Ma Laoban red wine meal and more guitar

We took advantage of the jiao zi woman being back as we’ll not have her tasty pleasures much longer, and then had a bit of a lazy afternoon as sometimes that is what you need. But I’d promised the kids a ride to the shops to get some last-minute tat, before dropping them off at A Hua’s place as Tan was there with her friends to eat. I would love to have stayed in the place we lived in for three months back in 2008 but Ma Laoban had finally got some spare time from his new baby and insisted that we eat together. So I explained to the ladies and they all said that was perfectly fine.

Shopping with the kids..."Your text here"

The ladies about to have a meal at A Hua's place

And when we lived there in 2008...such good memories - note the Wii and balance board below the tv

As I pulled up at Ma Laoban’s Lenovo shop instead of greeting me with a “ni hao” he shouted at me to lock up the dian dong che. Ha! You haven’t seen someone for a year and that is how they greet you…. But I’ve been here long enough not to take any offence...he cared about me and that was his way of showing it. We took his Toyota 4x4 to some new place on the east side of town. He then took a box of “Left Hand” red wine bottles from the boot of his car, together with three other bottles that I couldn’t see the name of.

We went upstairs to a private room (of course) and he ordered what he thought fit to order, and over the next 20 minutes or so some more people turned up, including at least one woman I remembered from the last couple of years. The meal was great and the wine not drunken too quickly unlike previous years, so all in all a really comfortable evening. It took me an hour before I realised Ma Laoban was drinking alcohol-free red wine, which was cool not least because he was driving, but also because he admits to being virtually a non-drinker - though why he is so interested in red wine is still a mystery to me.

"Left Hand" red wine

Lovely Ma Laoban meal with red wine and red non-wine

I got back early enough to take the kids to the guangchang, and afterwards we popped in to advertising friend’s shop to hand back her macintosh and give a little present of some skin cream and facemask, before taking the kids home to shower. Then as I’d promised I met up with waterman for a few bevvies till nearly midnight when I heard from Awl that poor Woody had passed away yesterday. To be fair he’d been looking a little ill before we left. So when I got hope at midnight and saw that Xixi was clearly awake I told her the sad news and she had a cry for 10 minutes, after which we had a chat and I managed to get a laugh out of her.

Then I received a picture message from Li Kun from his tea-house where it appeared people were playing music. The kids were now lights-out, and I was in my last few days in China this summer so thought sod it I’d go, and ended up staying there till 2am singing and playing the guitar as you do.

On the way back home I passed by the bar that Zhang Hongping often drinks at but noticed he wasn’t there for a change. But the owner was and recognised me and hailed me to come. Oh dear, what could I do? We spent the next 45 minutes or so chatting and drinking until some new guests arrived at 3am, and I used this as an excuse to 1) have a drink with them and 2) to leave. Sleep came easily.

Family meal, Zhang hua, late bite

I hadn’t seen Zhang Hua much this year, so pinged him to see if he’d eaten, but as soon as I had Leilei called me to say I’d been invited to eat with family friends. This was pretty much the first time this year with the usual gang of Tan’s friends’ families; A Xia, Xi Li, A Pang and the like, with a couple of husbands and many kids. I said I wasn’t drinking but there was a woman there who was new to me who said she fancied a beer. So it was out of politeness that I said I’d join her as drinking by oneself in such a meal would not look good, so we ordered a very reasonable four bottles of 1998 Li Quan between us.

Then Zhang Hua got in contact to tell me to go to his mate’s new restaurant that I went to a couple of weeks ago. The kids decided to come as they’d had enough at the family meal, but weren’t too interested at this new place, and after a bit of watching football on the tv I took them home. Back at Zhang Hua’s it was pretty civilised until we were invited to move to a private room where there were many empty beer bottles on the floor, and four blokes and a token woman at the table. I had to make my excuses before midnight as I was simply too bloated, but advertising friend had left a couple of messages to go and eat and I thought “what the hell?” so drove over to south of the town. I had a bit of a headache already and I pulled up outside a pulsating disco place and my heart sank. I felt I physically couldn’t enter but then I heard her voice from a place a few doors away. Phew, a normal eating place

A group of us played mo pai, which I’m still not 100% on the rules, but it’s a much slower drinking game than cai ma, and we ate mini red lobsters that took ages to get the meat out of, but were worth it. Finally, I said I needed to leave at 2am, and they all agreed it was time, and one of them footed the bill of 1054 kuai. I didn’t even bother to try to pay any.

On the way back it started to piss down so I borrowed advertising friend’s dian dong che raincoat before I got completely soaked, and for once didn’t get waylaid on the way home, probably as with this weather there was no-one to waylay me.

Fat masseuse and too much going out

Well it was a bit of a wedding hangover, and breakfast was leftovers of the kids’ delivered noodles. At least it wasn’t DFC. I went to have tea at the same place as yesterday until it was time for the kids’ tea. At one stage a man came in for a massage, but a minute later left saying something I didn’t quite catch. Apparently he took one look at the masseuse and decided she was too fat. I could understand if it was that type of massage place but this was above board. Well...maybe he had a point but it was pretty incredulous to my British ears that he would have acted on it….

Actually I was "forced" to have some berry alcohol too, and tried not to focus on the lighter in the background

I can even use WeChat pay in the supermarket, though this time they scan me instead of the other way round

I picked up the kids to go the the guangchang as there is not that much time left, but bumped into Tan on the corner and she took them for the first time. I got home well in time for the Bournemouth game, and found a reasonable stream. But I didn’t have a stream of beer to popped down to the nearest shop to pick up a six pack of 1998 Li Quan. The shopkeeper’s husband was sitting having a meal with a mate and made me sit down with him but I kept it to one bottle, and told them I’d be back in 45 minutes.

The blooming stream broke for most of the second half but it looked like we deserved the 3-1 win but we also should have had a VAR penalty - how can something that purports to be so fair be so wrong? It was the clearest penalty you’ll ever see.

