Xiu le dian dong che!!

Back to the routine of getting four portions of jiaozi at 1pm. This time she only had two ready but said she'd have more in 5 or 6 minutes. Yeah why not wait? I took the opportunity to visit the second hand dian dong che shop I picked up the new charger from last week. I asked if they fixed bikes and of course they did, so I left my number and name and wrote "御景华庭" to show them it was close by.

I got a call in the afternoon from the bike place and they said they were busy at the moment but would come later today. I said fine but please call before you get here in case I'm away. So at 4.30pm I got a call from them saying they had arrived. Well I was home so no problem I clothed myself and met the guy at our main door after he had arrived at the other one and I'd corrected him.

The day we arrived Jiuma had told us my dian dong che was "hui le" (broken) and would require 1000 kuai to fix and that it wasn't worth it as we were only here for a few weeks. I wanted to challenge her but thought better of it as we had two other dian dong ches. But till today they have both been pretty shit in terms of range and speed, so I wanted to at least investigate the possibility of renewing my trusty black steed.

As soon as the bloke arrived in his electric car he said we only needed new batteries. I countered by saying I'd been told it was "broken" but realised Jiuma may not have known what she was talking about. He said it had not been used for years which was quite probably true even though I'd told the family they were free to use it when we were not around. It seems they may not have done and it could have been sitting there taking up space for the last 3.5 years. Anyway after half an hour he'd got an axle grinder and removed the welded-in metal bars that were keeping the old batteries in place (dian ping, not dian che apparently). But it was quite a fun moment; I had to charge the plug as if I was charging a bike but as soon as he let go of the power it stopped running, and I had to restart the charging. Long story short he managed to keep the grinder going until he had liberated the batteries.

He found this in the battery compartment and said we need to keep it safe - I didn't realise it was so long ago (July 2015 I got it)

I asked if would like some glasses and he looked at me as if I'd offered him a dead goldfish

He had brought five batteries, which thankfully was exactly what we needed, and when he'd changed them tried the the throttle and the back wheel moved, which was cool, but the gears didn't seem to move. But it was enough to get back to the shop to continue the fixing. It was horrible driving with flat tyres but I made it ok, to be told that the rear tyre was well and truly screwed, and they'd need to order a new one. In fact they needed to order a tool to remove the old tyre, but both arrived in a few minutes after a couple of phone calls.

Er shou dian dong che xing - almost literally "second hand electric bike store" with our one in the foreground getting fixed

I went for a walk as the bloke set upon fixing the rear tyre and a few doors down came upon a bloke's shop whose job was fixing tyres. I'd gone to his place a few years ago to fix a wheel and pump up my front tyre and had I known I'd probably have gone here to fix my wheel as he seemed to have loads in stock. When I got back the bloke was still toiling over the back wheel, and A Wu had pinged me to go and eat with him, but I showed him what I was up to and said I'd come over when I could.

I wondered what this bloke was doing the other week...

...now I see he was renaming (or correcting) the road ahead's (?) name

Finally the wheel was fixed, and I had a new battery charger. The total cost was 450 for the batteries + 140 for the rear tyre + 55 for the charger = 645 kuai and of course no labour cost. I really couldn't complain except for thinking I should have done this as soon as I'd got here instead of listening to Jiuma. Aargh...it's almost like living in opposite-ville. But hey I had "xiu le" (repaired) the dian dong che and had increased my freedom-radius almost literally by an order of magnitude and that was well worth the cost.

I happily drove home and it felt so like the last time I was here. I grabbed a quick shower then followed A Wu's directions to where they were about to eat. I thought I'd be late but I needn't have worried. As usual we were in a private room but this time there were three women joining us who weren't locals. They were all quite loud, and one of them quite likely inebriated already. Boss Wei was there along with two other blokes I didn't know.

The meal was a lovely spicy affair, from Wunan apparently. I had little idea about the purpose and don't really ask any more. The large woman came straight out and asked me to find her an English boyfriend. Then she came over to me and showed me pictures of her daughter who was studying in Japan, and definitely stood too close to me. She then walked out with one of the other women who was leaving and I hoped that was that but 20 minutes later she was back with a purpose...and that purpose was to drink. As she was rather large she could put it away, but the other woman wasn't drinking so she just ganbei'd us blokes till it got boring. She tried to get me to drink nuo mi jiu but I refused anything more than a mouthful. She tried to force the glass into my mouth but I told her I'd be sick over her if she did. It was a bit more aggressive than I'm used to and never had a bloke be so forceful before. But I kept polite and poured a glass of beer and ganbei'd her with that.

I talked a little to the sober lady, and gathered they had come from Guiyang on "business" but I knew better than to ask in great detail. She also asked me to find her an English boyfriend but he had to be no taller than 180cm. The drunk woman said she'd take over 180cm so I made some sort of joke about it that they found funnier than I did. Eventually Boss Wei and A Wu were clearly clearer headed than the woman and we made our excuses and left them to whatever they were to get up to.

Interestingly, A Wu and Boss Wei got on a pink dian dong che rather than the brown BMW I would have expected. I followed them on my near-fully charged one to the place we had a boss meal last week, one the ground floor of some place near the guangchang. But the six or so people that were there were already rather the worse for wear and I tediously tried speaking to one of them in English as he kept saying "do you understand?". But after a bit of cai ma A Wu said we'd go to "drink tea". I had my doubts but followed them around the corner when he stopped and said that the others were too drunk and they'd just go home. That was absolutely fine with me.

So I had some time to soak in Pingguo by night on the dian dong che and did just that until I arrived at the stadium. I pinged Leilei to see if he had eaten and he said they were going for bbq at the stadium. Then he said he was in a bar with Li Kun, so I asked if it was the one we went to on the first night and he answered "yeah". I happened to be right outside it so I walked in and saw Si Si at a table with friends but no son of mine. I was invited to sit down and ganbei so of course how could I refuse? But first I called Leilei to see where he was and it transpired he was at a different stadium bar around the corner that was much bigger than this one. How you could confuse the two is beyond me, but I'm no longer 18 and maybe I made such mistakes when I was.

I pinged Li Kun to see what was going on and he told me Nezha had had a bit too much to drink, and this really worried me, especially as they like to take the bikes out. So I said I'd be over in a minute and explained to Si Si and crew that I had to go and would hopefully see them soon. But then Li Kun told me the boys had left to go home - I guess they didn't want me to cramp their style but I told Leilei not to let Nezha drink any more and let me know when home. It's a fine line to balance on being the father of someone who is technically an adult but on other levels clearly not. You have to let them go while somehow hanging on. I got to the bar and found Li Kun and a few friends and managed a few ganbeis but wasn't really in the spirit of things until Leilei told me they were home fine. Then I could relax.

