Li Kun family meal

Well although I woke up at 9ish I had no intention of following it through to proper wakefulness and I'd had the forethought to make myself two half litres of water should the need arise. It didn't, but the need for sleep quickly arose and after putting on another podcast about the beginnings of the universe I slipped well into it. If only hypnopaedia was a thing I'd be so intelligent by now. But I managed some weird dreams and nice sleep till 1pm when I heard voices in the living room.

I put on a top just in case and found Chuan Chuan and her boyfriend and Tan chatting in the living room. So after a wee I basically joined them and really enjoyed a family chat...yes Tan chastised me now and again for not knowing certain stuff...but I'd like to think she really appreciates how much I've come along in the last few years...as if! Chuan Chuan and bloke left a bit later and I realised I hadn't had lunch so looked in the fridge and the only thing I felt I could stomach was the last huge cup of passionfruit tea that Tan had bought yesterday. In fact, with all the fruit, and just the volume alone it pretty much filled my stomach, and bonus points to Tan as she hadn't added any sugar so it wasn't sickly sweet. So I chilled away the afternoon sitting by Running Dog on the laptop catching up, while the boys did their music at Li Kun's. In fact apparently they had been there since 10am. What had happened? Normally they don't get up till teatime...I'm guessing they pulled an all-nighter. Well they would have to stay up a bit later as Li Kun had invited us for a meal at the nice restaurant by the cinema this evening at 6.30pm.

6.15pm came about quicker than expected so I checked the ladies and Tan was doing her face and said she'd be 5 minutes, then I was to take her and come back for Xixi and the boys would make their own way. Yet another justification for fixing the dian dong che. And being of a suitable size (the bike, not Tan, well yes Tan too actually), it comfortably accommodated us both, but wouldn't have taken Xixi too. 5 minutes later I dropped Tan off by the restaurant and she ordered me to get three red envelopes for each of Li Kun's kids. Yes he has a new son now. So him and A Wu both have one more kid than us but who's counting?

I went to pick up Xixi and nearly forgot about the envelopes. "En"velopes or "um"velopes? It shouldn't bother me but I looked it up on forvo and it seems to be 50/50. Other searches suggested it should be "um" or "on" as it comes from the French. But if that's the case economics should always begin with an "eck" sound but "eek" seems reasonable. Well I'm not going to um and ah about it too much and will stick to eekonomics and ennvelope until I stand corrected. But yes I spotted a small shop that looked like it would sell the said red sheaths and indeed when we went it the shopkeeper asked us what was the occasion. Fair enough, some were specifically for weddings or other special occasions and I didn't want to be doing the equivalent of giving an Xmas card for a birthday. So we got our three red items and a bottle of orange juice for Xixi and filled them each with a 100 kuai note.

We ended up getting to the restaurant as the boys were turning up, a few minutes after 7pm, and were shown to a private room of course. Li Kun's wife and at least one kid were there, along with his mum and his friend and that friend's wife, so it made for a nice full table. The kids were all happy with Li Kun's choices of baked chicken and lamb and beef ribs. Yet again I forewent any rice, and gorged on the juicy meat. I know (at least believe) eating meat from dead animals will become like smoking soon, for good reasons, but to be polite I totally enjoyed these dead animals.

The boys asked to leave after 30 minutes and I told them again that part of being an adult was standing on ceremony, allowing your host to appreciate that you appreciate being invited, and told them to wait 15 minutes. And Tan backed me up 100%. I think they understood, and when Li Kun's mum left "to attend a matter" that was their cue to be able to do the same a couple of minutes later - presumably to go back to Li Kun's office to continue music-making. To be fair they'd again not indulged in any beer that Li Kun had ordered a good 30 minutes into the meal. I even told him we could have soft drinks (within Tan's earshot) but he insisted, but his mate to his left had brought his own bottle of baijiu as is many people's wont here.

All in all it was a really lovely family meal...good food and good company. Tan was happily chatting with everyone and Xixi was stuck in her phone. She did remind me that we were supposed to go to Guanmart at 7.30 for the draw but there was no way we'd be leaving here to do that. The only negative thing was around that time I could feel all was not well with my belly. I contemplated going home to a nice western toilet but didn't think I had time. I was right. I grabbed a load of tissues just in case, but the en suite keyhole at least had a full roll. And for probably the fifth time this year managed a squat and was a good 10 minutes. Not that anyone batted an eyelid or came knocking for me. At least my VPN was connected and I got to read the news (and saw that it was unlikely there would be any cricket today so Australia would win the ashes).

Family meal

Li Kun family meal

When we finally finished around 8.45pm Tan went to see A Xia and I took Xixi to go home. Except we decided to go via a scenic route for old times' sake, and headed north of Pingguo until we came upon what looked like a police checkpoint. I'd forgotten to put on my helmet so stopped and did so, but we thought better of going through, and did a U-turn then took a weird left turn and became lost in some dirt track-like roads near some construction. It was so Pingguo though and after a few minutes managed to get back to a normal road and found our way back. But we'd scratched an itch to explore a little and justified fixing the dian dong che a bit more.

The bbq friend had been texting me to go to some place to drink wine. I wasn't really sure what it was about but it was at the place I'd drunk tea with Teacher Ling the other week. So after dropping off Xixi I popped round to the tea place almost next door to our complex, and indeed there were about 15 people upstairs drinking various colours of wine. I didn't see bbq friend but I was welcomed as an old friend and made to sit with the bossman. For the first time ever in Pingguo I was poured a small glass of German white wine. For the umpteenth time in Pingguo I had to gan bei it of course with the boss but it was fine.

Interestingly there was a woman there who looked totally different from the rest. When I finally got to gan bei with her I found out she was from Xinjiang province. Being aware of any potential political issues I didn't mention anything that could be considered dangerous, but asked if she was Muslim (no), then what she was doing in Pingguo. "Business!" of course was the answer (in English) and then we managed a short conversation in English and she was actually pretty good. Photos were taken of course - hey if I can help with advertising her business why not? The bbq friend said they were going for bbq at the same place by the river again, and would I join? Well it didn't take too long to make a decision and a few minutes later I was there again, but at a relatively subdued rate until some other people turned up and we hopped tables until getting on for 2am when I called it a night and carefully took the bike home.