After the match I totally forgot to go to the shopkeeper downstairs for a drink as Li Kun had pinged me to have a glass of rouge so I popped over to him for a while where there was much merriment and I spent more time than I ought to have. I should have gone straight home afterwards but I’d noticed Boss Zhou saying he was eating earlier in a group chat so at 1amish I popped my head around just to see if anyone was there. “Go upstairs” I was told and I was immediately thrust into a room with him and three mates and was suddenly gan bei’ing and cai ma’ing again. But I was relatively good and kept it to just an hour.

Li Kun's daughters were still up post-midnight with the screens

With some random people I apparently know upstairs in Boss Zhou's place

The problem was I’d passed Zhang Hongping on the way to Boss Zhou’s and now he was pinging me for a glass. I wouldn’t be able to go back without going past him so accepted and spent the next 45 mins or so catching up with him. Catching up on what I’m not sure as I saw him just the other day but he seemed in good spirits anyway. The last two hours would simply not have happened if the beer here was more than 2.8%.

A very unexpected wedding reception

Finally the jiaozi woman was back and I was so happy to see her. My first portion in about three weeks! Apparently she had been at her lao jia for this time...she could have least have told me before leaving.

The friend of waterman that I’d met while Tan was bbq’ing with friends the other day had told me we would meet up this weekend but not when. Rather than fart around waiting for him I texted Chen to say I should be able to meet him at 6pm after all and he replied that he would contact me later..

As I was “free” for the afternoon I popped out to have tea with a couple of friends of Boss Zhou, one of whom works in a massage parlour. I was tempted to ask for one but I think they wanted my company.

I got back at 5.30 and thought I’d enjoy a cold one and remembered that now I was officially back on holiday - technically no more work till we get back. But as soon as I opened it I got a message from Chen saying he was on his way to 3000 degree bar and would be there in 15 mins. So I had to rather rush my beer and 13 mins later I received a message to say he’d arrived, and while I was in the lift another to ask why I was taking so long. Ah this is the Pingguo I know and love!

Before I got to the bar I heard a shout of “Peng!” from across the road and saw him in a san lun che. Ok, so we weren’t going to 3000 degrees - that was just a landmark he knew I knew. It transpired we were going to the new hotel that was being built last year just north east of the guangchang. I asked why he wasn’t driving and he said “drinking alcohol” but I didn’t pursue whether this was because he had already drunk or was planning to, or both.

Meeting Chen in the san lun che outside our place

The hotel was quite the pomp it had been billed to be, and we said hello to a couple of people while entering. A pretty maid led us into the lift to go up a single floor and when we got out I noticed to my left a line of wedding people all dressed up. Chen went to the first in the line and shook his hand, so I did the same, wondering when we were to go for our meal. But Chen just moved down the line and eventually handed two red envelopes in, and showed me that one had 彭多明 written on it. Oh no! We were only going to a wedding reception and I was wearing my Chinese football top and shorts! Advertising Japanese Suntory beer to boot!

The room was massive, but so far only 70% full, and we found a table with a couple of blokes Chen knew. Some people had started eating but we waited until our table was full, then the beers were cracked open. Over the next couple of hours more beers were cracked open than you could shake a stick at. Even in China I’ve never seen people drink so much so quickly...it was carnage. I did my best to keep at a regular pace but people were coming to me and doing three gan beis at a time. Then the actual newlyweds and their entourage reached our table and we had to drink more. To be fair, Chen and the groom and a couple of mates chugged a whole can while I sipped my little glass - I was just too bloated by then, and made my excuses to go to the toilet more times than I really needed. At least the beer was the very same Japanese beer my Man City-blue top was advertising, so I made a joke that that was my job here, and it got more laughs than it warranted.

I was not expecting this

and the food was amazing...

Wedding madness

Eventually, after visiting other tables and playing cai ma with people I apparently knew, we left the place as one of the last people. But that meant we just moved on to a KTV place where I had to sing No Matter What in a huge room, but by then I’d stopped caring. A bit later we left the room but went straight next door to what to me was a carbon copy of where we’d just been. No more singing for me but more gan bei’s but thankfully only for half an hour or so before we left. I could happily have gone to sleep but for some reason we ended up at bar 3000 degrees for bbq. I seem to remember more cai ma and drinking with the boss, who smokes more than she should. Back before 4am I found myself mechanically reaching for a beer from the fridge. But as I sat down I experienced a touch of sobriety that told me opening that beer would not be a good idea. And I thankfully left it and quickly prepared the sofabed and within a minute I was asleep.

Sweaty basketball and finally finished work for the trip

Not up too late considering, but by the time I’d taking in the washing, hung the next lot out to dry, and put the third lot in to wash, then grabbed a shower, it was gone lunchtime and the kids had already had their dumplings delivered. Plus two drinks delivered by a second deliveroo person who arrived at exactly the same time. How inefficient.

I'm so embarrassed - for the last week I've been using this as fabric conditioner - I was absolutely convinced that's what it was...but Tan corrected me that it was "clearly" washing liquid...oh well...at least our clothes have been clean

All I had was an egg again, propped up with three packs of those almost weightless salty biscuits. Haiwai rang to tell me to come over and eat at his at 6pm, and I mentioned he had told me I was supposed to be going to his son’s school this afternoon (which I’d forgotten about until he rang). But he said “bu yong le” and that was that. At least I could focus on work a bit more, which I did until hunger really set in at 4pm. I thought I could hold out but it wasn’t going away so I opened another can of that expensive meat our ex-neighbour gave us the other day and guiltily had half of it.

Tan texted in Chinese to take the kids to A Xia’s where they would be waiting to take the kids at 5.30. At that time when I got them ready they decided for some reason they would rather go with me to Haiwei’s house so I called Tan and got the angry response that they had been waiting for the kids. Not much you can do.