No way you'd get me on that stage

But within half an hour we left and took the dian dong ches to a snail noodle place, as in they specialised in noodles with snails in them. I guess Li Kun and the other bloke had been out drinking longer than I had as I couldn't face so much carbohydrate at getting on for 2am, but I did manage the snail, and some conversation with another bloke who turned up to eat with us.

Tan pinged me to ask my friends if anyone had a violin she could borrow. I pinged the music teacher I'd met yesterday at A Wu's place but he said they didn't have violins. But he sent me a picture that had been shared to him of Nezha and Leilei with some music shop person and said to contact him. Well I had no means of doing that so will look into it tomorrow. I didn't finish my noodles and got home after 3am but hey.

Basketball and birthday seconds

Managed to get up soon after 11am, which was going to be hours before the boys would emerge. So lunch was a simple affair of a boiled egg and some yoghurt, before A Wu called to invite me for an evening meal, which I guessed would be the leftovers from yesterday's affair. Of course he told me to be there at 4.30pm. Then Haiwei pinged me to ask if the boys could play basketball. Oh shit, he'd invited us to go and play this evening at his workplace. I answered that they could, but they were not very good, just before he called me to confirm we would be eating tea then playing basketball. He followed that up with a message saying he would be here at 5.15pm to pick us up.

It was nearly half past four but at least I'd managed to get the boys up. I had no intention of playing basketball so grabbed a shower and of course when I was getting out at 5.09pm I had a call from Haiwei to say he was waiting outside. Well he'd have to wait a few minutes longer...I'm so used to the "kuai dian!" it barely registers any more. We got ready and met him at 5.19pm, then we stopped at a hotel where his sons were with a couple of mates and told them to get into a white car. Why we had to go there to tell them that is beyond me in this age of remote communication. We drove the 8 km to Haiwei's impressive new work complex and parked by the basketball courts, and when we got out knew there was no way anyone would be able to play in this heat.

So we went into a large hall that was so much more comfortable heat-wise, even without A/C. As an evening meal we had what was probably the simplest meal I'll ever have in Guangxi outside of where we're living. It was the workers' eating place, and as such you pick up a metal bowl, plonk some rice on it, then, like a school canteen you hand it to the lady who spoons some tofu, duck, and greens on it and that's it. I think each person cost 6.5 kuai but we didn't pay ourselves. And the food was fine, and possibly the first beer-less evening meal since we got here, which was refreshing in its own right.

Workers' canteen

Simple meal

After the meal Haiwei took me for a tour of the complex while the boys decided to try to play basketball. I asked what they produced and apparently it is just a single product: tea alcohol. I tried to understand in depth what that exactly meant but although he tried to explain, the vocabulary needed was beyond me and I didn't want to be looking up literally every fourth word. I do intend to find out though in time as its these details that make our trips here much more a living experience than just a holiday. The complex wasn't yet officially open, and we toured some fancy meeting rooms before walking around the outside, where it looked like they hadn't spared much expense.

Haiwei was pointing out various trees and telling me how expensive each one was...30k kuai for this one, 80k kuai for that one. They looked fairly fancy but I have no idea how to value trees so just nodded as though I did. There were various large pots around that would eventually be filled with the alcohol liquid and stored for three years before being sold for 100k kuai each. So around £90k per pot. I should have asked how many litres each contained so I could make an estimate of how much a bottle could cost but it doesn't look to be cheap. After feeding some fish (reared as food for the workers) we got back to the basketball area but it was still far too hot to play so we went inside to fetch more water.

Tan's secondary school teacher called to confirm he had invited us for a meal on Wednesday evening, but also invited me to go to Nanning with him tomorrow for a drink and to stay the night. While somewhat tempted, I said I thought we were already invited out tomorrow, which was true but in fact that was when I had basketball in mind instead of today. Then he said he was in Pingguo this evening and could also see me, but he was taking medicine so wouldn't drink. I said I was busy this evening too but would ping him if I had time.

Haiwei in the hall of the new complex

The rather lush gardens and expensive trees

Eventually, as the sun started setting, two teams of five were organised, one including Leilei and Nezha, and a game started. I know very little about basketball but I do know that a normal shot in the basket is worth 2 and from outside that semicircle it's 3, so when the first shot went in I flipped over the scoreboard to reflect it in jest. But in fact that ended up being my task for the next 20 minutes. Leilei and Nezha were clearly outclassed by the other guys who play every week, and are very physical. They were both voluntarily subbed two or three times during the game and I felt bad for them, though at least Leilei made a couple of good blocks that got recognition. I hadn't realised the level of who they were playing with and thought it would just be two against two mates playing like he does in London. Still, I hope it was a decent experience for them.

A Wu called to ask me to come over. To be fair I had IM'd him to say I'd already said I'd go with Haiwei, and that I'd come over when I could. So I told him I should be able to leave after this game. Well the game continued after a few minutes' break and it was decided it would end at 40 fen. Now fen can mean "point" or it can mean "minute" and in this context it could mean either. So I double checked and indeed it was the first to 40 points, and by now it was 26-13 to the team without any foreigners. Well they duly won 40-32, so that was it, at least I hoped. 10 minutes later they were preparing for another game and this time one of them took a whistle and became a referee. I stayed on as the scorekeeper, and had to pay attention as the ref was taking it really seriously and making sure I put a 3 when necessary.

Basketball by sunset

A Wu called again and it was a bit tough to talk and keep score at the same time but I told him I'd come when I can, and then he put me on to some drunken mate I couldn't understand so I just said the same thing. I let some other bloke take over the scoring, and then went over to practise some free throws on the other court. Blimey it's harder than I remember in school. Finally the whistle blew and they came off the court but it was only half time, and something like 60-40. The scorer bloke said they'd play till those in front got 80 or those behind got 60. Fair enough. And halfway through the second half some bloke turned up with a couple of crates of cold beer. Now this could mean simply have a beer or, more usually it signifies the beginning of a session. But I'd told A Wu that we'd go there and the boys were also really keen to go as they were as tired as they were outclassed and probably not feeling great about being there anymore. So I had a single beer with some of the guys then Haiwei took us back in his car, earlier than he wanted no doubt, but A Wu had spoken to him so not unexpected.

The boys had been invited to A Wu's a few times but this was the first time they'd actually gone, and only because they were hungry after exercise and not having had too much to eat at the workplace. There were still quite a few people there (eating yesterday's leftovers), and there were minor shrieks as we walked in, and the usual photos taken over the next few minutes as the boys attempted to eat. They managed to stay half an hour and clearly wanted to go so using the excuse of needing showers they did their final ganbeis and were off, and I stayed the next 90 minutes or so feeding the ganbei machine and doing rather well until eventually there were only five of us left so we called it a relatively early night around 11pm, and Boss Mong decided he was sober enough to give me a lift home. Tan's teacher had left a message and a location earlier and I had pinged him to see if he was still there but indeed he'd gone back after taking his medicine. I contemplated going out again when home but decided I'd been relatively good today, and made an effort to keep it that way, although was still up till well gone 2am.