Sampling the wine with Xinjiang boss

Family meal

Up at a stupid 7.30am after only getting to sleep at 4am due to the late return of the ladies, but after a yoghurt managed to put some clothes in the wash using up the last of the washing liquid. Dozed a little till 10.30 before I fell into a deeper sleep while listening to a discussion on the origins of life with Nick Lane. Somehow I must have been awake enough to restart it after 90 minutes and fell asleep again to the repeat before it turned 1pm, and I'd finally had 7h30 of sleep in total. Xixi was up and Jiuma, Erjie, Qiqi gege, and A Heng, his wife and child had come around to visit.

So it was a loud half an hour of people who hadn't seen each other for four years with many a photo taken. Xixi was getting a little tired of this but played along until I came up with the genuine excuse of needing to get two more towels from the supermarket. So I said I'd take her, and Tan, who was with A Xia, told me to take her to A Xia's shop after to try on some clothes. Xixi evidently thought that would be worse than coming home so we set off to Guanmart with A Heng's wife (I now know she is called Xiao Jun) and their baby following us on their dian dong che. We got a trolley and the ladies filled it with various sweet things to eat and drink, and I dutifully got two cheap towels and some more (mint) shower gel as now both bathrooms are in use. There was no question of anyone else paying not that I would have allowed that, and when I'd scanned my card and got my receipt they told me I'd won some eggs or rice. And indeed when we showed the receipt I needed to write my (Chinese) name and number on three separate slips of paper and hand them to them. But in fact these three slips were to get me into the draw tomorrow evening for...well Xixi seemed to understand but I didn't have much of a clue. We'll aim to be here at 7.30pm tomorrow though. And they gave us our choice of four fresh eggs instead of the rice.

Family photo with Nezha

We came straight back home where it seemed it was even busier with relatives. It was an hour before the England v Haiti match and I asked Qiqi if it would be on tv. He had a search and apparently it would be for 19.9 kuai. I said not to bother as we'd probably only watch a little anyway. But he then found the last 10 minutes of the Zambia v Japan game and didn't have to pay for it. V or vs? V vs vs? Ok it looks like I'll stick with v. It was determined that we'd be eating at home, which was by far the right decision despite the lack of table space. 5.30pm rolled around and Qiqi found the England match and indeed didn't have to pay anything. It wasn't the most interesting match and we could easily have drawn/lost. At least at dinnertime some of us were able to take our own bowls and eat from the sofa watching the match while some food was plonked on Running Dog. Jiuma said to leave the tea table here as it would be no problem, so I said I was grateful and had asked for a quote to take it back to the UK but A Heng laughed as he said at 300 jin it would be far too heavy to be worth it and I'm 90% sure he's right.

The drinking water had run out, and the 5 litres I'd bought last night wasn't going to last any time with the amount of people there, so Tan told me that there was a place in the complex we could go to that would dispense water and we only needed to scan a card. This sounded deceptively simple but I grabbed the 15 litre bottle and was about to go when A Heng said he'd accompany me. Secretly I was a little ok with that as had no idea where to go despite them saying it was "close". Well it was only 50 yards away and simple as piss to put the bottle in and wait for it to fill up 7.5 litres while listening to The Blue Danube, but it felt very much like being on the set of Squid Games with that music and being in an Asian setting. Well that lasted all of two minutes before for some reason we walked the long way back home and when asked of course told A Heng I wasn't tired. When we arrived I was sweating enough to change my top.

Filling up water was cool but felt a bit Squid game with the music

Some of a family meal

Xixi and I had forgotten to get washing liquid for the clothes so went to the supermarket by the guangchang to make up for it and picked up some fresh boiled quail eggs again, before going to look for The Sun Shop where Xixi wanted to get some presents for friends. Well it was still there but had hopped across to the other side of the road. It was empty of people but open so we walked in and Xixi found some pairs of "Nike" socks for 17 kuai each. I told her they were fake but she said no-one would notice.... The cash register registered 97 kuai, but the shopkeeper insisted on totting it up on his calculator...I told Xixi he'd be working out a discount but in fact he told us it would be 98.5 kuai. I didn't argue.

At The Sun Shop

Xixi getting along with A Heng's daughter

A Wu had already sent me a video of Boss Zhou's place where they were watching China play Denmark, so I dropped Xixi off with Tan at A Xia's place where they have their own KTV room, and made my way over to Boss Zhou's as you do. Well it wasn't China that were playing but another team in their yellow away kit - Pingguo were up 1-0 at Jiangxi Beidamen which was good. But it only lasted another 5 minutes as the second half of the arguably more important world cup started. A Wu wasn't there due to taking the children home, so I watched an even half at the end of which Denmark scored a slightly lucky goal and China so nearly equalised in extra time. Boss Zhou seemed to appreciate my appreciation of the game and knew when to applaud. Luckily we went fairly easy on the beer, and there was enough food to fill me up as I hadn't had more than a couple of mouthfuls at home. The crayfish were particularly nice despite the tiny amount of meat you (I) actually can get out of them. A Wu then turned up after having performed his kidly duties so we had a couple more drinks and a few games of mo pai, which I'm slowly getting used to.

Soon after 10pm I went to pick up Xixi from A Xia's and before going home I remembered we needed to cut the ladies some keys. I thought we'd check by the market place but all the fruit places and key cutting places were closed. Except there was a bit of light coming from one of them. We walked over and indeed one of the key places was not shut up, but there was no-one there either. I found a phone number on the side and decided to call it, and should not have been surprised to get an answer. I asked if he was the key bloke and it transpired he was and he would be over in 6 minutes or 7 minutes. Which he was. No question of any of his wares being taken which is so refreshing. 5 minutes later we had two fresh keys and he would only take 6 kuai. I tried to argue that 2 x 4 equals 8 but he said two keys were 6 kuai and I gave up arguing any more. I was just grateful to have found a locksmith so late.