We arrived pretty early at 6.08pm, and for the first time Haiwei hadn’t called me to ask where I was, and indeed was still cooking. I’d had the shits all afternoon and wasn’t feeling great, so took the opportunity of having a near-nap on his comfortable sofa counting in German up to 60 but not getting much further until accidentally switching to Mandarin. It was almost a dreamlike state and did refresh me a little.

The meal was typically excellent and Leilei ate up everything, unlike Xixi who has the smallest stomach in Pingguo. And instead of drinking more than a couple of cans afterwards we took our kids to Haiwei’s son’s school to play basketball, which Leilei was keen to do. It was dark and very sweaty - I didn’t particularly want to play but the lads wanted a father and son vs father and son so of course I joined in. Leilei is better than me but the two of them combined were a bit too much for us but who was counting? Xixi was a little bored so I suggested we play free throws, which she could join in with and was a little less energetic. We could have stayed longer but I really had to go back and finish work for the week.

Chen then invited me to go and eat at 6pm tomorrow, but I couldn’t confirm as I knew I’d be meeting waterman soon and he may invite me for the same time. No problem...he just said to confirm tomorrow afternoon.

After work I decided to go and see racist Huang but he was pretty pissed and boring, so much so that I didn’t feel bad relieving myself of his company pretty swiftly to sidle over to Boss Zhou’s place. He wasn’t there, but there were others who bade me over for half an hour or so for a couple of drinks. Then Zhang Hongping called me to say he’s seen me at Boss Zhou’s just now and he was just 50 yards away so I went there for the next 90 minutes until I could barely stay awake at 3am.

Brown boiled egg at Boss Zhou's

I managed to avoid the DFC order by forcing myself to take the kids out to the yumi tang place. We don’t even have to give our order now. Work and weather dictated spending the afternoon at home until I took the kids to A Hua’s place for tea where she was with Tan nattering, then got back to my own tea of a single egg. It rained on the way back and was a welcome coolness on the dian dong che, which I was to experience again soon after as the kids called me to pick them up again.

They took themselves to the guangchang for skating and I picked them up at 9.30 to go home and left them there as I’d been asked to go to Boss Zhou’s for an evening meal, and there was no way they’d want to accompany me there. I was the only one with him for a while and we shared a beer. But after a couple of messages to a WeChat group I’d recently been added to more people started arriving in dribs and drabs as photos of the food being served were shared. I made a joke that I had brought a brown boiled egg and for some reason one woman didn’t get the joke and when she arrived promptly ate it. The last person arrived after 1am, but we were relatively sensible with the Snowflake beer and finished by 2.30am, although for some reason didn’t sleep till well gone 4am.

My brown boiled egg

Boss Zhou's cat keeping a watchful eye over me

Evening entertainment with Bank President

I forced myself to a reasonably early start to work as judging by the last few days oftentimes (gosh, that is an Americanism) people call me a couple of hours before to go out even though I’ve told them I’m working. Indeed, in the late morning Li Kun asked me to go out at 8pm with a “bank president”. The kids’ lunch was another crappy delivered DFC but I had three 1000 year old eggs instead. I also managed to get Leilei to do some maths hw and Xixi to do some violin practice for the second day in a row so at least I’m hoping they’re keeping on track. I’ve realised why I’m not totally disparaged by the term “oftentimes”. It’s because it encourages the silent “t” in the word. I’m well aware that there are two ways of pronouncing “often” and many people interchange between the two (though if there is a rule for this I’ve not found it yet). Even Christopher Hitchens, in his audiobook “God is not Great”, used both pronunciations. My interpretation of this is that the silent “t” is the educated way to pronounce it (not that that makes it right), and that the pronounced “t” version arose from less-educated people thinking that those silent-”t”ers were wrong. But I also notice it’s more prevalent in British people than Americans, not that that makes it right. The bottom line is that when people use “often” in a sentence I am more likely to pay attention to their pronunciation of it than the rest of the sentence...more fool me. But nobody pronounces “soften” with a sounded “t” do they?

At 9pm I caved in and IM’d “hi” to Li Kun, who got back to me saying he was about to go out. So I needn’t have worried about 8pm. I went to the new music bar he’d invited me to around 9.30ish leaving the kids at home. Typically I was the first of his guests to turn up, so we sat at a big reserved table eating sunflower seeds until even Li Kun couldn’t wait and we cracked open a couple of beers. Slowly but surely people turned up, including the bank president at 10.30.

I had to bite my tongue not to talk about Bitcoin and how it could replace banking as we know it. Actually his English was fairly good and he surely wanted to practise it, so who was I to language-bully him? I managed what I was internally showing off to myself as my first English conversation in weeks, when Xixi rang to remind me I was clearly speaking English every single day, and that she was hungry although Tan was home. So I temporarily excused myself in order to get three sausages for her and returned back 20 minutes later.

It was only 20 minutes but in that time the blokes at the table appeared to have become a lot more drunk than when I left...maybe it had just kicked in. Bank president was explaining that he had attended a wedding between one of his relatives and a western man. Within seconds the conversation turned to penis sizes and I engaged in the conversation as little as I was politely able to. The upshot of it was, according to bank president, that although Chinese penises were smaller, they were hard. I thought it best to raise my glass to him and gan bei at that point, and we all roared with laughter (well them more than me).

Mr Bank President near right, token female middle left

Then he showed me his alarm on his phone that was set to 5.45am, and said no matter what time he went to bed he’d always be up at this time in order to be in the bank. I admired his resolve, and understood when a few beers later he went on his way. Advertising friend IM’d me at 11.30 to go for a drink but I couldn’t really leave LI Kun. Obviously inviting bank president was a really big deal for him and he was so happy I had been there to talk to him. He was now saying “thank you, thank you” in English to me and I realised he was really drunk. But so did Guitar Teacher, so managed to take him home without too much fuss...I’m not sure how he paid the bill or who took care of it.

It was 1am so I pinged Advertising friend just in case and of course within seconds I was sent a wei zhi pinpointing the location of where they were. There were also six pissed blokes there, each of whom I should probably know, but it didn’t really matter as we had a great time chatting and a bit more gan bei’ing till hum o’clock.