A Wu's birthday

A Wu called me at 9.43am to go shopping. Fair enough he'd warned me yesterday and I said I'd be up for it, so said I'd be ready in about 20 minutes. He picked me up in the BMW and Boss Huang was already there. What followed was quite a fun trip through the main market and surrounding stalls to pick up a load of food for what would be A Wu's birthday celebration this evening. Indeed three chickens and three ducks, copious ribs, and more vegetables than you could shake a stick at. Not to mention picking up 10 stools and a load of bowls and plates. A Wu paid for everything, though let me carry a lot of it.

I noticed how the bosses mostly speak among themselves in the local "tu hua" (local language), or "Zhuang hua" (Zhuang language as in the local "race" here) as they sometimes call it. Yes I may be able to speak a few basic sentences but I don't understand 1% of what they are actually saying, but Boss Huang was trying to teach me as we went along. I'm going to go with it and try to speak more. Literally every word they spoke in the market and surrounding stores was in tu hua, and it's what Tan speaks to her family. I guess in a generation or so it could easily die out, and my speaking a few phrases won't change that, but I'm hoping if I can get to learn some it might raise my Mandarin. Like when you get off the motorway and have to drive at 40mph it feels so slow, similarly I'm hoping if I've been trying to speak tu hua then coming "down" to Mandarin may make it seem easier. It's got to be worth a try.

Pingguo market in full swing

A Wu pointed at some sort of white vegetable and said he wanted some. Boss Huang pointed at it and shouted something like "shum chut" and I realised he was telling me what it was in tu hua. But I didn't know what it was in English, let alone Mandarin. Maybe learning tu hua is not going to be such a good idea after all. But by way of an explanation A Wu said it was "liang shu", a relative of "hong shu". Ok, so hong shu is sweet potato, so I knew the "shu" bit, but "liang?" this wasn't coming up in my dictionary so I'll have to remain ignorant for a while. Anyway it's a root vegetable that you can eat raw apparently.

Boss Zhou joined us during this time and we then went back to A Wu's around 1pm. The bosses set upon cooking lunch and I tried the Chinese trick of dozing. I asked his daughter for a pillow then, despite the bright light and loud cartoons coming from the tv, laid down on my back and started counting in German. It worked in a weird way...it wasn't like I was asleep but I could barely get past 10 numbers in a row, and I'd start picturing things in a dream-like manner. This went on for an hour or so so I guess I can class it as in the family of power-naps.

Lunch was a relatively simple affair of chicken innards, or "nei zang" as I now know. I couldn't eat the zhou so A Wu heated up a couple of zongzi which were a decent alternative, and filled me up. Now it was 2.30pm and I was told to invite the boys to eat at 5ish. Well I tried but neither would answer my call or IM. I think they've gone nocturnal.

All afternoon was spent preparing and cooking the food for the evening. There were never fewer than four bosses in the kitchen at any one time and more came and went, bringing more and more food. I asked if I could help and finally was allowed to prepare the greens, by tearing them in half then slicing the main stork lengthways to allow for better cooking. I'd received a phone call from China Mobile while in the lift taking the rubbish out, but not answered for fear of it being an automated message I wouldn't understand, or worse - maybe they were going to warn me about VPN usage. But back in the house I got the call from 10086 again and this time I thought I'd better answer. It started with some music for a couple of seconds so I pretty much confirmed that it was automated, but then there was a pause. I said "ni hao" and then the lady spoke to me again and I realised it was a real person, but with the background noise, and the formalness of how she was speaking I couldn't work out what she was saying, so handed the phone to Boss Zhou who was cooking at the time. After a few sentences he turned to ask me if I was using wifi and I nodded, then he asked if I was having any problems and I shook my head. He asked me some more stuff but I had no idea what he was talking about and after another minute or so he hung up. It's times like this I really wish I knew what was going on.

Then Tan sent a couple of screenshots from Douyin or Tiktok or Weixin, showing a couple of trolling comments under the video of me eating mango. They were probably just a joke (generic negative stuff against the English rather than anything against me) but she told me to be careful. But there's not much I can do...I got invited to go out and see a mango farm and had a great educational experience and of course some bits of it were filmed and it was totally innocent. Of course a snippet of 14 seconds found its way online and for a few brief minutes went slightly viral and attracted some comments, 95% of which were probably positive. The only way I could avoid this is literally not to go out at all.

"UK is the enemy"

At 5pm families started turning up with children, and by 5.30 some women and children had started to eat, though there was still a lot of cooking going on in the kitchen. Finally, soon after 6pm the blokes sat down to eat and indeed for a full 10 minutes no drinks were served. But at 6.22pm the beers were cracked open and the predictable ganbeis ensued.

Always at least 4 bosses cooking

I had to table hop to meet some new people and straight away spilt some beer on the shoulder of some bloke who almost took it as a compliment. He was drinking red tea but I ganbei'd him anyway. He went away and came back with some nuo mi jiu after saying he wouldn't drink beer as it made him fat. Well I agreed with him in principle but can't bring myself to drink that rice alcohol still...maybe one day. Well it was a pretty raucous evening with kids running all over the place and adult males becoming less adult-like by the minute, so I was a little surprised when A Wu said we would go to sing song. Boss Zhou was already asleep on the sofa and Boss Wei looked like he wasn't far behind.

Great meal!

But I walked to the KTV 5 minutes away with some other bloke who'd been ganbei'ing me and we got to room 999 where there were already a couple of blokes singing. And A Wu, Boss Zhou, Boss Wei and others turned up and I felt intensely sober, so managed a few ganbeis as I knew I'd be forced up to sing "Pengyou" shortly. Yang Haiwei arrived as the bloke who walked me knew that I knew him, so at least I had someone relatively sober to talk to, but yes, while I was in the loo I could hear the first bars of "Pengyou", and while I fished out the words on my phone I could even hear them restarting it so I wouldn't miss any of it. How considerate.

No under 18s of course

Haiwei motioned for us to go elsewhere due to the drunkenness of the others but then the birthday cake came in, and as is customary I dipped two fingers in and wiped it over A Wu's face. I had to do one more rendition of Pengyou, this time with A Wu, and to be honest it was quite fun. But Haiwei and I stepped out while every other bloke seemed oblivious, and had a refreshing walk to Tan's auntie's bbq place near the guangchang.

