t have my capo. Google translate makes the Chinese for “capo” look really bad but Li Kun understood and said I could pick it up. I came over to his place and there were loads of people there playing music. A guitar was thrust into my hands and I spent the next 20 minutes playing Scarborough Fair with Li Kun. Then I took my leave and called Haiwei, who had been calling me for the last hour. As I was checking the map location he sent me I saw it looked really close and then I heard a shout “Tom!!” and of course it was him and a couple of mates. They were right opposite Li Kun’s place! The next hour or so was quite a fun session of cai ma and talking about how lucrative being a middleman between China and Canada could be.

I offered Haiwei a lift as he was obviously pissed but he pointed to his car, so there wasn’t much I could do. I made my excuses and left for a relatively early night except I played World of Tanks with Mat for more time than I should have.

Rats

Up 10ish, so before the kids, and decided to get up rather than lie in. It was a bit late for breakfast so took the kids to go to lunch at 12.53. We went to the underground car park to unplug the charging dian dong che to find out it wasn’t plugged in anyway. The security man was shouting something to me about electricity so I feared the worst, but on turning it on I found it seemed to be full. So we all got on but as we tried to mount the slope to get out it gave up and I accepted that we had no dian. However, on further inspection it turned out to be a flat tyre. The bloke who had just shouted at me then told me there was a place that would fix it just around the corner so we started walking there. But as soon as we got to the waterman’s place just 30 seconds later the drizzle we’d been having turned torrential and we were stuck so we took advantage of this and went to the jiao zi place to eat. Leilei ate all of his plus one of mine and added some chilli sauce which made me happy. Xixi had a portion of bao zi and managed all but three which wasn’t bad. The rain eased off and we walked the dian dong che to a small place with tyres outside and woke up the man lying there. He checked the back wheel and straight away identified a buckled rear wheel and got to work straightening it out. Five minutes later it was working again. He said “wu kuai” and I tried to give him 10 but he would not accept and pushed back five kuai into my hand. I was really grateful though not surprised and knew it could have been a lot more in a different place.

Checking the mileage on the clock

The buckled wheel

Fixing the buckled wheel

Lunch of bao zi

We were supposed to go to A Xia a yi’s but popped home first to do the important job of putting fizzy drinks in the freezer so they would be solid by the evening. Mama was still there so ordered a di di che to take them to A Xia’s. This is the equivalent of Uber and is incredibly efficient and cheap. We’re talking about 5-6 kuai for most rides, so undercutting san lun ches and not to mention they’re air conditioned etc. Sadly for me this really could be the death of san lun ches here, but it is simply a sign of market forces in action.

As soon as they were gone Haiwei called me to remind me to go to his office and drink tea. Well it was 2pm and I wasn’t going to get a sleep so why not? When I got there I bumped into Boss Huang and first had some tea in his office with his wife and kid and some other bosses. Then Haiwei came and we moved to his office, just the two of us. It appeared he wanted to talk business. Over the course of the next hour I learnt that his new job is at an aluminium factory, except it’s not actually aluminium that they will produce but some sort of fluoridised version that can be used for extracting pure aluminium from alumina during the electrolysis process.

Haiwei was very serious about this and kept writing down terms with a pen in Chinese characters that I couldn’t understand (quite frankly I couldn’t understand the English versions most of the time). He had to keep writing on my Pleco app so I could see what he meant but at the end I understood he wanted me to become a middleman between his company and foreign aluminium factories that would be interested in buying this flouridised substance. Of course I had many questions and posed these questions as coming from a potential client rather than trying to sound critical. Why wouldn’t other companies do this? How good is the quality compared to what they are using etc. It boiled down to the “fact” that the environmental impact of producing this substances is considerable, and many countries won’t allow it.

As I’ve been going to Canada quite a lot recently he wanted to give me some samples to show to prospective companies. As if I could just step out of the office and walk up to a factory owner and do this. To be fair Canada is the world’s third biggest aluminium producer after China and Russia. Then he said there’d definitely be money in it for me and when I said that wouldn’t be necessary he nearly took offence and said it wasn’t up for question...if I managed to help a sale of course I’d be recompensed...no option. He was already talking about bringing prospective clients here and showing them the factory and taking them out to eat and drink, and the factory won’t even be operational until November.

Then we leapt into his car and 15 minutes later we were at the factory grounds, where it was in the process of being built. We entered an office and met his boss (with whom he’d worked about 15 years ago in a similar business). They then talked shop for the next half an hour at a pace I found difficult to keep up with, so I buried myself in my phone and started studying the aluminium production process. Maybe I have a low threshold for this sort of thing, but I found the process fascinating; pure aluminium doesn’t occur naturally on this planet as it requires huge amounts of electrical energy to separate it from other chemicals. Typically, alumina is first extracted from bauxite, before being hit with very high currents of electricity at a high temperature so it can be sucked away from the other elements. It’s a very complex process that’s been used for over 100 years, though there are constant efforts to refine it, one being to get rid of carbon anodes in order to avoid spewing out a load of CO2. But once the aluminium is made it’s very clean and more recyclable than other metals as it doesn’t corrode.