Key cutting at 10.30pm

Back home around midnight I was looking for an excuse to burn off the last few km of the dian dong che before putting it to charge when I got a timely message from a bbq friend saying they were at some "club" bar a couple of km away. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth I went over there for an hour or so and again kept it fairly easy on the beers other than a little cai ma. Back home at 2ish there were no empty slots to charge the bike at the normal place or at our area, so I managed to find one at the neighbouring building. But try as I might the bloody thing wouldn't charge. I thought it might be as I had no data left, so took a picture of the faded QR code and walked home to try again. Five times I tried before nearly giving up and going to bed, but I knew to be without my steed tomorrow would be grim, so mustered up enough energy to go back outside wearing only some shorts and flipflops and plugged it in to the next plug, and lo and behold 30 seconds later the red light came on and the charger confirmed the batteries were nearly empty. Back home I still couldn't sleep so turned my VPN to the UK and tried Netflix. Yes! It let me log in and I watched the first two episodes of the new Black Mirror series and remembered it turning 6am before I finally got some shuteye.

Return of the ladies and feeling a bit better

Night blended into day with sleep nothing more than the odd doze, but at least the hallucinations had somewhat died down, though I was still achy everywhere. I managed the contents of the last wedding box of nuts and sweet biscuits I'd never normally touch but reckoned I needed the sugar energy, and a yoghurt for the same reason. I checked the flight and saw they were nearly half way through and interestingly going the "normal" route we always used to go over Russia. I guess relations between the countries are still ok, despite the departure airport.

We've pretty much run out of food and I didn't fancy going out in case I got taken short. The boys weren't up and any normal person here would simply order something online. But the risk vector for something going wrong was just to high with the Chinese characters, finding the right app on Weixin, inputting the address in the right format etc. I'd need to do this with a local first of all before I'd be confident enough to do myself. So I took the calculated risk of getting on the dian dong che and picking up a couple of portions of jiaozi as Nezha had told me he had already eaten. Back home I wolfed mine down with another yoghurt, then had a few more trips to the loo and finally while I was watching Computerphile on YT I fell asleep for an hour, feeling significantly better afterwards.

Just as well as I watched the ladies' plane touch down thanks to flightradar24, although it wasn't as accurate as it appears in the UK - something to do with the Chinese government insisting on obfuscating exact coordinates as I learnt from a previous employment. Well it appeared that on the flight they were told they didn't need landing cards, unlike us, and that the QR code to say they were covid-free would be fine, but when they arrived they were told the QR code was out of date. I was not going to argue, and they luckily could redo the covid-free QR code and manually write the landing cards, and it just took longer than it otherwise would have. I told Tan they had plenty of time which was true, and they ended up at the gate 90 minutes before it was due to go.... I said why not take advantage of the lounge but may as well have told them to levitate.

Feeling better after a proper hour's sleep I agreed to meet Zhang Yangwen, whom I'd been in contact with recently but couldn't meet in Tian Dong due to my illness, and nearly didn't go due to an umpteenth bout of la du near the time. But I ventured out and we went for a couple of rounds of walking round the tennis courts as we'd done in previous years, before going to the new ping pong place near the stadium. We had a short practice then he said we'd start a game. I knew he was not playing at his best, on purpose annoyingly, and I only lost 6-2 or so in games, but it was good to sweat stuff out after being bed-bound for nearly 48 hours. Haiwei was also around and told me to meet him for a couple of beers afterwards. Well beer was the one thing I'd avoided in the last 48 hours or so (maybe 40), but I said I'd contact him later.

But before I got home Li Kun said he fancied bbq and I should invite him. I didn't mind this in the least, and said I'd go after a shower. He sent a weizhi and half an hour later I turned up to the shout of "Peng Duoming!". But it was one of his mates, and the shop evidently his and his wife's. They got out a bbq and set it up with some coal and I realised it would be a homely affair. I told Li Kun I was already there and while the wife went to tend to something I sat at the bbq and did some turning as if to feel as though I was doing something useful.

I've watched them do this but never had the chance to do a bit myself

The music teacher and his wife turned up shortly after Li Kun, plus some other guitarist, and we had a very pleasant meal of bbq, smelly tofu, and of course weak beer, without any need for cai ma. Haiwei had sent me a weizhi and rang me and I said I'd be "more than half an hour", which seemed acceptable. Then I pinged A Xia to see how she was getting on picking up the ladies, and she said she was waiting. Thanks to flightradar24 I could see that they'd touched down at 10.56pm, so let her know. Which meant I'd better go and see Haiwei and his ping pong friends before getting home to tidy up the house a bit.

So excuses were made, and I happily paid 220 kuai for the bbq that had fed seven people and still had a bit left, and drove on down to the guangchang to meet Haiwei and the people he'd been playing with that night. It was a nice evening with some people I didn't know until we saw two men leave the neighbouring bbq place, one much the worse for wear. It was classic drunkenness but while that might be funny on YouTube when he's trying to walk past you you worry about him falling on the table or something. He avoided our table but did one of those drunken circles where he managed to face the front all the time but do a semicircle backwards before one forwards then plunging between two dian dong ches narrowly avoiding domino'ing then all over. Somehow he got up and staggered a few more feet, before disappearing into a housing complex next door. One of the ladies at our table rushed to the bbq place to fetch his mate, who was also rather the worse for wear but at least able to walk, and he seemed to say someone was coming for him. I don't know how true that was but he did then talk to someone who looked like a delivery driver, and I hoped he would somehow be the person responsible for getting him home.

That would have been a reasonable end to the night but the drunk's less drunken mate then came to sit with us and said he knew I knew A Wu...well I wasn't going to deny that. But he wanted to call him and as it was midnight I suggested he didn't. He spent the best part of 10 minutes trying to find him in his phone by scribbling characters in his contacts page but coming up with nothing. But he was duly poured a beer and downed it when we had a third. You realise how much of a bore such drunks can be when they take over the conversation and also make you worried they may fall over or do some other unpredictable thing. A drink later he'd managed to find A Wu and rang him and passed the phone to me. I just hung up and said it was too late. Did he twig? A minute later he waited till A Wu had answered then handed the phone to me and an equally drunken A Wu confirmed the fact that he was and I said to talk another time and hung up again.