A Wu's birthday cake, not that he remembered

Of course one of the reasons I was there was to speak English to his sons, and younger son obediently turned up on his bike about midnight, with the elder one half an hour later with a mate, saying they had just been drinking whisky in a bar. He proceeded to demolish me at cai ma which was a bit annoying, but we had some English conversation, and managed to leave not too long after 1am. And I managed to pay 213 kuai without Haiwei causing a fuss for the first time in a while.

Wedding and street food

Oh bollocks. I woke up to see an email telling me the train tickets had been cancelled. No explanation, just a curt sentence from trip.com saying if any money had been taken it would be refunded in up to 10 working days. Working days. What a load of bollocks in this connected age. Like I can buy a train ticket on a Sunday but I can't get refunded on a Sunday? Crypto can't come quickly enough. So I let Tan know but she wouldn't be awake for hours.

Lunch was quail eggs again, which were actually pretty nice and made up for a lack of breakfast. I didn't eat too much as going to a wedding meal later. A Heng called to say he would pick us up at 4.30pm. He arrived at 4pm but apparently we didn't have to leave till 5pm. 

Well it seemed the train tickets would be a real PITA, so I hit upon a Plan B. I checked flights and there was one from Guangzhou to Nanning at 9.30pm on the evening they were due to arrive at 5.05pm. £70 each but the train would have been £51 each and there would be no need of a £40 hotel so pretty much obvious when you factor in the extra day they would have too. So I called Tan to tell her but she didn't get it and wanted to go ahead with the train and asked me to go to the train station to book in person as you needed to show them the ID in person apparently. Well I didn't have Xixi's passport obviously, but I knew better than to argue too much. Then she called again to say A Xia would arrange the tickets, so I sent a copy of Xixi's passport to her, only to hear a few minutes later that that wasn't going to work. So they'd have to turn up at the train station on the day of the train and show ID in person in order to get the ticket. Tan even said that the foreign football players have to queue in person but I somehow doubted that as we managed to get e-tickets no problem. But I know from experience these tickets sell out well in advance, and even though I'd purchased ours over two weeks before the date of travel the direct trains to Pingguo were all sold out hence the change in Nanning East.

So it was to be my Plan B after all, and quite frankly had it been an option for us back in June I'd have chosen it in order to get an extra day in Pingguo. I'll probably never understand why getting a train ticket online required such a strict check of ID, but getting a flight, although putting in passport details as per normal, was a piece of cake. 5 minutes later Tan had the confirmation of flights, and as it was China Southern, the same company taking them to Guangzhou, I told her to tell them this a bag drop and ask if they could send the luggage through to Nanning rather than them having to find it and drop it off again. I reckon there must be a 50% chance of that working.

We went to the new Li Jia He hotel for the wedding and were among the first to arrive, having already paid our entry fee. Nezha hadn't come as he was "tired" and Leilei was a bit annoyed at the waiting around while some of the elders chatted. To be fair it was rather boring and we could easily have turned up 30 minutes later and still have been early, but no amount of arguing or complaining would change anything and we did at least have our phones, which every person under 60 was buried in.

The meal was fine, with much more than enough for everyone, and once the compere had done his compering, and the bride and groom had said a few words, and we'd clapped enough, the copious red plastic doggy bags were out and being filled. I'd let Leilei go early after making him stay for the "show" but little did I realise most other people were leaving now too. I guess the stayers-on were those expecting to drink through the evening, but we were going home so I called Leilei and he came back to the carpark to get a lift.

Jiuma dressed up for the wedding with some other a yis

A Heng maybe not taking the wedding stuff too seriously

Seen on a tea house next to the posh hotel: "Flush after defecation" - good advice! But from a tea house?

As I said I would, I called A Wu to let him know we were out of the wedding, and he said he'd send someone to pick me up to go for a drink. 5 minutes later I got a call from someone who couldn't hear me and I guessed they had arrived, so went to the main entrance but there was no-one. So I called A Wu and he said yes someone was coming.... I called the number that had called me earlier and this time he heard me and said he was coming but would be some time, whatever that meant. Sod it, I turned on the Wii and decided to patch the Mario Kart ISO so I could attempt to play online. It took a bit of geeking to do but finally after three attempts I was in an online race with seven other geeks across the world. I wondered if I was the only person in China playing Mario Kart Wii online at the time. I like to think so at least. But before the first race the nunchuck disconnected and it thought I was playing with a single Wiimote "wheel" style. I can't do that, and by the time I realised I was already a lap down. It was all I could do not to be lapped again, and I came last and lost 100 points dropping me to under 6000. Boo.

Then Jiuma came back with A Heng's daughter. When he and his wife left for Baise I had assumed they'd take her with them. But I guess she is a grandma now and delights in taking care of her. In fact, for the first time in my life I have been called "ye ye" by this cute thing. Grandpa! I'm being called grandpa! Just please don't let it happen in English life for at least a decade.... Jiuma said the kid was tired but when she saw me on Mario Kart she most certainly wasn't. She grabbed the Switch control and rolled over laughing when I played as Diddy Kong and kept shouting "hou zi", and we spent the best part of an hour playing the balloon game (at least I did).

During this time there were more messages posted on the Weixin channel for us mango people. Apparently the video they'd uploaded yesterday had had 470,000 views. I felt quite embarrassed and then a bit later I heard it was 570k. In terms of the population of China this was pretty tiny but it dwarfed the 200k views of my "Strange hand massage" I'd uploaded to YouTube in 2006.

57 万 views (570k)...hopefully not too embarrassing

Then I realised I hadn't heard from A Wu and called him, to find out that we were no longer going to the place that had been planned as they had been drinking too much, and we'd just meet up with him and A Da for a bbq across the road. That was more than ok for me, but it still took the best part of an hour before I called him again to see if he was asleep but no, they'd be there in a few minutes.

The boys are getting up later and later and it's getting a bit annoying. But they were up for a bbq so we went and found A Wu and A Da to order some. I haven't seen A Da for years. I remember him as quite an aggressive teen, who probably didn't get enough time with either of his parents. But now he seemed really mature and kind, and just a nice person to be around. He chatted with Leilei and although it was a million miles away from when they used to play Mario Kart Wii together, it still reminded me of seeing Leilei really engaging in Mandarin with non-family for the first time 13 years ago or so.

Leilei and Nezha contemplating pig penises

Nezha ordered some meat bbq and for the sake of it we ordered pig penis and pig eye balls. Alone, the boys wouldn't have tried it but as they were both there they were up for it but the penis was tough, and not amenable to Leilei's braces, whereas Nezha bit into the pig eyeball too early and the boiling aqueous humour spurted out and burnt his face. He was belatedly told he should have waited for it to cool down then put the whole thing in his mouth before bursting it. Oh well, at least they both tried two new dishes, but they mopped up the pork and before before we had duck tongues, sweetcorn, and two chicken wings for Nezha.