I still need to understand properly where the fluoride stuff fits in in the last part of the process, but if nothing else I hope to learn some more chemistry here. This is how education should be done; instead of going to school and learning ionic and covalent bonding in order to pass a test, then instantly forget it, we should first identify a need, then work out how we fulfil that need. In this case the need is for a clean metal that is currently mixed with a load of stuff we don’t particularly want. So we need to break the chemical bonds by using other chemicals and energy - kinetic (crushing), electric, and heat. When you have the context of this need you have a much stronger drive to learn. I’m really trying to find these contexts for the kids to make their learning better grounded instead of just going to school because you have to. I don’t expect it to be easy but there must be some way to make then find a need to learn algebra. I’m going to make a concerted effort to be more aware of this during everyday situations. I wonder if I could have used the dian dong che’s wheel as an example. The man had to let out air then use some metal pincers to bend the metal...so much maths and chemistry there, from the angle and length of the pincers, to the pliability of the metal wheel, followed by the pressure from the machine to pump back air into the tyre and the spraying of water over the fixed area to check no bubbles were coming out. Why can’t the kids be so fascinated by this?

Anyway, we eventually left the factory office and headed back to the bosses’ place to drink more tea. Haiwei said he was going to play ping pong this evening and I said I’d join him with the kids. But when we got back to the office one of the kids pointed to a yellow bag and told me to look. Inside were two giant frozen rats, each the size of a sturdy man’s forearm. They were on their backs with their front feet sticking up in a begging position. Nice.

So 6 o’clock rolled along ushered in by more tiny cups of tea and finally we were all told to eat. We went into the room that the bosses usually drink red wine in to find a table with two trays of meat on it, but no rat, at least yet.

Two frozen rats

Two non-frozen rats

 A non-rat dish that was fine

Soon after the red wine and beer appeared, followed by lots of cai ma. I actually got a bit tipsy on the beer so at 8.30 I made excuses and went home to pick up my guitar to take to Li Kun’s to practise, but not before the rat appeared, thankfully in small non-rat-like chunks and I did try some - not bad if a little tough.. I spent a couple of hours at Li Kun’s drinking only tea and practising Scarborough Fair with him on the flute, focusing on the timing mainly. A couple of mates dropped by and then a woman appeared with beer, and then some food arrived and I realised this is where I would be for a good hour or so.

Haiwei called me a couple of times to come back to the bosses’ place and the third time Li Kun answered and and shouted that I was over at his for the evening! Eventually though I did head back to the office but Haiwei had already gone - well it was after 1am.

Wrong Boss Zhou

Managed to get up at 10.30 and grabbed a shower before going out and getting the kids some food as the lazy sods didn’t want to go out but I felt the need to. Back home and fed I chatted to Mat for a bit trying to sort out getting World of Tanks to work but we couldn’t find each other online, until he worked out that I’d downloaded the American client while in Canada, and we should be on the EU one. What? Surely that is just a config thing? But no, a new 5GB download was on the cards so maybe we’ll manage to play this evening...poxy (not proxy) shit in this day and age.

Cute baby at the beef soup place opposite ours...I think it is Lu Wen's new daughter

Took the kids out for lunch...something tells me they are getting a little bored of jiaozi

Managed to get a 1h45 wushui and got up before 6pm. I didn’t eat tea as I was going to see Uncle Yellow at 8.30pm, but before then I had loads of work. Then I had to go to Boss Zhou’s but somehow I ended at the wrong Boss Zhou. This was a little embarrassing but I made humour of it as one must, but was a little late for Uncle Yellow. Of course being late for mates here is no big deal. Uncle Yellow was there with his pisshead mate I’ve known for 10 years now, who’s now got a one year old daughter and a wife who doesn’t seem to mind them getting pissed with mates. I can only imagine they only do it for a few weeks a year while I’m around but that is quite a pompous thought. We ate great insects and pork and beef stuff...it really was the best meal I’ve had this year. They drank 22% white alcohol and I stuck to beer, though at 2.5% still gets to me. As things do sometimes happen, I ended up sitting at another table and some woman started singing to me to me in the local language.. I was really embarrassed but had to stand there and take it while of course I’m being filmed.

More nice grub(s)

My life here could be some sort of Black Mirror episode. No need for cameras on every street; everyone has one on their person and it seems at least one person has one trained on me at any one time. People almost have a real-time feed of what I am doing. The need for some privacy may be important for many but it seems a luxury I no longer have when not in a house.

Water man meal

Up at 10ish so no running or table tennis but not too bad. The kids still had the cereal I’d brought from my Canada Airbnb but that wasn’t that much so I took them out to the sweetcorn soup place that is one of the few places that we can all have something to eat that we like; the soup for Xixi and me, egg fried rice for them, and a sort of omelette for me. I had instructions from Tan to bring back some sour soup from the place next door but one and I duly did, with a spoonful of chilli and half a spoonful of salt.

I could have done with a siesta but managed to avoid it, mainly due to the fact that there was quite a lot of work on. I don’t even know if I’m on holiday at the moment. The Water man texted me to see if I was coming over later as I said I may be able to. Well, why not? I said it would be more like 9.30pm though due to having to play football later.

As for the kids I’d promised to take them to ping pong this evening. So I spent literally hours during the rest of the afternoon doing my expenses with some shitty new system. Bloody hell I could expense a £5 soft drink but not a £2 glass of wine. WTF?