It took another 10 minutes and a couple of glasses of beer but we all agreed it was the end of the night and thankfully set off home. I didn't forget to get some water for the ladies and as soon as I'd mopped the floor of the kitchen I got a call from Tan on A Xia's phone to say they'd be arriving in a few minutes. Well it was nice to have the both of them back, and despite Tan criticising the state of the flat (what can you do?) they didn't look as tired as they might have done. Ultimately doing the complete journey in 18+ hours door-to-door can't be complained about. Showers were had, but not before Xixi had wifi sorted and and old VPN client appeared to work so she was able to ping a couple of friends.

While they sorted themselves I grabbed a beer then tried the massage chair. Wow, 15 minutes of slight pain but mostly pretty comfortable stuff. It won't sort out my back I guess but I'm going to give it a go. I had meant to catch the end of the cricket in the massage chair, but didn't even manage a sip of beer as it was too engrossing. Well anyway, one of those days where a few things could have gone wrong but the girls were back safely and that was the main thing.

Fever and headache and girls on way

Not much more than an hour later at 4.30am I woke with a dreadful fever and headache. I managed to get some water and ibuprofen but it knew it was going to take more than that to survive the next few hours.

At 5.40am Tan pinged me as she couldn't log in to reserve seats. Luckily for her I was up if not very compos mentis. I knew you couldn't check-in online as apparently Heathrow doesn't support that (I highly doubt it), but I'd managed to reserve seats for us before. It's bloody frustrating when you've put in all the correct details to be told the flight number is incorrect - "304" is not something you're going to easily get wrong. So I tried "0304" to know avail and even adding the "CZ" prefix even though it was already there. Then I tried the e-ticket number instead of the passport, but the same error. I was about to give up when I tried the reservation number instead and it finally worked..."flight number incorrect my arse". How can they release such software? Luckily it would not be China Southern writing the software to manage the plane as they'd be falling out of the skies left, right, and centre. I booked the last two seats I could find together near the back of the plane, and told Tan that when at bag drop to ask if they could find any better ones. Also, based on our experience it should be area F at the airport.

Sleep wouldn't arrive, but hallucinations did. I didn't know whether to leave a podcast on or nothing, and opted for the former as it would at least pin me to some sort of reality. I listened to one on body regeneration again but my brain was struggling with some of the bio-electricity concepts of gap channels etc. Then it moved on to a quantum physics episode and the interviewee kept jumping between different subjects such as string theory etc. Each time he mentioned one of those I felt like I was picking up a white towel with the subject written on in and putting it on the pillow by my side, as if registering it, and the fact that some were repeated made me annoyed as I didn't want copies. I was really struggling and by 8am I took a couple more ibuprofen and I think they eased the headache a little but I was still hot so turned the A/C down from 26 to 25, and within minutes noticed the difference. I must have dozed off a few times from 8am-2pm with a few annoying trips to the toilet to remind me maybe I shouldn't have had the oysters last night, and lunch was a couple of yoghurts when my tummy was rumbling.

But by 4pm my watch hadn't registered any sleep other than the hour at 3.15am, and rather than become nocturnal like the boys, made the effort to get up by 5pm and grab a pot noodle. I'd had no calls inviting me out, and certainly wouldn't be accepting any should they come. Leilei did knock and ask for ibuprofen a bit later and I found I'd finished them so gave him aspirin instead...he hadn't had any oysters last night so I hoped he wouldn't suffer like me. At 9.45pm Haiwei pinged me to asked where I was and I told him where and that I had no intention of going out today and that I'd get back when feeling up to it.

I'd been in contact with Xixi to bring a last minute SD card, and when they were on their way I just double-checked they had their passports. Tan's attempt at humour by replying "oh no!" was not received well by me who could hardly think properly, and then she had a go at me for forgetting mine before (once, and I remembered 5 minutes after leaving home, and after having done so many more flights...). They got to the airport early and I told Xixi to try going to zone F as they might do baggage drop early. Indeed they did and by 6pm they were past security on their way to the lounge. Annoyingly, very annoyingly, they said they couldn't put the hold luggage all the way to Nanning so they'd have to pick it up in Guangzhou and check it in again, like we've had to do so many times before even when buying a ticket straight to Nanning. Well at least they seemed to have a decent bite to eat in the lounge and I dozed until gone 5am when I was able to track flight CZ304 take off 20 minutes late, then dozed off a little more to a podcast background.

My baby waiting to come back

I don't miss western food but this is Indian and looks ok

Another meal at the modern garden place

Woke up before 8am feeling a bit crap and coughing. In general I don't like to stay in bed so went for an hour's walk to see if that would help, but other than mentally it didn't seem to and the cough was getting worse. I remembered that yesterday Haiwei had called me to say we were to go for a meal this evening so I set upon an early lunch and aimed for a siesta, after giving in to a couple of small cans of beer I got from the supermarket (9.90 kuai for a pack of 6 x 330ml not bad).

I passed by a once vibrant disco/KTV that's now a ghost-hall

Sometimes you Zhuang hua pinyin - hopefully I'll find a dictionary but it won't be to English

A bit of sleep came by at getting on for 4pm and I was up at 5.30, 15 mins before Haiwei told me he'd be there 6pm, so I grabbed a shower and of course took a little longer and ignored his call at 6.08pm to meet him 3 minutes later. We drove to some place to leave the car as we'd be drinking (surprise surprise), not that I was really in the mood. We picked up his son Zixuan and booked a didi che that took a couple of minutes to come and charged 6.50 kuai for the near 10 minute journey to our destination. I thought I recognised the road under the rail tracks but when we got out of the car just saw a few standard houses, and I guess we'd be going there. Haiwei had explained that his younger sister's new boyfriend had invited some people so I guessed they lived here.