A Wu was tiring, so soon after midnight I suggested we call it a night, but Haiwei pinged me to come down to Jiang Bing Lu for a bite. So I left the boys to go home, bade good night to A Wu and A Da, and got on the dian dong che to hope it would get me all the way to the river. It did, slowly, and I had my doubts for the way back, but I met up with Haiwei and a few friends at an outside table, and immediately had a glass and bowl thrust at me as though I'd not had a bite to eat all day. Of course cai ma ensued and it was a good laugh. We ended up table-hopping as you do towards the end and finally left at gone 2am while it was still really busy.

I had my doubts about the dian dong che going by myself, but I had to take a tiring Haiwei back with me too, so we trundled along at 18kph until he needed to get off, and only just made it home again. But to my annoyance all the electric plugs were taken so no chance to charge overnight.

Mango fever!

With no funeral to attend, or rather with a funeral not to attend, I got up at 11am and heard a Weixin message from A Hua asking if Tan was back yet (no) and would we like to go to a mango farm (yes for me, no for the boys). I asked when and she said "from 2 to 3pm". For some stupid reason I thought it meant we were to go there for an hour.

At 1.50pm I got a message saying she had arrived at our complex's main entrance, but I was prepared for such earliness and went out to meet her telling the boys to sort themselves out. But she wasn't there, and it dawned on me maybe she was at the other entrance so I called her and indeed she was. But she knew where we were staying surely? And why did she ask me to send a location? Anyway a minute later a car came round and I heard a shouting of "Xiao Peng!" and saw a face I half-recognised from the rear window. I climbed in the front and found there were four women already there (including the driver), not one of which was A Hua to the best of my knowledge unless she had dramatically lost weight and had a face job.

Well we drove and we talked. And talked and talked. And when we arrived at the green traffic light where they sell dian dong ches the driver stopped. I politely asked her if in China it was customary to stop at a green light and she laughed and said they were so busy chatting she hadn't noticed it was green. I wasn't annoyed in the slightest, just slightly concerned for the rest of the journey.

We then continued to drive, very safely, for the next 45 minutes or so and it looked like we were going to Tian Dong but that would have meant taking the motorway. Instead we took the local road, and experienced being overtaken on the left hand side and right hand side at the same time on more than one occasion. Normally by lorries on the left. But the driver, Pan, kept going at a reasonable speed and I was enormously grateful. From experience, driving on Chinese roads outside of Pingguo is literally the most dangerous time in this country, as in closest to death. For this reason I'd brought a bottle of cola laced with something naughty, but had no need to imbibe any Dutchness for this journey.

We turned off the road at Silin Zhen and took a tiny road for a few more minutes before stopping at a tiny village called Luyang. It was getting on for 3pm and the hottest part of another scorcher so we walked across a dike to a farmhouse outside of which were buckets and buckets of mangoes of varying ripeness. We met the mango boss bloke, and then I came to understand that the driver was the one who sold the mangoes to the rest of China, while this bloke was responsible for growing them. So it seemed this trip was a bit of a business inspection, and the other three ladies? I'm not really sure but at least one of them knew Tan and me. I guess they were along for the ride.

Stepping over the dyke to the mango farm

I had to taste a couple of mangoes and by golly they were good. So sweet with a great texture. The first type I tried apparently only grows in Guangxi, and they told me about the other types but it was really stretching my vocabulary. To makes things worse/better, they started talking to me in the local language as I can say a few sentences now. And of course filmed everything, so Tan would know where I was before I would.

Mango "dei gun!"

Before we set off to where the mangoes grow we were told we would be eating tea there and would that be ok? Well, yeah why not? So mango boss went and picked up a jacket for me to wear that looked far too hot for an afternoon nudging 40°, but in typical ingenuous Chinese style it had two fans built in to the back of it, attached to a portable battery in the inside pocket. It felt unintuitive, but was actually very effective at keeping at least my back from sweating.

Ingenious fan embedded into jacket

Well the walk was interesting and despite the steep inclines the three women who were around my age showed no signs of consternation and happily hopped up to where the mango trees were. We were given some explanations about the types of mangoes but I don't really recall what they were, only that when we went for a taste they were always delightful. Except for an interesting one; they peeled what was basically (from what I could tell) an unripe mango, then poured some orange powder onto it and took a bite. Well I didn't want any mysterious orange powder but I accepted such a mango passed to me. It was as bitter as could be expected, but after I was told it would be better with the "la jiao yan" (chilli salt) I said I'd better try then and by golly it was actually really nice. I mean so nice I ate half a mango's worth in a couple of minutes. I read the side of the bottle and it actually said it was to go with fruit. Another positive experience chalked up, as if the whole day so far wasn't.

Raw mango and chilli salt

After around 90 minutes we finally started our descent and it was harder than getting up there, but as I saw five women do it before me I built up my courage and almost didn't have to use my hands to get down to the dirt track we'd used to get up here.

Some sort of advert for this place

Nice view of the mango mountains

We got back to the farmhouse just in time to see a chicken (hen) being slaughtered which is something until now I'd managed to avoid in China. But it's a daily thing here so I shouldn't complain. While they gutted it I met what I thought was a wild cat but she was the mother of four gorgeous kittens and probably only semi-feral. What a distant relative to our lovely A Mi (not that she misses us). Then I saw the main bloke slicing up toads, so I went to take a picture but he said "bu de"; apparently you can't do that. I didn't ask exactly why but put it down to some sort of local superstition.

Semi-feral I think, but friendly at the same time

Two of four gorgeous kittens

Two of four gorgeous kittens

And then I realised my full bottle of cola + a bit of V was not around. I went to the bloke I left it with while he was cooking, and he just said he'd forgotten where he put it. Fair enough but there was a bottle of Coke on the table which the kids were drinking and I worried they would start on mine if they found it. When he told me I could take some of the full-sugar version I told him I couldn't take sugar hence buying the sugar-free version, which was true to a small percent, actually zero percent, like the Coke. I walked the length and breadth of where we had come back from and couldn't find the bag with my Coke, and thought I may have to admit to its contents, lest it fall into the arms of a young'un.

Poor hen about to meet her maker

But food was called and we had a lovely meal during which I was called to cai ma a fair bit and duly accepted. The main bloke didn't drink as he was going to follow us back to Pingguo after the meal to deliver a load of mangoes. But he really praised my cai ma and said I had a quick brain. There were some comments about me using chopsticks with my left hand (it can get in the way at a round table where everyone else uses their right), and I explained that although I'm right-handed when I was in my teens I just couldn't work out how to use chopsticks, and not wanting to miss out I decided to start from scratch using my other hand as years of writing had probably given me a bad habit that was getting in the way of using them. That was my logic at the time at least, I guess if it had much merit then many more right-handers would have chosen this route. Then the mango boss said I was half Chinese, and that it must be my left side! Ha, we had a laugh but in a way there may be a little bit of sense here. I definitely feel in a different mode when speaking Mandarin, like it could be using a different part of my brain or something. Like how the left side of the brain controls the right and is the more logical side, and the right side controls the left and is more artistic or something. But that would mean I'm less logical here and I'm not sure that's the case. And anyway, surely the logical side controlling the right would be better for cai ma but again I tend to use my left for that. I'm thinking too much about these sort of things....