Li Kun then called to see if we could practise Scarborough. We really should...I hired the guitar in Toronto for this, but I was already committed for today, so suggested we do it tomorrow. I did take the kids to the Golden Horse ping pang place but found it closed strangely. But the kids didn’t seem to mind too much so we just went for a ride and looked at some shen me dou you shops. Leilei got a remote control car for 55 kuai and a fidget spinner, while Xixi bought some drawing stuff for a friend at school.

While out I received a message from Huahua to say football was cancelled as there was no room on the pitches…. One would have thought they would have planned that...but who am I to judge? Actually I was quite happy with the news and was able to meet up with Water man earlier than I thought, though Tan did scold me for going out all the time (only two nights in a row and I’m on holiday...come on...). Anyway I found my way to the water man’s house and we had some good banter with fish I didn’t particularly like. Banter with mates, not the fish. I got back after midnight then chatted a little with Mat before stupidly realising it was 6am.

It was a bloody pain trying to ring the Water man's bell

With mates and fish at the Water man's house

Supposedly British beer...at 2.5% it wasn't far off what we used to drink a couple of hundred years ago....

Tea turning into beer

I took the liberty of not doing a great deal during the day until Tan and the kids came back at 4pm. I had offered to go out for Tan’s birthday but no-one seemed that bothered so we boringly got a takeaway delivered for an evening meal, which wasn’t that bad actually, but didn’t seem that special as these days it’s pretty straightforward to order one from your phone. The only issue is the one that’s been there since 2009, i.e. they don’t know which number to push when they get to outside our flat. So we generally get a phone call and now it seems we can’t open the door from our place so I get sent downstairs to meet the person and let them in. Not that it’s worth it by that time and I just take the meal from them.

After our meal I took the kids out and we went to the local Nancheng supermarket. As we were leaving it I was offered a ticket. I had no idea what it meant but I was ushered to another place where I scratched it off and I discovered I had “won” something. In fact I’d won a toothbrush plus 1000 kuai off any jade I wanted. This was suspicious to me...about £110 off any jade bracelet starting at 1300 kuai. I smelt a rat and said I’d go back to get the wife to check these out but was told I had to use the discount there and then. Then the rat I smelt just got smellier and I politely refused while secretly wondering if I was missing something.

Checking progress of the battery...not great but not too bad - 33km since last charge

Later that evening I went to drink tea with Haiwei’s reunion friend but one of the blokes there decided to buy some beer (not on my request). We ended up not drinking much tea but playing cai ma as one does and it was quite enjoyable. But Haiwei called a bit later and I promised to go to the bosses’ place half an hour later. 20 minutes later I got the same call again but only left 15 minutes after that….

Drinking tea that then turned into beer (not literally like a biblical miracle)

The bosses were in full red wine swing, but thoughtfully got some beer for me. Blooming annoyingly I lost badly at cai ma to these pissed people. Afterwards I saw Hua hua outside and had a few more enjoyable beers with him. He asked me to go to play football tomorrow at 8pm and I said yes as I felt I ought to. Then I realised it was proper football in a proper football arena and the others would probably be good. Oh well he did get me that football kit two years ago.

Then A Wu rolled up in his car as pissed as a fart. I guess someone had told him I was there...he sat outside with me and Hua hua and had a couple, and refused to move his car for the girl who was parked in front (to be fair she was up with the bosses so not a stranger). So someone else moved the car. Haiwei was half cut and I thought I’d have to take him home again but he had his car with him…. I wouldn’t accept this in London, or nearly anywhere else I know, but they seem incapable of driving more than 12 miles per hour so I suppose it’s safeish.

Pissed bosses

Turning up late but it being ok

Day off

Well Tan and the kids finally actually did go to Beihai at 11.30, leaving me some relatively free time to do...well the closest to nothing since last year when I was here...though I have a feeling it is the calm before the storm. Though they’ll be back tomorrow so I should make the most of it.

The best bit about my day off was being able to watch City beat Arsenal in the first game of the season at a relatively early 11pm. I was able to cheer without worrying about waking anyone up except the neighbours upstairs. C’mon City.

Eerie hotel with kids

Actually woke up at a respectable 8am meaning nearly 10 hours sleep. Have I sorted this jetlag already? Really my body should be ready for bed. Let’s see how long it lasts.

Tan had planned to take the kids to Beihai tomorrow. Given that I’d just got back from 12 days away I wasn’t massively happy about this but I wanted them to experience new places in China (as I would have liked to but knew I’d have to work). I noticed there was little dian in the dian dong che but took the kids out anyway and for whatever reason we decided to visit the deserted Pingguo International Hotel I’d been to not two weeks ago. Actually I suppose I wanted them to see this vaguely grotesque building for the experience.

A beautiful receipt I was given...not sure what for now but I hope it was worth it

To my surprise Leilei and Xixi were both quite keen to explore and we walked up floor by floor (as I told them the lifts obviously weren’t working). They seemed to have the same reaction as me before; a sense of danger and excitement. We entered quite a few hotel rooms and found them exactly as if we might have been room attendants (if that’s the term for the people that clean rooms). There were used toothbrushes from 18 months ago left in beakers, and half used tissue rolls strewn around. I made sure I entered rooms before the kids as I wanted to pre-empt any condoms. Though how one pre-empts a condom I hadn’t really thought about. I imagine I would have just stood on it. Though if it had been on a bed it might have looked a bit weird. Thankfully no condoms occurred in the rooms we visited.