Finally get to invite some mates out and pay

I woke up at 9.30am but decided against it and dosed till 11ish till guilt got me up to work till lunchtime which admittedly wasn’t long after. I had lunch at Luwen’s and couldn’t finish but I was starving at 6.30 so walked to the supermarket to get some eggs and found a new shortcut back. I hadn’t walked for ages and it was good to stretch my legs, so in a way finding a shortcut was the opposite of what I should have done but it’s good to explore.

Finding a shortcut behind Jun Lin Tian Xia

Tonight Tan took the kids to the guangchang to skate and I decided I’d stop work at 10.30, then contacted Boss Zhou at 9.30 to ask if he’d be about and indeed he would so I’d finally arranged my turn to invite people out. And it was great that quite a few mates came out. I’m starting to remember their names now, like A Guang, the portly man with glasses and a great sense of humour, who eventually fell asleep in his chair. Even Uncle Yellow I know is called Huang Lei came despite baby duties for a two month old. We stayed out till 2ish and I guess because I’d arranged it I was allowed to pay - result.

A Guang had had a busy day...

Late night with advertising friend

Twas a day of work till teatime when I took the kids to the new jiao zi place I’d discovered with Xixi yesterday and we ate in despite the lack of AC, before dumping them off at the guangchang as I really don’t need to be there any more and could be more fruitful at home. Then at 9.30 I took the sweaty things to Tian Yang Po’s where Tan was eating bbq with her school friends from 40 years ago, but they didn’t want to stay. Tan said she’d bring back food for the kids in a bit. At 11pm advertising friend IM’d me to go for a drink but I said maybe in an hour as I needed to sort the kids. Tan was still not back and not answering her phone and the kids were starving so I went there by myself. They were deep in chat when I came to tell them I needed to feed the kids, and I was told there was no pork or beef as the pork had gone up in price thanks to the African swine flu - but what about the beef? So I asked Tian Yang Po and she said she had beef so I ordered 10 for the kids (which could have been done an hour ago) plus sausages which if they weren’t pork certainly looked like it.

Our new jiao zi place

At least it gave me the chance to talk to some of her friends and have a couple of beers.
Then a bloke walked past me and told me he knew me from years ago, and I had another one of those moments where I lied blatantly and said yes I recalled the face but not the name. Anyway he was a mate of the waterman and showed me a pic of him, and of us cai ma’ing a few years back. I told him I couldn’t go for a beer during the week, then straight away broke that rule as we sat down for two bottles until the bbq was ready, by which time he’d arranged for us to meet up this weekend.

Tan was back by midnight and advertising friend said they were going to another place to drink, which conveniently was close to us. We had great fun in this place on the corner opposite Waipo’s. There was some weird drunk girl in a red dress who joined us from another table when her friends had left her who was harmless if loud. Back at nearly 4am!

Finally I can pay via WeChat

I got up only in time to see the kids eating Tan-ordered KFC crap so afterwards I took just Xixi out to help me find something to eat. I didn’t want to go to the yumi tang place yet again so we found a place slightly further down the same road that sold dumplings, and I bought five of them. We drove to the exercise place by the ant tree and I managed to eat them all...pork mince and shredded greens in equal measure and sumptuous. But it was crazy hot and that beat us back to the house for respite shortly after as exercise on the equipment around us would have been torture.

Well someone decided to exercise at 40 degrees

Li Kun had IM’d me to drink tea at his place so went by myself at 4.30. We had a really good chat about the economy and I explained my interest in cryptocurrency which is always a slightly dodgy topic here as although there is a huge crypto community in China, the very fact you see something in it sort of puts you against the government-controlled ren min bi. I treaded carefully and mainly pointed out its advantages and not fiat’s disadvantages. He seemed to get it.

But the reality of fiat here had dawned on me, and I explained how I couldn’t use WeChat pay without a Chinese back account, something that would prove hard to get on a family/tourist visa. This made Li Kun call a mate who works in the bank to see if he could sort it but apparently it wasn’t that easy. I had to make my excuse to take the kids to the guangchang so took advantage of this to invite Li Kun and his family to eat where we often have since the guangchang has become a regular thing.

I picked up the kids at 6.30 and left them to do their thing in the guangchang while getting to the food place and waiting for Li Kun and family, who duly arrived and ordered food on my part. After 20 mins the kids had had their fare and went straight back to skate, and took Ava, Li Kun’s first daughter, with them, while we engaged in a couple of beers while his wife looked after the one-year old.

As we had a bit of  time Li Kun told me he had a dormant bank account and I could use that to sort out WeChat pay. Well it was a long, convoluted path that took nearly an hour but afterwards I had a “valid” account, albeit it with his name as the securitor. We tested it by sending each other a bit of money and it worked! This was a significant step in me feeling I belong here as now I’ll be able to pay for stuff like Xixi’s rollerskate hire by phone and more importantly not be weighed down by small change. At the cost, quite a big cost, of some conglomerate knowing exactly what I am purchasing and building up a profile of me. I vowed to use it for simple purchases such as the skating and food. But it also showed me how crypto could really work in the real world; if...and it’s not just a huge if but the biggest if, if people accepted it then there would be no such hoops to go through as I just did, and I’m not even sure which side of the law I’m on using Li Kun’s details. I think it was in this context that Li Kun sort of “gets it”, but at the moment the legal hoops I experienced are equivalent to the technical hoops, not to mention fiat onboarding, that you get with crypto. So fascinating how this will pan out.

"My" Chinese bank account

This had stirred my passion but I still had the kids to think about...they were supposed to be looking after Ava but I had my doubts so went to find them and indeed they’d sort of left her to her own devices after sorting her out with skates and probably becoming bored of looking after her. We all stayed with the kids for another half an hour until they were positively soaked, and we said our goodbyes and I got them home and showered.