Very quick round of cai ma with mango boss

Not too long later the meal was completed and we were about to get in the cars again. I had a last long look for my Coke but couldn't see it anywhere so gave up hope but as the ladies put their stuff in the boot I recognised a bag and saw my sweet bottle about 45° but there and not in the hands of a kid and thanked whoever I should thank. I do admit to partaking a little on the journey back after holding it up against the A/C for the first 20 minutes or so. Indeed during the first 20 minutes it felt a bit strange in the car...it was of course an automatic but it would struggle with high revs for a few seconds before moving up a gear for a few more, then high revs again, despite being on a road where we should be doing around 60kph. I tried not to think too much about it but after a while one of the ladies in the back thought to disengage the handbrake and suddenly everything worked a lot more smoothly for the rest of the journey!

Before long we were home in Pingguo and went to the mango-seller's place. We seemed mostly to drink fruit tea until the mango farmer turned up and then they started moving the mangoes from the crates to the floor of the shop. Of course I offered to help and thankfully they let me for 20 minutes and for once a felt a bit useful other than just being part of the pictures they took. But I was sweating quite a bit in the top I'd had on all day so I made an excuse to go back home as it was 2 minutes away and they didn't complain but made sure I took their dian dong che to go there.

Some of the mangoes I helped unpack before changing my top

It was nice to change into a new top but I was back as soon as I could be as promised and a few minutes later we walked across the road to a bbq place where we all sat inside. For the first time in two hours beer was poured again, this time accompanying some decent bbq. Mango man seemed really keen on me playing cai ma, so I indulged with him and another mate, before we settled into two teams of three, with a couple of the ladies playing scissor, paper, stone instead of cai ma. Lord knows who won, but it was a laugh. One of the ladies started a Weixin group with us and shared all the videos and photos of the day. It looked like we were actually doing some advertising for the mango place. Of course Tan pinged me to say that Chuan Chuan had had a problem booking their train tickets from Guangzhou to Pingguo. Something to do with an ID? No problem, I would sort it when I got home. But I checked with someone and they said the tickets wouldn't go on sale until tomorrow, which given it was gone midnight meant Sunday now. Having said that I wasn't too sure as if they weren't on sale how come Chuan Chuan was able to attempt to buy them. It all felt a little Chinese so I planned to check later. After a bit of cai ma'ing with the next table we finally left and I went home to consume my plan.

The simple pleasures in life...

Back at home, A Heng, his wife, and their daughter were back, and the young thing didn't look like she wanted to go to bed any time soon. But I had an objective and after cooing over the little thing for an appropriate time I went to trip.com and booked the tickets for Tan and Xixi. It took all of 5 minutes. I let Tan know and maybe had a celebratory can of 2.8% Li Quan before bed.

Cute kid

Wii!

Finally slept before 3am, at 2.59am, but as though Morpheus was teasing me I woke up 24 minutes later. But with the help of a long podcast I managed to drop off till 7am when I thought about getting up until it was 10am. As is usual, the routine is stepping in of me going to get four portions of jiaozi and the boys getting up later to eat it. Except this time Nezha was awake. He'd asked me for some melatonin last night and it seems to have done the trick.

They had no particular plans but I wanted to see if I could get our old Wii working again, one of the few things salvaged from our old house. It and its accoutrements were dirtier and yellower than ever, and I had severe doubts. I started by cleaning the main box, which had had its folding flaps lost many moons ago. I dared clean it and the power cable just to see if the red light would come on. Thankfully I'd left an adapter on the power cable so I put it in its stand and plugged it in an lo and behold the red light did indeed come on. But that was the first of many things that could go wrong; I had to fix the broken component cable (as I hadn't brought the HDMI adapter - silly me), then see if it would actually connect to the tv, then attach the sensor, clean and set up the Wiimotes with nunchucks etc., then hope that the old external HDD would spin up and work. If any of these went wrong it wouldn't work. But one by one I set it up. It was a real pain trying to plug in the component cables but at least the tv had this connection. But it was a real faff trying to get to them after taking a photo with my phone to see the order of the colours. But when I eventually coaxed the remote control to change input to component I saw to my satisfaction the old Wii interface, with Youtube and iPlayer etc. that would never work again. It even had the correct date and was only a couple of hours out so the internal battery must have been working.

My beloved first Wii still going strong

Next was to set up a Wiimote. I was ok to buy batteries but didn't want to venture into the searing heat so looked about and was not surprised to see a couple of random AA batteries in different places. Yes! The Wiimote came to life and I connected it to its mother station and I appeared to have a functioning Wii! Next was to see if the HDD was working so went to the Homebrew channel to try but unfortunately it didn't pick it up. But I tried the suggested "unplug and replug" and this time the titles turned up on the screen (all owned of course). I dared choose Mario Kart Wii (I even brought the disk with me) and it fired up! Ah nostalgia...even the kids now can share this with me with the Wii and recently have been playing on it at home. To my chagrin I came 8th in Luigi Circuit in the Mushroom Cup, and then in Moo Moo Meadows I was doing ok until the controller jammed turning left. I unplugged and replugged it in eventually but by now I was half a lap from 11th nearing the end of the first lap. Thanks partly to skill and partly to MK Wii's simple AI I managed to catch up within a lap and coast to victory as Daisy on the Mach bike. I got through Mushroom Gorge and Toad's Factory mostly unscathed for another victory. Simple pleasures.

Not my best win but felt better

Well there was to be no siesta; I'd got up relatively early in order to get an early night as I had no idea what time we'd be going to the funeral tomorrow. I'd asked Jiuma on Weixin but she hadn't got back to me. Anyway it was 5.30pm so I asked Leilei if he was hungry. He was eating sunflower seeds which meant he was, so I said we'd go out for a bite in half an hour. Nezha had apparently gone out by himself an hour ago and managed to order a huge bowl of rice and thank the owner and say it was "hao chi" which is pretty good progress. He said he wasn't hungry but joined us as we went across the road to Tan's aunty's place, which happened to be closed so we picked one nearby and asked if they did chao fen. Yep, plus some jiu gui yumi (drunken sweetcorn) and a pork dish, plus a large bottle of full-sugar Coke. The boys both wolfed down the fen and were nearly full by the time the yumi came, over which Nezha was asking if I believed we really put a man on the moon. I said I had no real reason to disbelieve it. Then we got on to politics and whether I thought capitalism was right...ah a tricky one. I just explained that I don't like being polarised and that both sides have their virtues.