But no, just next to the houses was the entrance to the same new eatery we went with Teacher Ling last week, which was our favourite meal. Well I'd left the boys sleeping or whatever they were up to so the three of us walked in and found a white pod with some people in that looked like they were just finishing their meal. Zixuan helped to introduce some of them to me; Haiwei's big sister, his biao ge etc., and I was offered a new set of bowls but I was interested where the little sister and boyfriend were. Then a couple of minutes later everyone got up and picked up the valueable leftovers and set off. We walked around the place for a couple of minutes before being pointed to somewhere at the far end of the carpark. Indeed it was a rather large private room with at least 30 people already inside. Nothing had been touched, and when I sat down with Haiwei I found he only knew a handful of the people too, and hadn't met his sister's boyfriend. But we guessed it was the guy in the red top, but still had to end up waiting a good 15 minutes before Haiwei and I poured a glass of beer and cracked open the seal of the meeting.

One of the interesting outside pods

Another massive meal

And as soon as someone had managed the first morsel of food everyone jumped it. It didn't take long after that for the boyfriend to start making his rounds with his baiju. He came to us and we found he was from Henan, working in Guangxi, and thanked us heartily for coming. So for the next 90 minutes we had some lovely food that didn't stop coming. And neither did the beer, though I went very easy on it for the first hour at least. Boyfriend kept doing the rounds and by the time he was on this third his face was getting on for the colour of his shirt. His mate, presumably from the same area, was a bit more sober and told me he worked in France shortly about 15 years ago, so we had a very brief and basic conversation in French, for only my third time in this country. Finally I learnt that Haiwei's little sister was not in fact his blood relative at all despite having talked about relationships so much of the night. I'll never get this properly.

Presently, boyfriend fell asleep in his chair, he tried to fight it by lighting a fag but he was gone, so Haiwei's little "sister" saw to him. I had found out that the meal was to celebrate their "ding qin" (engagement) so at least I learnt a new word. I was quite ready to go as most people had, but we were told to stay by little sister, and indeed she cai ma'd with me (with water) and I ended up doing this more than I really wanted. My guts had exploded 20 minutes into the meal (of course there was only a squatter), and I still had a dicky tummy not to mention the coughing. Finally, at 9.30pm Haiwei had called his older son to go for a bite but he would not be available till 10.30pm. So we did something unusual but pleasant - we started walking back. Given it had rained a lot recently it was relatively cool and we got 10 minutes of the journey before the rain started again, so for Haiwei's and my first time we scanned two of those electric bikes and took them back to the centre.

So much for not drinking and driving, but it seems such electric bikes are "safe". Mine would only go up to 23kph anyway so maybe there's some truth in that. Haiwei was all smiles and was telling me he was really enjoying it, and I told him maybe he understood why I like to take my bike when I can. Suddenly the rain came down a lot heavier and we stopped for some cover. It didn't look like it would let up for a while so we cancelled the bikes and hopped around the pavements taking as much cover as we could from the overhanging houses above the shops. Then he declared that he would go on foot to pick up the car, so he dashed off and turned up a few minutes later...so much for not drink-driving. Anyway, as it was raining he said there wouldn't be any police around....

A minute later we were at the market place, and the rain had stopped, so tables had come out again. The owner of an oyster/bbq place said he'd give us some oysters for free and promptly plonked them down, but they were a bit boring so we asked him to add some chilli. Older brother and a couple of mates turned up shortly afterwards and Haiwei said he'd order some bbq and let me choose as I said Leilei and Nezha would pop over. Which they did 20 minutes later as the bbq came but Haiwei announced we were going somewhere else and gave the bbq and oysters to Leilei and Nezha to take back. But not before the boss asked permission to take some photos with us in front of the main cooking area, and permission was duly granted. It was a bit strange leaving so soon as normally Haiwei would have liked to have his sons speak a bit more English, but we all jumped into his car at getting on for midnight and drove to a place not far from A Wu's office. So much for not drink-driving.

My cough was not getting better, and I was flagging, so wasn't particularly happy to find a loud table of drunk men sitting around a metal dish of baked fish. I decided I would make and effort and stay till no later than 1am. And the beer was shit as well. Li Quan Blue Goblin...the first Li Quan I've had that I didn't like. I managed a couple of gan beis and cai ma but found it difficult to pretend I was having fun, so at 12.55 I made my excuses with a last gan bei and they allowed me to walk home. I just hope Haiwei got home ok. I bought a couple of bottles of "medicine alcohol" from the local complex shop when I got back, as the shopkeeper said it would be good for my headache, and although tired, I spent the next 90 minutes slowly getting through one tiny bottle till gone 3am.

Fixing hong chun

Woke up at 7am for the first time in weeks and found the boys chatting in Leilei's room. Evidently they had been up all night (again). I didn't have the energy to argue and anyway what could I do? I was definitely under the weather and coughing so tried to go back to bed listening to conversations about bioelectricity with some bloke called Michael Levin. Wow, it genuinely feels that they are discovering some fascinating information about how we grow. DNA is not everything it seems...ion channels between cells enable them to communicate and somehow grow. Some animals are able to regenerate limbs and other body parts but others are not (apparently humans can regenerate the tips of their fingers up to the age of 11 sometimes). Frogs cannot regenerate limbs "naturally" but they cut off a frog's leg then covered the stub with some solution with potassium ions and other stuff for 24 hours, and months later it actually grew back the leg. It wasn't perfect, but it had the five fingers and reacted to touch. This is potentially massive...imagine if we could translate this to mammals...and the possible implications for cancer too. I'm definitely going to learn more about this space while I have the time.

But after a boiled egg and a yoghurt I eventually managed to doze off to a similar video...justifying paying for three VPN services. But it was a rather late doze from 3.30 for only 90 minutes or so so I made myself a rare caffeinated coffee followed by a couple of colas before realising I should eat and we didn't have plans. Well I was half expecting Liu ge to get in contact but perhaps that would be later for bbq, so I stuck to wedding nuts and sweets in order not to be stuffed for later, then popped to Guanmart to get some yoghurt and other provisions. I noticed the bike had done 59km since its first actual charge, which is pretty positive, and I can pretty much count on a 25km radius now.