Then we ventured as high as the sixth floor. Even I was slightly worried as for some reason the higher we went the higher the chances I thought there would be of finding something nasty in a bedroom. But the sixth floor proved to be as normal and comdom-less as the previous five until we happened upon one room from which was emanating a dull shoom-shoom-dud, shoom-shoom-dud noise. Suddenly the false fears we had had became a little less false. Then we thought we heard voices from one of the rooms. We stood together and tried to be brave. It was definitely a female voice coming from the closest room…..

Although I was as scared as the kids, I’d had enough dreams to realise there is generally an explanation for stuff like this. But mainly I thought I want these guys to respect me for the rest of their lives, so I gulped and opened the door of the closest room telling the kids to keep well behind me….

Annoyingly the cleaner who was vacuuming the room didn’t seem in the slightest perturbed by my entrance and continued to vacuum. I apologised and left the room. But it was ok. There were no ghosts, just cleaners, and I felt confident enough to open the next door with a smile. Which I did, and at least this cleaner smiled too…it was like we were a sort of kin; me knowing she was not a ghost, and her knowing I was….well....probably not a ghost. I apologised and explained we were just looking around as you do, and she explained that the hotel would be re-opened in the future….well that would explain it.

Walking down the eerie hotel corridor

Stuff left for 18 months....

When we got back home I got an IM from Tan to tell me that they wouldn’t be going to Beihai tomorrow as Chuan Chuan’s boyfriend had to work. Literally every time they have organised a trip to Beihai over the last few years it has been cancelled except for the time I went and it wasn’t even Beihai it was Fenggongchang and I got badly sunburnt as I was the only one looking after the kids… Literally every time…. Not that I was complaining as I was happy to be with the kids but blimey even four pissheads like Andge, Awl, Venky, and me were able to sort out such a journey with minimal fuss without even being locals.

Me keeping tabs on how many km I get for a fill-up of electricity...

Then later at night I got a text to say that A Heng could replace Chuan Chuan’s boyfriend and drive them….

Makkou!

I had been bloody annoyed to find out I had a five hour layover in T2 because my card only allows me access to (six) lounges in T1 as I found out on the way over. Had I checked that at time of booking I may well have chosen differently. I was even more annoyed as after going past duty free and through immigration, everyone had to stop in some large area. A large sign in the hall said “San Francisco” and I knew I didn’t want to go there (nothing against the place). I asked the woman and she said I had to wait for the sign saying “Toronto” to turn up. But I told her I’d just come from Toronto and she responded with some rather quick words I didn’t quite understand, but there was no way I was going to admit that, so I thanked her and sat down, hoping I wasn’t doing anything stupid. I worked out the city names must mean where you’ve come from, and that somehow they were limiting the number of people going through customs and security, but had it not been for my pride I would have been in greater comfort during the wait.

Indeed 20 minutes later “Toronto” turned up and there was a big rush for customs. I laughed internally (well I had over four hours till my connection) and let them queue, while catching up with stuff on the phone. Annoyingly, when we landed I was not able to get a data signal, so had to wait till inside the terminal, but was bloody glad I had a Chinese SIM in order to receive the wifi code. But by the time I put my head up again the queue had vanished literally. I went up to where it had started and there was a woman with a kid arguing about going through but her arrival flight hadn’t been called yet, even though her connection was in 50 minutes. I felt a bit sheepish when I was let through because I’d come from Toronto, and wanted to let her take my place.

But my biggest moment of chagrin came during security. The woman in front of me had a duty free bag laden with liquids of all sizes and had no problem going through security. Hang about. Wasn’t it just three weeks ago we came in to the same airport with duty free and were told to check it in? I suppose the main difference was that this time for some reason my bag was going straight to Nanning rather than us picking it up. But still, I had had to put back two bottles of booze plus some perfume I’d got for Tan’s birthday in the duty free in Toronto because the woman there had said they don’t have an agreement with Guangzhou. Poppycock! It’s not like security were checking where you were from and selectively allowing liquids (in a sealed bag too) according to that. Bloody hell I could have got some from the duty free half an hour ago if I’d known. If I’d have been more awake I may have said something but I sithed inside for longer than is healthy.

Usefully, the board showing departures told you to the nearest 10 metres how far away your gate was, so I worked out that in order to get to gate B267 for a boarding time of 9.30 I would have to walk the 870 metres at about ¼ kph, or about ⅙ mph. But I also realised with my heavy backpack with two laptops and a change of clothes I’d be better off doing normal speed. There were not even people waiting for the previous flight by the time I got there so I ate a breakfast of a sandwich taken from the previous flight before calculating I’d need something more substantial very soon. So it was off to one of the various modern establishments where I had a very agreeable bowl of wonton soup with a brown boiled egg and “Chinese Medicine Tea” (she seemed surprised at my choice, but otherwise it was sugarful cola or orange juice).

Second breakfast

But there were still two hours to go. Funnily Andge had woken up at 1.45am his time after dreaming he was half cockroach, half woman, and had to kill the bad women. Luckily (not for her) he managed to kill the bad women, before a woman in a red dress turned him off with a switch in his neck (even though I don’t think he’s watched Humans). Awl had awoken during this time and we got into a chat which, maybe unbeknownst to them got me through a decent half-hour chunk of waiting, during which Awl reminded me of the forks I’d used to gouge his eyes out years ago, and then Andge left us on a precipice by linking the forks to Derby before going offline. The fear is he’ll never remember why and we’ll all live in ignorance.