And we seem to have local Tescos...not so sure about that

But that was not the end of the evening of course...Boss Zhou IM’d me to go and sing song for the second time in a week. Fair enough, I thought, and as the kids were getting ready for bed I popped out at 11pm to do my duties...back 2am with a sore throat and happy to stay in the spare room.

Dustbin snake plus I am not a fan of VAR

Yay it was Saturday...no concerns about finishing for the day at 10pm being too early. Tan was planning to order crappy fried chicken for lunch, which was incentive enough for me to get out of the house with the kids to the yumi tang place for our standard order of sweetcorn soup, fried egg, and fried rice. In retrospect maybe not that much healthier than the other option.

Surely the healthier option...

After that I dropped off the kids at A Xia’s. While we walked down into the underground shopping centre we all noticed a large snake rising out of a bin at the bottom of the stairs. Almost as quick we realised of course that it wasn’t a boa constrictor but rather a balloon, but it is like there is something ingrained in our genes to be aware of snake-like objects, and those that didn’t have it in the past just died from snakebites or being crushed. It reminded me of those videos of cats eating and the owners leave a cucumber next to them and most of them jump to high heaven when they finally see it. We’re basically cats.

It only doesn't look like a snake when you focus on it

At A Xia's shop in the underground shopping centre...they have the AC turned rather low

An hour later I got a call from Xixi to take her back as she was bored. Then evening dawned (or at least the pm equivalent) and we went to the guangchang for skating again, which is a rather healthy habit. I left them to see racist Huang and have a bite to eat, then went to pick them up again at 9pm to take them back to Huang. This time at least Leilei talked a bit to the people on our table, which made me more relieved than proud. I know he has it in him but he doesn’t show it much. But after a few mouthfuls the kids clearly weren’t in the mood to stay so I took them back home and came back by myself to Huang’s where we ate and chatted till midnight.

Silly girl got her hair caught up in fan

I got back in time to watch the City - Spurs match. We were fantastic but as VAR and luck would have it it ended 2-2. I wasn’t as disappointed as I would have been in previous years...the performance was what counted. But VAR has started to kill the game for me. You really can’t cheer any goal any more. It’s only been around a bit but every bloody goal is checked so you’re constantly worried. Football used to be about fun and included human error on the part of referees. Now that they’re trying to take out the errors (and I believe they are) they are sucking out the soul of the game. This is why I find winning the Premier League so much more important than the Champions League. The former can only be done with skill and some luck, the latter makes the luck proportion go up too much for my liking. Hopefully if we play the way we did today we’ll have a decent chance, though Liverpool are looking ominous.

I guess I had a bit of adrenaline after the match so stayed awake to chat with Mat and Awl for a while...Sunday tomorrow so doesn’t really matter what time sleep.

Flat finally paid for

Lunch of beef and salty biscuits again but I didn’t want to waste working time as I’d been invited to drink tea with some friends later. Luckily this time tea really did mean only tea. While I was there Tan called to ask if I had removed Lin Hong from my friends list in WeChat? Well no I hadn’t and is there a context for this question? Apparently she needed to call me for some mortgage business but couldn’t find me. Maybe it was because I had changed my picture that she couldn’t find me but I hadn’t changed my name. I mean fair enough I often go by people’s avatars as I can’t always read the characters but she can and 彭多明 has not changed. I was a bit concerned as no news is good news regarding the mortgage, and this was news. Last time it was to tell me we still had a month outstanding to pay. So I found Lin Hong in my contacts (by name, no less, though it took a while), and rang but she didn’t answer. It can’t have been that important. I let Tan know and then she told me the kids and her were about to get on a train back to Pingguo from Baise. So I finished my tea and went back to tidy up the house in sweltering conditions. Just doing the dusting got me sweaty enough to wash the floor, and as soon as I’d grabbed a shower Tan called to open the door downstairs for the kids as she was sorting out the mortgage with Lin Hong, and then arrived half an hour later with the deeds in her hand - officially the flat is paid for!

At 6.30 I took the kids to eat chao fen again at the guangchang. Instead of just the 10 kuai portion the kids shared last time (and actually nearly finished - meaning the cheapest meal for a long time) I also added a portion of ribs and some kong xin cai, but immediately regretted it as the kids only had most of the chao fen leaving me with two complete other portions, which I manly managed in the next 20 mins while the kids took themselves off to skate.

A rare sight - Leilei actually helping Xixi to skate

When I said "hold my beer" I didn't mean drink it! The two portions I had to finish in front of me...

I allowed Xixi the decadence of candyfloss and she taught me a new word: mian hua tang "cotton sugar"...pretty much translated from the American

After that I took them on a short MMT to find some places we’d never been before but that was difficult. We looked for the big wheel place but didn’t find it so surmised it must have been taken down, which wouldn’t be surprising due to the few people who ever used it (we certainly didn’t). So we left popped in to Li Kun’s which was rammed with people practising music. We drank tea for 15 mins then went as the kids were bored and it really was too busy to have a conversation. At home after shower a mate from a couple of evenings ago video called me to come over to the music pub I went to with Li Kun on the night we arrived. I really was not massively in the mood - it was getting on for midnight - but I somehow told myself I’d regret it if I didn’t so I did.. The singers were bloody good though, if loud, and I recognised one of them as someone I’d jammed with a year or so back. Then the mate tried to force me to get on the stage to sing and I was having none of it. The place was at least three times as big as the place I sang at last year and we’d just had great renditions of songs by semi-professional artists. It was for the second reason mainly that I politely refused, and no amount of beer would change my mind.

He's actually an arts teacher by day. There was no way I was going to attempt Sounds of Silence after this...

Another charge, another photo

No 2-1 but Chen and advertising friend for German beer and insects

Another day of work and instead of going out to eat where I might be tempted to stay longer I stayed inside and had some of that beef our soon-to-be ex-neighbour left us the other day together with some light-as-air salty biscuits which have about as much packing as biscuit.