At 7.30pm I went to Lao Ma's salon to get a haircut...about the only place that's barely changed since we first came here in 2003 and stayed at her house. She even has the same CRT tv, and only the sign above the shop has changed in 20 years. She allowed me to pay 30 kuai which included a wash as well and I asked her where I could change the red band of my jade pig necklace. This is normally one of the first things I do when I get here but the main jade place in the centre has closed down now and I worried it would break apart. Of course there was a place a few doors up and Lao Ma walked up with me without locking her doors, and we spent 10 minutes and 10 kuai chatting with the shopkeeper who did a good job of replacing what I now know is called "hong chun".

Lao Ma at the jade place fixing my hong chun

By 9.30pm Liu ge still hadn't got in contact, which seemed a bit strange so I sent him a message saying no problem if not convenient but I got no reply. So I was about to go and find something to eat myself when I received an emoji of two beer glasses chinking from that friend from the bbq after the football, which I took as a convenient invitation for a beer, but before I could A Wu called me to go over to the place we were the other night with the drunk bosses. So I responded to the beer request saying maybe a bit later as I thought at least I'd grab a bite to eat with A Wu first, and the boys had already gone to Li Kun's to make music. Li Kun had also pinged me to say the boys could come over and he'd already sent the password to them to get in as he was out for a while.

As I'd had a few bills to pay I was down to 50 kuai so for the third time sent 2000 kuai to Li Kun's Weixin using Wise. It's fairly simple after you've set up a payee for the first time and I trust him implicitly to send it straight to me. Normally I get it within a minute or so but I guess he really was busy as I was at A Wu's when I received it and I wondered if I'd hit some limit or something. It would certainly be more convenient if I could just send it to myself but the receiver needs to be a Chinese citizen for some reason and I'm quite some way from being there.

Boss Huang and others were in good spirits at the meal, which had clearly started hours ago. I'm not sure why they didn't invite me earlier as they cheered as I walked in. And so I caught up somewhat on food and cai ma, and every half an hour or so a new, drunk boss would amble in and continue drinking, then challenge me a cai ma. Li Kun was pinging me to come round to his and I said I'd be a few minutes (it was a good excuse for a pause with the beer), but then one of the women from the farm meal the other day walked in and it would have been rude to leave so soon, so I stayed for another 20 minutes to be polite. Apparently she is the boss of a red wine place, but I don't really place her in the same category as she wasn't obviously drunk and didn't challenge me to cai ma.

At getting on for midnight I answered Li Kun to say I was on my way and yes I'd get some bbq but I had no plans on picking it up on the way as it would have taken 20 minutes or so, so got to his office and asked him to sort it and I'd pay for it. The boys were indeed there with their headphones on but left shortly afterwards saying they weren't hungry, and Leilei asked Li Kun if they could leave their stuff there till the next time. It may seem pretty minor but I see it as a big step Leilei not asking me to ask Li Kun, and going directly to him. I've seen him communicate a few times this year in Mandarin, but normally in response to a question, not actually being the questioner. Progress of a kind.

I was a bit lazy getting another bloke to order the bbq on his phone, but at least was able to pay Li Kun 168 kuai from mine. I don't know what would have turned up had I tried to order by myself. But five of us shared a few beers and the inevitable cai ma, and I hoped in vain for the rain to let up but it was having none of it. At getting on for 2am I was getting on for exhausted so we called it a night, and Li Kun made sure I pinged him when I got home as it's not that easy holding an umbrella on a dian dong che.

Return of Running Dog

Somehow got up at 10.15am and did some boring chores like washing clothes before it got too hot to bother. Lunch was the familiar boiled egg and yoghurt, with maybe a few nuts from the wedding last week. I was trying hard to get a siesta and almost dozing when Ling Ming pinged me to let me know we were nearly out of electricity. So the last 200 kuai must have lasted only 10 days or so. Not dreadful when you consider that's three A/Cs on around 18 hours a day (or more when the boys forget to turn them off), but still not that cheap either. So I sent a red packet of 200 kuai again and within seconds he'd topped us up.

Then, half an hour later he called me to let me know someone would deliver my tea table shortly and it would be 50-60 kuai delivery fee, which for here felt a bit steep but whatever. Hang on, Tan just told me on Sunday that the tea table would be delivered on Tuesday...oh of course why would I take anything at face value? Lucky I didn't have any plans for today I suppose...but who plans anything anyway? I noticed my voice had become deeper and I'd started coughing so feared I caught something. I certainly hadn't caught a siesta, and now wouldn't for sure.

Ling Ming pinged me to tell me the bloke would be here in 5 minutes, and indeed he was bang on just as I'd put on a top. He just told me in a matter-of-fact that it was bloody heavy (I don't think we really have a word for "bloody" here but we should do). He'd also brought the wooden stool I'd nearly forgotten about, plus a small metal box containing a few sachets of tea that had been gifted me 10+ years ago, which seemed rather unnecessary. I'm so glad we're on the first floor, which is the lowest living quarter, but it still took a few minutes to get the heavy bastard up the stairs and into the living room. It had suffered a little, and had a couple of scars, but it was generally good to go. I scanned the bloke's Weixin QR code and eventually it worked and I paid the 60 kuai. It was great to be reunited but the reality of what to do with it was starting to dawn on me.

Return of Running Dog

Yesterday I'd pinged a mate I'd met in November 2019. Well not exactly a mate but he is a friend of Si Si, and I'd been out with him for one meal back then and we'd sort of maintained contact. I'd pinged him because I'd promised I would, and would be happy to have a bite to eat with him if he wanted but of course yesterday was not going to happen due to the football. So of course he said to meet up today instead. But it was getting on for 6pm and I'd heard nothing. Again, this was a totally Pingguo experience; I should never have expected to meet up until I'd heard the name of the place we were going to. I was hungry so started pecking at a few wedding nuts but A Wu called a few minutes later to say he had just been exercising and we were to go to Boss Zhou's place to eat. Interestingly, he said we wouldn't be drinking as we have been doing too much of that recently. I totally agreed and was happy to have somewhere to eat and not drink.