Despite trying to quell any existing fear of flying by watching the planes take off every 30 seconds or so, the hard seat I was at was not doing my back any good, as pretty much since I’d got to Guangzhou it was seizing up and really giving me gripe. I walked about for a bit and saw a load of those massage chairs. These were a little smaller than what you normally see, and didn’t have the large armrests. If only for the softness I sat myself down and it was somewhat more comfortable than than the previous alternative, even if the USB charger didn’t work. There was an English-speaking Chinese mum and her daughter trying out various ones but not able to get them to work. Each chair had a QR code on it and I supposed you needed to use some app to pay to get it working. A few minutes later another Chinese woman in another massage chair psst’d me and it took a while before I realised she was psst’ing in my direction. I couldn’t make out what she was saying so walked over, where I saw she was actually using the machine. She told me you got eight minutes for free if you scanned it with WeChat. Ok, let’s give it a go. I chose the chair next to her in case of problem and found the “Scan QR Code” part of the app. I had to install some internal 3rd party app inside WeChat but a few seconds later something started moving behind me. It moved up a few inches then moved down and then stopped. I could see a counter in the app counting down from 8 minutes but bugger me if I could get it working again, and that would have used up my free trial.

Disappointed, I found another chair but this time after scanning the QR code there was a message on the phone to the effect that it was broken. Destined to a non-massage I went back to the original chair I had sat in and with no expectation scanned it, only to find that this time the eight minute timer was back and it started! Wow, it was really strong and absolutely worked like a charm, almost as if it was responding to all the parts I wanted worked on (well, I didn’t get too imaginative). From the base of the back, all up and down the spine, pulling out and pushing in, up to the neck, oh the neck, squeezing then pushing up as though to alleviate all the pressure in the vertebrae.

After the eight minutes I almost needed a break, but cheekily thought to try it again. No way, it somehow must have known that the previous time was a false start. But I hit upon a good idea; I took a photo of the QR code and sent it to Xixi, asking her to get mama or Leilei to scan it on their WeChat. I knew Xixi was up as I’d already been chatting with her (luckily they are no longer going to bed post-midnight). Pretty much as soon as I received the IM saying mama had done it it snapped into action again. This time I just closed my eyes oblivious to the fact that anyone in the airport could have taken my hand luggage without me being any the wiser.

Then I got a little greedy. Although Tan had said she could pay directly from her WeChat account I thought we might as well use up the trials. So next was Leilei to scan the code and I got another eight minutes. By this time there were a few other people sitting on the seats, mostly foreigners, and they must have been wondering how come I was getting so much. Well it was getting close to 9.30 so I sent the QR pic to Leilei and got Xixi to scan it for one last decadent octaminute. By the 26th minute I’d had enough and it was getting painful but stupidly I sat it out till the end of the 32nd minute. At least with a human you can tell them the amount of pressure you prefer.

The QR code I used four times - anyone with WeChat could scan it and cause it to start working which could be interesting if someone was sitting in it and not expecting it....almost worth creating a new WeChat account for if at the airport with some time to spare

The time to board had eventually come but the plane to board clearly had not. Although there was no mention of any delay it was patently clear there would be. After all that massaging I was starting to drop off in the chair, so much so that I’d put an alarm for 9.25 just in case. But 10.10 came around and still no sign of any official delay. By this time I was getting a little annoyed. My body clock was 10pm and I was tired. I made what was maybe not a great decision and bought some dried fish and a can of Heineken as the flight would be my only chance to sleep before getting to Nanning and Pingguo. I chugged it in the loo in about four minutes and it was actually very refreshing, and I came out slightly less annoyed about the delay. Until that was I got to B267 to find no-one there. In the 12 minutes I’d been away surely the plane had not arrived and deplaned the passengers, taken the new ones, and gone. Even Easyjet can’t turn it around that quickly. The sign was for another flight in an hour, with no mention of Nanning, and I started to wonder if I too was in a bit of a dream. I walked around various other gates until I realised that with the hundreds of gates in the airport there was not a great chance I’d find Nanning, until I happened upon a departure board I’d not noticed before. “B62 - 南宁 - Gate Closed”. Shit. Could it really be? The logical side of my brain said “no” but the tired and ever-so-slightly tipsy side said “could be” so I hustled along to find B62 downstairs almost exactly below B267, and with people in full swing of boarding..

All in all it was thankfully one of the most nondescript flights I’ve taken; I didn’t even go to the loo. And although didn’t exactly manage to sleep I arrived at the edge of nodding offness by German counting, which I never made into double figures before dissolving into parallel worlds and voices in my head.

Based on the fact we arrived 70 minutes late, I was probably right not to have booked a train to Pingguo. Although in retrospect I might as well have booked four afternoon trains just in order to get one as when I got to the train station, tired, sweaty und indubitably smelly, the ticket machine wouldn’t let me buy a ticket. Annoyingly it confirmed that there was one place left, but I think because I didn’t have a Chinese ID card it probably didn’t want to play ball. Having said that I asked a local and they couldn’t see what the issue was with the machine. It meant I’d have to try the dreaded queues and probably miss my place.