I was being good and focusing on work as I was expecting 2-1 to contact me to eat as he’d said yesterday. But by 5pm nothing had happened so I guessed he’d forgotten or never really intended in the first place. It’s like that a lot of the time. Someone invites you out and nothing comes of it, or more likely no-one invites you out in advance but they call you an hour before to tell you to come. Well that was it for some other friend, who decided I needed to join them for dinner, and as my lunch had been tiny, and no beer was planned, I accepted. And it made a refreshing change that there was only one beer and a decent excuse of going back to work less than an hour after.

But the evening was a bit different. Chen IM’d me to meet up for a beer at 3000 degrees at 8ish so I said I could make it by 9 if that was ok, and of course it was. Chen doesn’t do things by halves so we had some great bbq and of course Li Quan beer, even though he’s not a local. An hour or so in, advertising friend pinged me to say they were going to drink German beer and I should join as I couldn’t make it last night. The logic was infallible and I explained as such to Chen, who accepted (knowing perhaps I’ve probably had to leave other friends to meet him in the past). Sometimes the non-locals understand me better than the locals.

So it was to a beer place where there was a choice that would have been unheard of 10 years ago, though I didn’t really have an inkling to drink Corona or any of the 5%+ beers they had. But sod it, I was given a pint glass and a 500ml can of some German-named weiss beer and I took it like a man. Cai ma is a bit different with such a glass and you need to be a bit more careful. Everyone was in high spirits at least and we ate insects from another table that left, which was slightly weird but tasty...mmm...millipedes...

Advertising friend and other friends

They looked like millipedes at least

Meal with Haiwei, beer with water man, KTV with Boss Zhou - fun!

Well I’d been wondering when to take the train back to Guangzhou - Leilei wanted to have a couple more days in Hong Kong but I wanted to stay in the mainland. I used the very genuine excuse of the current uprisings in HK to justify staying one night in Guangzhou to meet my ex-colleague and one more night in HK before our midday flight on Saturday, So at least we’d get an afternoon and evening there. Although it’s nearly two weeks in the future there were not that many tickets left already and none in business class where I thought it may be better for our suitcases, so we snapped up a couple of normal class and would hope for the best.

Leilei had told me about this experiment and I found it worked...neat but I need to understand why

The rest of the day was work until I went to Haiwei’s at 5.30 as promised. We were pretty sensible and only had a couple of cans with the meal. But that turned into a couple more after the meal as my friend 2-1 was there and his girlfriend is pregnant and before we knew it it was 9pm and pissing down outside. 2-1 invited me out tomorrow and I said thanks but I couldn’t commit due to work.

After a wet journey home advertising friend invited me out for a drink but I sadly had to refuse as water man had been badgering me for the last couple of days to meet up for a beer. But this in itself was slightly rushed as Boss Zhou had also invited me to go to sing song. But I stayed a good hour sitting in the doorway of his shop in the good company of some of his mates who are becoming my mates a bit now. Apparently we were to be eating slivers of raw fish and I was a bit disappointed when they didn’t turn up but other fishy stuff did instead. But soon after bbq turned up, including the infamous zhu bian, of which you only get one per pig, and only male ones at that.

Only one per non-sow pig

They were understanding when I made my excuses some time after 11pm and went to see Boss Zhou at the KTV. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in a KTV, and he was in high spirits, as were a number of women, one of whom apparently knew me from 15 years ago as we’d gone for a meal with her as a family. I took her word for it. But the next 15 minutes became a little bit like my former, pre-kids time in China where I was the centre of attention, and copious photographs were taken that would get sent out on WeChat in near-real-time. It was totally innocent of course, and I felt my smile was a little forced, not that they sensed this. But at least this slowed down the intake of 2.5% beer and I was able to leave the place as sober, if not more so, than when I entered.

Still friends were trying to contact me but as tempted I was to continue the night it was late enough and I managed to sleep before 4am.

Two meals at Luwen's and too much duck

The kids and Tan took the 10am train to Baise to Er Jie’s house, meaning they left home at 8am which is stupid in my book but my book contains lots of things that may be considered stupid too, like cryptocurrency. But also apparently there was some birthday in Baise which I slightly doubted as birthdays are not really celebrated here in the same way.

I had brunch at Luwen’s and he invited me to eat duck with him this evening as it’s still gui jie (not a single day celebration). Apparently everyone eats baked duck and chicken for this occasion, and judging by the copious pictures on WeChat this is true. Why I only learnt this after 16 years I really don’t know.

Luwen knows now to give me a half portion of fen but extra quail eggs but still won't let me pay

Then in the afternoon an ex-colleague called and wanted to discuss business with me so I said ok I may stop at Guangzhou on way to HK to talk face-to-face. It was something about my old work...he’s now based in China and trying to sell this product but as it’s cloud based no Chinese company will touch it unless the data resides in the country, so they are left to buy crappy equivalents that are home-grown. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to help this.

Well I worked till 6.15 then pinged Luwen and he said not to come to his place as it was too hot there so he went to his shop and I met him 15 mins later. It transpired that he had already had a family meal, which is a good thing, but he’d brought a feast for me. I was forced to eat two duck legs but my teeth really weren’t up to it so it took ages and only once I’d eaten what I could of the legs did he deem it sufficient to crack open a beer. I wasn’t massively in the mood but we get through a few cans anyway till I made my excuses at 8.30 to get back on with work.

A veritable feast for one

Which I did for an hour till I went to 3000du bar as Haiwei had invited me to talk with his elder son in English. I did this for two hours during which Haiwei spent the whole time watching programmes on his phone. Apparently the NBA has been banned on the TV because one of the owners of a team publically supported Hong Kong, and the league itself did not publicly disagree with him. It’s weird because it’s so popular here, yet Haiwei’s son didn’t seem to be critical in any way. It’s just accepted. Well maybe I’m the weird one for finding it weird - at least where I am now.