Well I did have the last naughty beer in the fridge as it's basically a soft drink here, and was cold and fizzy. Then drove there and met him as he was trying to call me to ask where I was. Indeed the meal was beer-free, and very nice too with a mixture of wives and kids. I particularly liked the grasshoppers and can't wait till they become part of a western staple diet. But then, almost 30 minutes into the meal, three boxes of beer were delivered, and Boss Zhou brought out a "special" bottle of baijiu and poured glasses for himself, A Wu, and me. It's literally the worst tasting drink in the world after milk, but I do like Boss Zhou so did my best to down a tiny mouthful. I nearly heaved and immediately had to wash it down with a glass of 2.8% "Struggle" beer. I struggled with the baijiu much more than the beer, but Boss Zhou saw that and poured the rest of my glass into a small jug they would use for the rest of the evening.

I learnt a new word: 蚱蜢

Struggle beer?

At about 8pm the mate who said he'd invite me for a meal this evening got in touch to ask me to go for bbq. Damn, I should know his name really. It's not 天上白云 as is his Weixin but I'd better find out soon. So I said I could meet him some time after 9pm on the dian dong che but he said not to use that and he'd come and pick me up as there were traffic police. I've heard this so many times, and still half the people on bikes don't wear helmets. I bet the boys don't either even though I've repeated there's a 50 kuai fine if you get caught. A very big "if". Then he asked me if I wanted to invite Si Si and Zhang Hongping (aka Wu Ge), and I said sure, but he said I should ask them to come along. So I pinged Si Si and she said she'd just been invited out already. No problem, maybe later, sure. But at least she'd told me how she refers to him: 刘哥 (Liu ge). I told Liu ge I'd drop off the dian dong che at home then he could pick me up which would be a reasonable compromise, but he then suggested meeting up tomorrow when Si Si was available. I was totally fine with that, and suspect maybe he fancies her...well I won't try too hard to be a matchmaker but if I can help why not?

Raw fish with oil and red onion - a delight!

I'd already told A Wu I'd have to leave soon after 9pm, and by then I'd been cai ma'd out by many people plus the young chap that calls me by 您, the equivalent of "vous" in French. I've told him in no uncertain terms he should call me 你 ("tu") but he doesn't want to. He's almost the only person here who does that and I really don't like it. Even in French "vous" is becoming less prevalent in my experience. Didn't we used to use "thou" in English for "tu" before we effectively got rid of it except for prayers?

So I left at 9.30pm and decided I should go to the supermarket to stock up on eggs (something that's not so expected anymore in the UK), and passed by Huang's seafood place. I thought he hadn't seen me but a minute later I got a video call from him chastising me for not stopping off.... I explained I needed to do some shopping before they closed, which was true, and said I'd be back in a few minutes. Indeed, after dumping the shopping (with more quail eggs), I necked a quick cola and popped down the 100 yards or so to his place. He was in fine fettle of course but not wankered at least so I spent a good hour with him and some mates chatting and doing the occasional cai ma. It was another genuinely good evening, with Huang again stretching my Chinese, and me commenting positively on China and his wife hulahooping. As random as it was fun, the other blokes had to leave around 11.30pm and I was flagging so left too and actually got to bed before 1am.

Guangchang singing and more football

Somehow I got up at 8ish. It was a bit late for table tennis but I've been neglecting exercise recently so went for a walk in the guangchang. It's been a while and I'd forgotten how many people not that much older than me go out and sing in the morning sun. It's not like they have much of an audience so I suppose it's a form of mental exercise. I can barely get the confidence to sing in a private room after a couple of beers let alone be in a public square with a loud speaker.

Guangchang by morning

Singin' in the guangchang

I had a portion of jiaozi at the usual place and got one to take away for Leilei as Nezha was already up and out. Apparently he'd slept from 6pm yesterday to 6am this morning. Here's hoping he's adjusting to the time here finally. I also bought my first watermelon juice this year to take home to put in the door of the fridge, and of course as soon as I opened it again it fell out and painted the floor pink. Damn. 

Watching the water deliverers while waiting for my jiaozi

I will miss my portions of jiaozi and lajiao for 6 kuai

So annoying to have to clean this up in the heat

Then Tan pinged me to say the new owner of the flat would be back in Pingguo on Tuesday and would send my tea table "Running Dog" and that I would need to be home to pay the deliverer. Ok, this is something quite important. It's sad we no longer have the flat, and that we weren't even able to choose what to keep. But the three most important things we do have: the guitars, the Wii, and soon Running Dog. What the hell I'll be able to do with a tea table here I really don't know though. I guess it can stay here for a while, but I did make an enquiry on allcargoexpress.com to ask how much it would be to send to the UK. I somehow doubt it will be worth it and doubt much more that Tan would appreciate it in the house but it is unique and I'd love to have it there so not yet giving up all hope.

Running Dog 13 years ago with two exins barely recognisable now - justifies getting it back

Today was to be the second and final home football match for our stay, so we'd managed to get tickets by buying clothes yesterday. I went and got a couple more tops for friends from the same place in the afternoon before getting to the stadium by around 6.30pm. As usual it was very busy and fun to be there. I double-checked with security that we were not allowed to bring in our own drinks and the bloke confirmed. I then saw that Leilei and Nezha had just purchased litre bottles of water each. Typical. I let them queue up first and get past security before handing them their bottles as they walked up the stairs just like the other week, before doing security myself. It doesn't seem the most strict security really but hey.

Do you need to look that angry Nezha?

The match was a pretty boring affair, and I sat down quite a lot more than the first one. I moved to sit with a friend for the second half in order to speak more Chinese and give them their football tops, and was glad to hear the final whistle confirming the 0-0 bore draw. Afterwards I was meant to see Lu zong but I didn't hear from him, and instead got a weizhi from another friend that I'd met after the meal with Teacher Ling so thought "why not?" and drove on down to the same bbq place as that night.

There were quite a few people dressed in football colours and I was greeted by more cheers than I deserved. The food was good and the company was too, and it didn't take too long to descend into cai ma and I did fairly well again. Somehow 10.15pm turned into well after 2am by which time I was flagging so carefully took Jiuma's dian dong che back home to be asleep by 3am.