It was all the more frustrating as I couldn’t get online on my phone for more than a minute and when I did ctrip was saying the train was sold out but the sign above the queue didn’t, even though it did for other trains. So I didn’t even know if it was worth queueing. Indeed it was bloody sold out when I finally got to the end of the queue, and the next one wasn’t till around 6pm so I bought the ticket anyway as if to justify having queued for it. But I had four hours to wait so I decided to go to the underground station to cool down. Then I happened upon a reasonable idea - why not try the coach station? Online was giving me all sorts of inconsistent information regarding times so I thought I’d just turn up. This is something I wouldn’t have done with my suitcase a year or more ago where it would take an hour to get there in an unairconditioned bus, but now I was in the underground station so I could get there in seven stops in the cool cool air.

Twenty minutes later I was walking into Xixiangtang bus station to find that the next bus to Pingguo was in nearly an hour. Well, not perfect but it justified coming here. There wasn’t much to do while lugging around a suitcase so I walked outside and perched on a wall next to two of those ubiquitous shops selling food. I caved in and got a slightly chilled Li Quan but it was most refreshing. As was the second.

Back in the station some bloke came up to me and asked if I was “Makkou”. I thought for a bit told him I was sorry but I didn’t think I was. So he said “ah” then started looking at his phone, and a few seconds later he showed me a picture of myself with some mates in Pingguo from a year or so back. Then he mentioned A Wu and I suddenly remembered him having said “Makkou!” to the great amusement of his friends at the time. I hadn’t realised it was a reference to me, and it’s not a word in Mandarin, so must have been the local language. Anyway we had a brief chat and I tried to pretend that I remembered having had a drink with him but it was another less than honest utterance. But I did need a wee so changed the subject to that and we found the loo somewhat further away than I would have expected for a bus station and went in together, which I found a bit weird.

I was secretly rather glad he didn’t insist on talking to me for the journey, and tried some shuteye after still not having any internet. As we got out 90 minutes later in Pingguo the bloke told me to wait as another mate was coming to pick us up. So I got an appreciated and unexpected lift in the mate’s tiny car, whom I recognised. They told me to eat with them at Boss Zhou’s so after a necessary shower I grabbed the diandongche and got there mid meal to great smiles and laughter and “Makkou!”.

I did need to get the kids so picked them up from A Xia’s shop then took them to Boss Zhou’s while I finished my conversation and meals, before focusing back on parenting duties and taking the kids back home to wash and bed and I was in bed myself by 10.45pm for the first time in this country in a long time.

Goodbye China for a few days

I woke up at 6am after three hours’ kip and feared closing my eyes would be an expensive mistake so got up and went for breakfast. Normally for breakfast in a cheap hotel in the UK you would at least be able to find scrambled eggs but here it was just noodles and other stuff I have just not got used to eating for breakfast. No meat but there were boiled eggs at least. And no coffee, which really got me annoyed as Chinese tea is an afternoon drink. So I didn’t stay long and walked the three minutes to the airport bus place and ended up at the airport at 9.35am for a 12.30pm flight. As it was, the woman at the desk was clearly new and everything took ages.... By this time I was really starting to need to go to the loo in a way I’ve only ever felt in Pingguo before. It got to the stage that it was so painful I asked if I could go then come back but she didn’t answer. I was too embarrassed to ask again but nearly ran there instead. Finally after copious phone calls the boarding passes materialised and I walked as straightly as I could to the closest loo that I had been eyeballing for 20 minutes.

Of course once inside I went for the first door that showed it had a normal loo rather than a squatter, but in there the door didn’t lock. The next one’s seat had gone AWOL, and the same for the third. After that it was just squatters. So I went back to the first thinking that the embarrassment of having the door opened on me shitting was less worse than my shitting myself outside. I put my heavy carry-on bag against the door to stop it opening of its own accord, and this seemed to do the job as I relieved myself of the effects of Nanning bbq.

I took my time to rise

Then I realised I could actually lean over a bit and hold my hand against the door lest someone should still try to open it, and got a bit of merriment from the warnings written on the door. All in all one of my better Chinese public toilet excavation moments.

The lounge at landside at Nanning has the main advantage of having its own security, effectively being a fast track channel with a nice waiting area. As there was no reason to wait around in the lounge, and there is now one on airside I just went through security there. I found the new lounge and to my expectation there was no booze in the fridge, as seems the way for any airport in China now that is not Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. But at least I was flying to Guangzhou, and it was still the morning. No sooner had I sat down and seen a Westerner for the first time in a while, than annoyingly my flight was called, so I grabbed a couple of bottles of the least sugary fizz I could find and went to board.

A couple of hours later I was in the shiny new part of Guangzhou’s T2 building. The next flight was at 3.30pm and I’d pretty much resigned myself to missing it, given I’d have to go through immigration. My main concern was that there was no other direct flight to Toronto so it could mean stopovers, meaning more time and more landings, which I don’t like, after having just had one. But the flight here had taken off 10 minutes early and the shiny new terminal didn’t have any queues so by about 2pm I was in the right area. I even had time to visit the lounge. Well, it was true I had time but when I got there I found my card wasn’t valid there. The bloody terminal was so new Priority Pass hadn’t set anything up yet according to the woman at the desk.

Damn, I’d had three hours’ sleep, just got off a flight with a bit of stress about missing a connection, and now couldn’t have a customary G&T before a 15 hour flight. I did at least grab a bottle of Bombay Sapphire for the other side, and noticed they had Esse cigarettes, a reminder of Beihai with the boys in 2013...gosh was it already five years since then? I sent a picture of the fags to Andge and Awl and for some reason they were both up and said to get them. They also advised me to go to a cafe or shop and grab a beer - an idea I hadn’t entertained as I was 98% sure I wouldn’t find anything. But to my surprise I was able to get a can of Qingdao (miss-spelt “Tsingtao” on the cans) for 10 kuai.