I'd like to have had a longer conversation but Leilei had spilt Coke over the table and himself and wasn't too happy. I said I'd go to play ping pong and they were both interested in coming which surprised me in a positive way. But they wanted to go to the Guanmart supermarket first and I needed to get my raquet and theirs.

So I changed clothes and turned up and so did they. It was busier than usual but some ladies let us get on their table. Soon it was Nezha and Leilei against them and they found out the hard way (as I did many years ago) that they were shit. But to be fair it didn't stop them trying and Nezha did improve a bit. I motioned to go at 9.15pm but Leilei said he wanted to play me and I would never let him down in such a situation (we first did this when he was 5). We had a great session where I was clearly better but he won some great rallies and I was proud of him!

Boys vs girls

I left the two of them playing as I wanted to shower and get to the supermarket before it closed. Indeed I got there at 10:10 and managed to pick up the shower gel I forgot the other day. I really wanted some boiled eggs so asked a fu wu yuan. She really wanted to help and was lovely but said the only cooked eggs were quail eggs. She took me to where they were and I duly spooned a few into a bag then got it weighed. Then, with 10 minutes before closing, I asked for "wash body soap" and was told to go upstairs, which I did and found the soap but also the boiled eggs I'd been looking for. Oh poor lady she probably didn't know what wasn't on her floor.

It should have been an early night but I ended up chatting with Mat and Awl till the early hours. But only because Jiuma had finally got back to me to say not to go to the funeral tomorrow as it would be too hot. As if that would be a good reason....

Impromptu meet with Zhang Hua and Li Kun again

Still maintaining the habit of sleeping late, this time an improved 3.39am till 10.18am. I knew I was due to eat lunch with Ma Laoban so didn't eat, and instead dozed a little until at 1.20pm he pinged me to say sorry he was still busy. No problem but would have been good to know an hour ago.

So lunch became the default jiao zi from the local lady. Tan's brother was back in the house. I didn't need to see him as I could already smell the wreak of cigarettes he chain smokes. I ate my jiao zi in the bedroom because of this, and got Leilei from his slumbers to have a portion.

Tan called to confirm we are going to Jiuma's mum's funeral on the 7th and to some relative's wedding on the 8th. They will cost 200 and 300 kuai respectively which I'm not complaining about. The problem is I'll have to go to the funeral by car in the morning of the 7th and I've not yet got my sleeping patterns in toe. I guess I'll just have to get up early tomorrow and deal with the consequences. I can't see the boys going.

I pinged Zhang Hua to send me a pic of me with him and his wife from yesterday and he duly did then asked if I'd eaten and if not to come round to where he was for a bite. Well I didn't look this gift horse in the mouth and said I'd leave in 10 after a quick shower. These are some of the evenings I like best; not expected, simple, and mates coming and going over the course of a couple of hours. They were in fine fettle drinking sweet potato leaf alcohol, and I even tried half a glass and it was ok, but moved to the beer after that. More blokes came, one with a wife and kid and he ordered more food to be delivered and a new table was brought out to be put alongside the first one. They all took delight in teaching me drinking terms such as "gou rou!" (I challenge you!) and "zhang li li!" (something like "this is good!").

The fact that we were eating outside, and that there was a breeze thanks to being between two large apartment buildings made it cool in both senses, and I recognised one of the blokes from the KTV last night and it was nice to see the sober side of him, though still in high spirits...

Me with Zhang Hua's son and Zhang Hua

Relaxed meal

During the meal I got an IM from Li Kun asking if I had time tonight. I did so he said to come round at 9.30pm. This gave me the excuse to leave the meal after not too many drinks, and pick up the bottle of lemon Gin from home that I'd been meaning to give him since we got here. I turned up at 9.40pm and was the first there but a few minutes later a couple of other blokes turned up and we ended up staying over 3 hours with various bbq and other stuff delivered, as we discussed politics (to a limited extent) and I gave my opinions about the last few UK PMs. But I wanted to keep to my lower limits regarding beer so made my excuses at 1am to aim for a relatively early night.

Meeting Zhang Hua at unexpected KTV

After managing to avoid a late night out last night I had some hopes for today. Though I did ping Ma Laoban and we agreed to meet tomorrow lunchtime as he was in Tian Dong at the moment. So I ventured out in the late morning scorch but I was on a charged-up dian dong che so it wasn't so bad. I just picked up some boiled eggs and yogurt in Guanmart and didn't even think about booze as I'm looking forward to another day or two off (at least reduced).

I was annoyed to see that both the bread and bbq I'd brought back yesterday were gone and thought maybe Tan's brother had appropriated them as he came back yesterday and delivered some grapes. But late morning I knocked on Leilei's door and it transpired he had taken the bread and Nezha the bbq. So much for any breakfast for me, but at least it didn't go to waste.

So as I'd been up since not long after 9am I made myself a lunch of the leftover dofu from yesterday and two boiled eggs at 11.50. I contemplated a beer to help with a siesta but decided against it, given the last 10 days or so. I managed a 36 minute snooze according to my app and I didn't try any more as wanted a reasonably early night.

It was the first evening I hadn't been invited out and decided to take advantage by going to play table tennis at 7.45pm. I will never regret this but blimey it was so sweat-inducing and after an hour and a few minutes I explained I had to go back and shower. "There's still an hour to go" opined the probably 68-year-old who'd summoned my sweat for the last hour but I just had to tell her and the others that I needed to acclimatise and would be back soon.

But after I'd peeled off my top and managed a shower I decided to ping Zhang Hua whom I've known for about 15 years on and off and should really contact. He said he'd get back to me with where to meet up shortly, and after a short chat with Mat and Awl I took the bigger dian dong che to go and meet him. Or rather him and his wife at the equivalent of a lemonade stand on the street, except this was more lemon tea.

We waited a few minutes while his wife sorted out one for me and although I'm not a great fan of sugar or caffeine my lack of sleep and food made me take a few gulps before Zhang Hua jumped on the dian dong che and a couple of minutes later we were at a KTV place. I'd really expected to have a couple of beers together on the side of a road but when we got in we saw a raucous place just get more raucous at my appearance and I was plied with food first (thankfully in this case) then weak "Budweiser" beers which was also fine as I hadn't drunk anything all day.