At least for the last 20 minutes it was a bit more interesting as I noticed a group of about eight ladies having some beers and one of them was taking a picture of the group. Of course I jumped in and offered to take a pic of all of them, and recognised one as a Shanghainese woman who had married a Pingguonese bloke, so we had something in common. It was much more fulfilling talking to them for a bit in Mandarin, but I felt bad for Haiwei’s son so I ganbei’d them and went off to finish talking English with him, and Haiwei said to come to his house for supper tomorrow and told him that work-allowing I’d be there thanks.

The ladies posing for someone else taking the photo so not noticing me

Early skate and late cai ma

Mainly work today as it should be and I’m grateful for them letting me WFH here. It was gui jie today, meaning some festival of the dead though I’ve never really understood it properly as they have some other special day in March or April to remember the dead. Took the kids to the guangchang again for 40 mins only as was so hot today, then worked till 10.30pm, having only eaten a little at midday and at 6pm.

Actually skating in the light for a change

I popped to see racist Huang but his wife told me he was back in Beihai till 15th, so decided to see if Boss Zhou was about. Indeed he was and he shouted to me to come over and have a bite, and I ended up staying till 1ish as more friends arrived during the meal so cai ma blah blah. Then, as going back, Zhang Hongping shouted at me from another place to have more beer and chat and didn’t leave till 2.30. A typical evening in the life...

I hope it's not serious but I have a need to take a photo of the mileage every time I charge up - I think I'm planning to make a chart to plot how badly the battery is holding its charge and help me decide when to change it

No thermometers in Pingguo, but condoms with wine

Up slightly late, as were the kids so we once again went to the yumi tang place for lunch. I straightaway felt rather sick and had diarrhoea all afternoon. Waterman called me to ask me to invite him and some friends to drink at the same place we went to the other week. Oh well I suppose it’s my turn to do this and it’s a good thing to pay back in a way.

Yesterday a large green container was placed outside the bottom of our building. It surprised me to find out that it was actually a clothes recycling place, not just for clothes, but bags and books too for good measure. Finally something practical for the shoes the kids have grown out of but I didn’t want to chuck, and we got rid of Xixi’s white trainers that were now yellow and the shoe-cleaning shop even admitted they wouldn’t be able to get back to their former glory. Hopefully some child won’t mind and will make use of the half a million or so paces they have left in them (depending on the gait and weight of the said child). I now have an option for some of the many clothes I’ve been hoarding for the last 10 years in the hope that I might spend time here when it’s cold.

Xixi at the new clothes/shoes/bag/book recycling place having dropped off her too-small trainers

In the boiling afternoon I went out to get drinks for Tan and the kids and went to the football pitch I played on last year from where I could see our house. Why I did this I don’t really know - it’s not that interesting but it was to me - I even called Leilei at the house to come to the balcony to wave at us. He didn’t “pick up” my first call but did my second, and duly went through the kitchen to wave at us from the patio and seemed to understand why, justifying my interest a little.

Missed capturing Leilei in the window four floors down from top

By now it was so hot I wanted to know how much. I didn’t know the word for thermometer but suddenly needed to know so looked it up. But after three shops I realised it wasn’t being translated properly - they all said I needed to go to a hospital, which was probably true but not for this reason. For one of the only times here I decided to give up. It was hot and I could deal with not knowing whether it was 38 degrees or 42. Well actually I couldn’t but I didn’t want to show the kids that.

Is it wrong to find a shopping security box ticket so interesting? I don't think so...and neither do my frie...hey, where have they gone?

Going to the supermarket to look for a thermometer, the first thing you have to pass is the alcohol aisle, which I noticed had some interesting, and possibly quite appropriate, product placement

When we got home a bit later our ex-neighbours from the same floor were also there. They are selling their flat opposite ours as  they now live in her place of origin (there is probably a better term for that). They’d brought us some speciality tinned meat as a present, which Tan had for lunch. They chatted for ages and she moaned that her city was the strictest in China regarding letting civil servants travel, and they weren’t allowed to leave the country under any condition. Pity, but I guess they had a choice about moving there. Otherwise civil servants still have very strict conditions under which they may visit a foreign country, for fear of not coming back and giving out state secrets I suppose. But it was refreshing in a way to hear someone complaining about the state here, not because I agree necessarily, but it’s so rare to hear. Anyway, it looks like we will have new neighbours soon.

There was no going out until guangchang time, which is becoming a good habit now, and we left at a far too early 6.30pm and Xixi skated for a full 90 mins, before they got showered and I took them both to the bar at Jiangbin Lu to meet Waterman. I managed to get them to eat a few morsels but not get them engaged in any meaningful way so gave up and took them home at 10pm. I hope eventually they’ll become more social but with this company it won’t happen for a long time. I got back to Waterman and mates and enjoyed the next hour or so before making my excuses. They were having nothing of my attempt to pay even though I’d “invited” them, and my arguing was to no avail. I guess I have to actually invite them rather than wait for one of them to tell me I’d invited them. Fair enough. Got back in time for the 11.30pm match to see Utd beat Chelsea 4-0 - that shouldn’t have happened.

Can't imagine why the kids weren't too interested in the company...

Perfect meal at same place as 2008

Well it was a bit of a late wake-up at 10.30, which became 11.30 after dreaming about getting the Eurostar for some weird reason. Uncle Yellow texted me at 10.30 I found to go for a meal at 12.30ish. Man I’m supposed to be working…

Anyway, I went to where we were supposed to meet, and I realised this was a re-run of our meal in 2008 - something that sticks in my mind as a particularly bonding moment with my mates and me, when we ate dog in the mid-December sun and had a really nice time. Today would be no exception, and was one of those meals when you’re expecting to go for lunch but it ends up being linner. It took me longer than it should have to get there as despite WeChat location sharing they still didn’t have all the little dirt tracks that I needed, but nothing a quick phone call couldn’t fix. I imagined the same situation 11 years ago without the language or technology but even then it worked out pretty ok in the end.