Esse

Tsing-tao - actually a Wade-Giles transliteration so not really miss-spelt

With that my flight was called so I finished off and went to queue. But it was one where the queue hadn’t started moving and was massive, so I sat down at a small fast food place where to my surprise they also had Qingdao, but this time for 11 kuai. I didn’t argue, and enjoyed watching the queue not move while getting jealous glances from some of the people in it. Then I realised I’d need a wee so found the bog next to a small shop which also had beer! I got one for the journey and to use up spare change. 15 hours was about three more than what I’d done before but the lack of sleep with a couple of beers and some Phenergan allowed nearly half of them to be slept through. Though it was a particularly turbulent flight, the drug of tiredness ushered away many of the concerns that normally accompany it.

The route pretty well went over the top of the world, narrowly avoiding the arctic

Sweaty backs and off to Nanning

Yang Haiwei had told me there was a ping pong competition this morning and indeed it was true. I turned up at 10am as had been asked and was clearly one of the first. As I arrived there was a carload of people looking foreign in the sense that they didn’t know where to park. I was about to shout to them that they could park anywhere they wanted when Haiwei came and shouted the same thing before me. They were the team from another town an hour or so outside Pingguo.

As not all had turned up I managed to get quite a bit of practice in with locals and non-locals. To my shame I didn’t recognise which were which and knew that for the locals I’d probably played them before and should really have known them. So I kept any conversation focused on the game itself and not idle chit-chat, until one of them let it slip they were home or away. Although I’d brought a bottle of water with me that was gone within minutes, and within just a few minutes more I was gasping in the 10:30am heat. I found a water dispenser only to discover it had been a long time since it had dispensed any liquid. Then I asked someone, who pointed to this same water dispenser, and I nearly had a go at him. Then someone else motioned towards a cardboard box. Or maybe he motioned toward it. A bit like while or whilst, but whereas I am a “towardser” rather than a “towarder”, I am a “whiler” rather than a “whilster”. I suppose it doesn’t matter but I’d like to be consistent.

But what was within that box was loverly...bottles and bottles of crisp cold water, and I cherished the few seconds of relief one gave me, despite the head pains from drinking too fast. I grabbed another and was up for a bit more practice.

As I was enjoying myself I decided to stay another night in Pingguo rather than go to Nanning tonight for the plane tomorrow. But at 3.51pm I checked online to find there was no early train so thought bugger I’d better get one tonight after all. I had the app Ctrip on my phone so it was easy to book a hotel in Nanning, but the train tickets, although as easy, wanted an extra 30 kuai on top of 45 for ticket as a booking fee and I said “no!”.

For the £3.50 or so it was I should have said “yes”, as I had to call Tan to find where I could buy train tickets. She exploded into a rage that translated as “why are you buying stuff last minute you can’t buy tickets at this time are you stupid?” But I’d checked there were plenty of spaces on Ctrip, not to mention plenty of trains these days - I’d planned to get the 8.38pm but there was another train seven minutes later if necessary. That didn’t seem to go down too well. It was impossible, apparently, and that was that. Ok it was my fault for asking her as she’d probably not bought tickets in the last few years (despite having told me there was a place opposite our house that sold them). I made my excuses at the ping pong competition, and rode out under the heavy skies to find the ticket shop. I got to the parade of shops just as the heavens let loose and I jumped to the shelter of the first shop I came to. It was a pet shop. Not the most likely to sell train tickets, so I took a chance and went next door to a...well an establishment of some kind, and it didn’t sell animals. I walked in and asked if I could buy a ticket to Nanning, and instead of looking at me like I was a wally, the woman just said I should go two doors down. I duly did and found a place with a big freezer in the front selling lollies, and a cash desk surrounded by a metal cage. I had no idea where I was but asked if I could buy a ticket to Nanning and they said of course and a show of my passport later I had the 45 kuai ticket in my hands. Yes, I’d saved 30 kuai, at the cost of an extra journey, an angry woman, and now getting completely soaked on the 30 second journey home…. Will I learn from this? No.

At least Tan had told me we were to meet with her friends and some of their husbands at 5.30pm at some restaurant not far from ours. So I did the soaking journey home as it was already 5pm and I hadn’t packed. Packing took no time, but I needed some provisions for the route, and luckily the rain had subsided so I rode to the local chau shi and got some stuff and liquid refreshment. By the time I was home the sun was back out and it was pretty blooming moist outside in more ways than one. I reckoned the restaurant was a 15 minute walk away and could not justify taking a san lun che such a short distance, so walked with my backpack and large suitcase. A block later I’d already regretted the decision, as my back was already soaking. It would have cost me all of 5 kuai to take a san lun che. Will I learn from this? Actually I’m thinking I bloody well will now.

The new (at least for me) underground shopping mall where you can escape the weather, but also the charm, of Pingguo

It was good to catch up with a load of Tan’s friends after a year, and some of the dads who seemed to come and go. I commented on how the kids were getting bigger and realised I was sounding like a grandparent. It got to 7.30pm and Lao Pan said she’d take me to the station, which although I was grateful for, I wanted to put off for half an hour as the train wasn’t till 8.38pm. But everyone seemed to agree that you couldn’t take a chance as there would be queues etc. So after saying my goodbyes to the kids and friends I got into Lao Pan’s car and five minutes later was being let off at the station. I did appreciate it really.