Zhang Hua, me (didn't manage to open eyes properly), and his wife

But blimey the state of the other people (mostly blokes) was a sight to behold. But I'd behelden it before and went with the flow. I'd been worried Zhang Hua had organised this for me but a bit of logic meant this had clearly been in full flow since a lot earlier this evening. I was asked, but not forced, to sing some English songs, and refused saying I didn't know how. Eventually we descended into cai ma which gave all and sundry lots to be amused about.

Some of the blokes were pretty excited

Finally at close to 1am  most of the pissed blokes had left and Zhang Hua and I were just playing a couple of girls at cai ma to finish off the opened beer. Zhang Hua looked a bit the worse for wear and accepted a lift back to his place which was luckily mostly on the way back to ours. Apparently the boys are out again...

More cai ma and picking up dian dong ches

Despite tiredness for some reason I didn't sleep till 5am but got up before midday to get some jiaozi for the three of us. It was a rather quiet day for a change until A Wu called at 4pm to ask if I could come to his office to eat at 6pm. Yeah, sure, but the boys probably won't come. Then got a message from him on Weixin to be there at 6.30pm. So at 6.15pm, as I was getting ready he called to ask why I wasn't there and that the food was on the table...ha!

Well I got there at 6.40pm and yes there was some food on the table, but the rest was still being cooked so I mulled around talking to some of the kids until two blokes and a woman arrived at 7pm. Ah - these guests were the reason for the meal and soon after we sat down to eat. For no more than five minutes until the nuo mi jiu was brought out. I had no intention of drinking any more than I had to and managed a few 2.5% beer ganbeis as Huang (one of the new people) got more and more red-faced, seeming speeding up the rate of ganbeis.

Then A Wu suggested playing cai ma and the other bloke leapt up as he is apparently one of the best around. So much for staying sober but at least A Wu and I held our own against the other two and by the end of the meal Huang was sleeping with his head in his hands. The other bloke was very complimentary on my cai ma and said something about going to another place to play sometime.

A couple of rounds of cai ma

I got a lift back with the lady and the other bloke and she drove at 5mph due to her bad eyesight (her admission). It would almost have been quicker to walk but the car's A/C kept me seated till we got to our complex. But I now had missions to pick up the two dian dong ches.

It was good to talk to Mat for 25 minutes or so during the walk up to the hotel where I'd had a meal with friends two days ago and I was very greatly relieved to find it all by itself in the carpark instead of where it should have been with the other bikes. It had enough dian to get back, and indeed I stopped off to get some badly needed bog roll from a modern convenience store I'd not seen the likes of before (and maybe a couple of cold ones). Then it was a walk to the stadium to see what I could do with the bike with the dead battery. I passed by the bbq area and got a shout from what turned out to by one of Tan's "uncles", except I had a feeling he actually is related. They've moved from their pitch around the corner for some reason and I said I'd be back soon if not tonight.

15 minutes later I found the second dian dong che and there were a couple of kids on similar bikes saying "hello" to me. I asked them where I could charge it up and they said I could just go into complexes around here. What an obvious idea. All I'd have to do would be to scan a QR code. So I got on it just to see how far it would take me and managed to get up to 15kph very slowly. I thought I'd chance it, and had some uncomfortable moments crossing roads when the lights changed but just made it back home to put on charge. Phew. It was getting on for 1am but thought I might as well get some bbq as the boys may want some too.

For once I didn't get pulled over by any hellos, more like responded similarly with a wave. And I waited for my 5 duck tongues, 5 beef, and 5 pork for 20 mins having another chat to Mat that lasted till I got back and had one of each by which time I was full and put them in the fridge. The boys were already back but not hungry apparently, so I brushed and went for an early bed, which didn't happen till well after 4am yet again.

Massive birthday meal

Oof woke up at midday regretting last night's excesses. Luckily I had no arranged luncheon, so made do at home. The main plan we had was Wei Laoban's son's birthday meal at a hotel at 5.30pm. Or so I thought. I'd asked the boys to come along as it may be an important event, and they were actually quite impressed when A Wu turned up in the brown BMW X6 to pick us up. We drove to his office to pick up five 5 litre bottles of nuo mi jiu first, and apparently a large moustached fish that we left in the end. Then indeed we drove to a hotel and put the bottles in one of the eating rooms with food already laid but no-one sitting there.

Being picked up in style

Then A Wu said he was going to pick up his wife and left us there with a few bosses trying to work out how to boil water using the machine at the tea table. Nezha asked how long it would be till we start and I said I honestly didn't know but could easily be up to half an hour. They clearly didn't want to wait around that long and I didn't blame them. And apparently they'd had little sleep so wanted a coffee. Where we were didn't look like there would be any Starbucks-like places but surely some cola would fill the caffeine gap? So all three of us went for a walk before the bosses could complain.

Sitting and waiting

20 minutes later we were still waiting. Then the son who's birthday it was ran up to me and jumped into my arms. He's a little chubby and I was taken aback, not to mention my back wasn't ready for this, but I managed to hold steady and slowly lower him down only to find him holding my hand and beckoning me to one of the other rooms. All three of us walked in with him to find it full of families around the largest spinning table I think I've seen. It was nice to see lots of women and children, but I was still worried about the number of men I might potentially have to ganbei with. But the son's mum came in apparently to tell us to go back to the first room, so we politely wished them bon appetit and gratefully left.

Eventually we did settle to eat at our table for the statutory 5 minutes before the booze was poured. I had promised myself to drink modestly this evening and for the most part I was good, only ganbei'ing when requested and after 45 minutes or so had maybe got through two cans. Then, we were each handed a can, or jug of nuo mi jiu, and we left to go to the room opposite. This was a suitable time for the boys to leave the meal.

Now the ganbei'ing was unavoidable; we'd bunch up into little groups of four or five people and ganbei at least once, and in general if it was the first time meeting someone you had to ganbei with them too, but as I knew virtually no-one I kept to the group ganbeis. It took 15 minutes or so to get round the table, and I was handed a new can of beer, but when we left, instead of going back to our original room we just moved on to the next room, of similar size and of similar occupants (mostly blokes). And the same thing happened for the next 20 mins. I was due to meet a friend at 8pm and it was already getting on for that, but I understood this was a pretty important event.

And then, I suppose predictably, we moved on the the huge room Wei's son had taken me to previously that must have sat 40 humans. Despite having a healthier percentage of ladies this didn't mean they wouldn't join in the ganbei'ing, and so another half an hour was spent moving very slowly clockwise getting through another can or two. At least after than we finally got back to the first room. The ganbei'ing continued and I made a final one with Boss Wei, before giving my apologies and finally leaving.

Table seating around 40 people

The "friend" I was supposed to meet at 8pm, which would now be 9pm, was more of an excuse not to stay any longer as I just need a break from the beer, and was true to my word until 1am when I ended up having a chat with Mat, Andge, and Awl for an hour or so. But at least it was a good four hour break from it.