Wading out to release my bad fishing error

This time we clearly had time on our hands and I made use of it by trying to fish. I was crap. I rolled up balls of bait and stuck them onto the two hooks but as soon as they entered the water it seemed they were either eaten by clever fish or just fell off. I tried to be clever and swing my line to another place but embarrassingly got it caught in some fencing in the water that I guessed was for some other sort of fish. In the end I had to call some local bloke who waded into the water to free my line, and after thanking him I didn’t try to fish again.

A cute puppy to accompany us

Eventually we ate at 3.30pm  so I’m still not sure if it was lunch. But it was lush, and we were accompanied by cute puppies and some women. I finally left at 5.30 after a decent amount of cai ma and went to meet Yang whom I’d promised earlier I would dine with. Well I’d hoped to leave at 7.30 to watch the City match but I only got to his place at nearly 7, so brought my laptop. There were two other friends and they were all drinking white alcohol with the meal but I stuck to Li Quan beer, and apologised as I opened my laptop to and asked for the wifi password in order to watch the match. The company wasn’t that amazing, and strangely, as we finished the meal we all moved on to drinking only tea for the next 45 mins or so during the second half. The others seemed to use my excuse of leaving as their excuse of doing the same at nineish, but at least we won 5-0.

Literally one my best memories from Pingguo

And the same place in December 2008...plus ca change...

Then I was to meet up with Yang Haiwei where it was a lot more fun and we drank with some outsiders (outside from Guangxi at least), and I didn’t get home till pretty late but was at least able to watch the Spurs game.

Eating and drinking with Yangliang

Muslim meal and Zhang Hongping again

Up at a more appropriate 9.30 and lingered in bed. Despite work I took the kids to lunch at the Yumi tang place. Then back for more work until 7 when I took them to the Muslim place for dinner as they didn’t want to go with Tan to eat zhou. I always feel embarrassed eating here (and most places actually) - I don’t want to order too much and not eat it, but if I order just enough for the kids and me I feel like I’m being mean. I just can’t win in this situation. The only way I could be comfortable is if the kids would eat a lot more, but then I’d just worry about them getting obese, though this is a million miles away thankfully. I think some people almost force themselves to worry about every situation. I’m more 30-40% of situations so relatively sane. The way I look at situations is to imagine I’d made a different choice and see how I would be regretting that. Like if you arrive late at the airport you worry about missing the plane, but if you arrive too early you worry about having to wait ages before you can check you bag in, and that you may get too hungry before the lounge and buy something to eat. Literally first world problems though. But still as we eliminate the third world (I think we will) we may soon have to consider these ones. Bulimia is, I consider, a first world problem, but despite this it affects a few people really seriously. Once everyone’s mouth is fed we may have to start really looking at mental issues like this. I don’t imagine bulimia occurs much in drought-ridden regions.

Eating at the nice Muslim place

Anyway after ordering not enough and still not finishing it (a double whammy) we went home to get water and Leilei’s skateboard then on to the guangchang for what is becoming a nightly skating session. We also met some 15 year old girl who’d been talking to my kids and now was talking to me. It was slightly surreal as she wanted to keep talking (in Chinese) and also said she was a great fan of talking. I didn’t know how to react other than continue talking with her.

But Wenliang arrived and shouted out “Duoming!” and came to my rescue. He’d had a couple of beers for tea and decided we needed to go to walk it off so I let the kids know and we walked a lap or so of the guangchang. He is still the person I understand most here, mainly because he isn’t from here and also has worked abroad, though doesn’t speak a word of English. So it was an enjoyable conversation before bringing the kids back for showers and sleeps.

Well unlike what he said yesterday Haiwei didn’t contact me for a meal or drink, but instead later at 12:30 Zhang Hongping called me to go for a beer and I thought why not? I was glad I did as we had a good catch-up session until 2.40am when I decided it was appropriate to leave as I was due to be going out midday tomorrow.

Nice meal and drinks with Zhang Hongping

Jog and Haiwei's brother

Oh no...it was back to 5.30am wake up again. Try as I might I didn’t get back to sleep, even after some Jetpunk quizzes, so after a quick chat with Andge I made the decision to go for a slow jog as I knew I probably wouldn’t regret it. Half an hour and nearly 4k later I did start to almost regret the decision as I slowed to a walk; I just didn’t quite feel up to continuing but forced myself to slow-jog the last 500m.

Some sort of rules for the guangchang that I need to learn

I decided to lunch at Luwen’s place with the kids and we had the only offering they really have: beef with noodles except they differentiate between noodle noodles and rice noodles, at least as far as I understand. As well as not allowing me to pay he also insisted on having a couple of beers. As I’d been awake over seven hours I somehow justified it in my tiredness, then took Xixi to buy some pencils before going home for a well-earned sleep.

Noodly lunch at Luwen's

Then it was up for the usual work routine until guangchang time though only for 30 minutes this time, where I left the kids to themselves. By the time I got back I found Leilei exchanging WeChat details with some girls with skateboards and I was slightly jealous but also a bit proud. This could have been me 20 years ago, minus the skateboard or good looks, oh, and mobile phone.

Leilei adding some contacts

Apparently I’d agreed to meet Uncle Yellow at 9.45 so duly did but I also had an arrangement with Yang Haiwei at 10.30ish at my local bar 3000 Degrees. We only had about four beers, and Haiwei didn’t seem to be his usual self. Then, quite unannounced (though why you would announce this I don’t know), he showed me a video of his elder brother just a few months ago before he died of cancer earlier this year. It was a really harrowing experience as a previously fairly well-built man with whom I’d cai ma’d on various occasions, had turned into but skin and bones and a horrid orange colour. He was sitting up on what was probably his deathbed, smoking a cigarette in what I expected was some intention to make the inevitable come quicker. I couldn’t imagine keeping such a video on my phone let alone seeing it again. I just don’t deal well with such matters. In a sort of attempt to make the situation a bit lighter I mentioned Waipo’s passing a few months ago, but it didn’t really lift the mood. Maybe by showing me he was trying to say something else, or confide something. I may never know but if anything it may have brought us closer together.

When we left he said he’d invite me out tomorrow evening after work, and I thanked him and had another relatively early night.