Although the journey was only 45 minutes, I thought it would be reasonable to get a beer for it, so went to the new shop just outside the station. But to my dismay although there were fairly expensive fruit juices there was nothing in the way of beer. I even asked at the till and the lady confirmed that. I also had the wherewithal to ask if I could get a beer inside the station and she replied in a similar negative. Rather than asking why, I walked out knowing that there was nearly an hour before my train and not a single person in the security queue to get in the station.

So I walked down past the poor san lun che drivers. Poor because now Pingguo, among (or amongst) all other places in China, is now covered by Didi Che, a sort of Uber that is incredibly convenient and paid for via WeChat. Almost everyone I know uses it now, and has the advantages of air-con and proper cover when it’s raining. Damn I’ll really miss san lun ches when they eventually go. I walked past them as I was looking for a “normal” shop to get a beer from, but there was none. So I ended up at a restaurant and asked for one there. They only had Snowflake but at 8 kuai I wasn’t going to argue, and with 45 minutes till my train I wasn’t going to bring it with me. The bloke brought me a chair and I sat watching not a lot really...just some old bloke that ended up being the boss’s dad, and had a short conversation with him. But it whiled away the time until I decided to get into the station. Security should have been a breeze but they spotted something in my suitcase. I was worried it was the glass bottle but they said no it was something else. We kept digging in and didn’t find anything so they gave me a nice comment about my Chinese and I was on my way. I did make use of the internal shop to get the least sugary drink I could find to mix with the stuff that was in the bottle in my suitcase.

As I was waiting for the train I saw to my dismay that it had been delayed by 12 minutes. Then I heard some English words and a young bloke standing next to me was asking me something. It turned out he was working in exports and I suppose just wanted an opportunity to speak some English. We managed a reasonable conversation and I made sure not to language-bully him, just occasionally changing to Chinese when it was obviously difficult. We left with a shaken hand rather than exchanging WeChat ids for a change.

At Nanning the underground seems to be working now, but how I got overground to the hotel 40 yards away I couldn’t fathom. I ended up walking a good 200 yards to the left and the same back after finding somewhere to cross the bloody road. I wouldn’t have minded but by now my dry shirt was once again sweat-ridden. Sadly, the highlight of the day was the conversation with the hotel receptionist (a bloke), who spoke to me from the start in Mandarin and I really appreciated it. As it wasn’t too late I went for a walk to Zhong Shan Lu but wasn’t in the mood to force myself to find someone to eat with there, so headed back and found a small pavement bbq with three ladies with a baby eating there. I was quite impressed that the mother of the child was openly breastfeeding, though I turned away as soon as I saw she was, and realised I may look like something of a pervert having chosen to sit opposite them. But I was stuck waiting for my bbq so got my phone out and focused on that. It was a good bbq but disrupted by a huge spider clambering past me on the wall. As there were ladies present I contained myself as much as I could and didn’t make much of a noise. But I stuffed the last of my bbq and paid up quickly to make it back to four walls and a ceiling.

There were loads of yellow and orange bikes (I mean yellow bikes and orange bikes, not multi-coloured) strewn about littering the pavement...apparently some bike-sharing thing but they don't seem to be looked after at all

For some reason I didn’t sleep till 3 bloody am.

Hot foot wash leak

Up at 12.40, which was a bit later than I could really excuse, other than the fact I was on holiday. Except that I had to catch up on work for most of the rest of the day. But in the evening one of Haiwei’s friends pinged me to go and eat with them...I’d met them last year at Haiwei’s reunion so thought “why not?” of course, so went to their shop, the coordinates of which they’d send on WeChat. I tried to work out what they actually sold there, and worked out it was something between beauty products and medicine. My bullshit feelers started tingling but I thought better of it, and some woman started cooking just outside the shop on a stove, and we drank tea inside the shop to the accompaniment of air conditioning.

Damn I still have two bottles of whisky I need to give away...

It was actually quite a nice meal, especially the fried sweetcorn, and refreshingly no beer. It also gave me the opportunity to chat with new people, and people who didn’t really know me so couldn’t “translate” local language to a version of Chinese I understood.

Later in the evening I noticed a foot wash/massage place opposite, and asked if it was any good. They said the one next door but one was new, but better. Then they said that they hadn’t actually been to the one next door but one, so they decided we would go to one that was tried and tested some distance away. It was late and it looked like they were closed but we’d called them and they were expecting us. Oh the water was boiling and I looked like a right wimp when I could barely put my feet in. But the ladies working there laughed and said I should not move my feet. I’ve had a few foot washes here but never had that advice. And strangely it sort of worked. At least when I tested the strategy by moving my feet it was torture so I managed to keep as still as a statue.

It was a lovely experience once I’d learnt to keep me feet still, and they did a full body massage for around half an hour until I heard a bit of a scream. It turned out one of the women working there had left the tap on since we arrived, and the place was nearly flooded. We had to wait a good 10 minutes while they dried it up, but it was a pretty funny interlude to a sort of weird evening I hadn’t been expecting.

Cleaning up after the overflow at the foot wash place