Meal at Zhang Hongping's and more football shirts

A bit of a normal day, though even normal days here don't feel normal yet. More normal in the sense I don't feel the need to take photos all the time, but still a very much heightened sense of awareness that makes me so much more sensitive to "normal" things like going to shop in the supermarket. But even that is starting to become normal and it's surely a good thing. I can and I can't imagine living here full time. Knowing that you'll be leaving in a few weeks or a couple of months puts a perspective on things that doesn't exist when you're properly living somewhere. Yes, I pay bills and do shopping and in many ways mirror life in London, but in London I know I'll likely be in London for years, and don't treasure the time there in the same way. I treasure the ever less time I'll spend with my kids of course but that is almost independent of the country I'm in. Having said that I can't wait for Xixi to arrive and hope she will spend some time with me as Leilei is pretty much out with Nezha all the time now.

Apparently I got to sleep at 12.23am according to my app but I was texting Tan at 1.30am so it can't be that accurate. And up at a reasonable 10ish in the morning and tried to doze for a while but in the end thought better of it and would be better to get an early night later. Lunch ended up being one of the boxes we brought back from the wedding the other day which comprised (of?) monkey nuts and seeds and some biscuits that weren't healthy but hell it was more of a light snack anyway as Zhang Hongping had pinged me to go to his place for an evening meal and I'd finally got in contact with A Wu just to confirm that we hadn't planned anything for this evening. In fact he said we were to go to a place to slaughter two pigs and eat them but when I mentioned I'd been invited he seemed to think that was ok. I mean I've been out with him about 3/4 of the evenings so far anyway.

So at 3pm I woke up Leilei to let him know we'd be going for 6pm and at least he acknowledged me. So a few minutes before 6pm I got the call from Hongping and told him we'd be a few minutes. Nezha was not to be seen and I dread to think what time zone he's in now. So as we now had my dian dong che Leilei was able to be my passenger for the first time in four years. It actually felt like having a boy-son rather than an adult-son for a few minutes until we found Hongping's house fairly easily. I'm getting a lot more used to the characters here and was able to ask the security guard where his apartment was and got found it without having to make any phone calls.

Of course Leilei didn't want to be there but I've already explained part of being an adult is doing things you don't really want to do, but trying at least to make the most of them. So he ate and he spoke enough to make the others happy and I let him go 45 minutes later at 7pm. It was actually nice to eat in a friend's house, and more people came as the evening wore on. Except for one woman everyone else was was drinking 22% white alcohol and one woman on 53% stuff, and of course this had its effect. I was totally sober and made my excuses to go and pick up our football kits and tickets at 8.30pm, on the promise that I'd return within half an hour.

Lu, Hong ge, me, Hongping

Ah it was a nice break from the boring beer and increasingly boring company, so I walked the 5 minutes home and picked up the dian dong che and 5 minutes later I was at the shop and of course the shopkeeper chastised me for not bringing my son and a foreigner. She still made me take a photo in my sweating body and I changed in front of her and a pretty girl as I think that's pretty much ok now for men at least. A couple of photos were taken and I said I'd try to bring the boys back tomorrow to do another shoot. But now I had the clothes and the tickets so we should be sorted for tomorrow. I just needed to withstand another hour or so at Zhang Hongping's.

I duly got back and of course they were more inebriated than before, and the father of the child that was here before was now trying to get off with a rather plump lady who'd been on the 53% white alcohol. I didn't want to see the results and made my excuses at 10pm as Leilei wanted me to get hair oil from the supermarket. I don't even know what hair oil is other than the literal translation but after a couple more ganbeis they let me go at 10.07pm and 5 minutes later I was at what has become my favourite supermarket. I was slightly ashamed to pick up a bit of gin as I'm still scared they may want to interview me tomorrow at the match, and picked up more boiled eggs as they have become my staple lunchtime diet if I'm not going out. At home I remembered to take a melatonin for the first time in many days and had a relatively early night.

Early KTV

I lingered in bed till 11am all the time expecting A Wu to call to say we were going to this place half an hour away. He did finally call at midday but it was about the football tickets; apparently the woman who sold me the clothes yesterday had managed to get three tickets and I was to go there asap to pick them up. But I've been told too many things too many times so I took my time and grabbed a shower and got there an hour later. No, she didn't have the tickets but would have them tomorrow, and yes, we'd have to buy a top each in order to buy the tickets. I smelt a rat but I much prefer this top to the other one we got for the previous match so I'm not that annoyed. And this time the top is 70 kuai plus 30 kuai for the ticket so a bit cheaper than the first match.

So, empty handed I came home via the jiaozi place and picked up the last three portions that were there for the boys. A Wu called while I was there to say he was having a hair cut and would go to the duck fen soup place we went to a couple of weeks ago, which suited me fine as the boys would get through the three portions of jiaozi without my help. As we ate our soup A Wu said we didn't go to the place north of Pingguo this morning because it was "too hot". Yes, the temperature has barely changed for a fortnight so why did you even plan to go in the first place? "Plan", haha of course that's too strong a term..."suggestion" more like...anyway instead of that we were to go for a meal tonight with the people who had invited us to go this afternoon. Oh, whatever, no problem I'd be picked up around 6pm.

The dian dong che seemed to be working fine now, since yesterday's scare after the wash, so I'm really hoping it was just excess water. But it was kicking a little bit and I hoped it was because the batteries were running out. It had just passed 50km after putting in the new batteries, so I was ok with that. I took it round the block to try to use up the rest of the juice before putting it to charge for the first time. I know the boys will probably be using it more than me at least at night so they should really learn how to charge it now.

At 5.30pm A Wu rang to say he had arrived to pick me up. I told him he should have called me when he was setting off rather than when he arrived and said I'd need 3 minutes to clothe myself. As I was doing so he called again to say it was already 6 minutes since I told him 3 minutes. I explained that these were English minutes and he saw the funny side. He needs to learn people are not at his beck and call all the time, although maybe I'm one of the few exceptions. Anyway I said I was on my way and indeed was a couple of minutes later. I needn't have rushed as we drove to the market and spent 20 minutes picking up some yumi powder and peanuts and finally he decided he wanted some mini-pears, before we went to pick up his wife and daughter, who also were not ready so we ended up sitting in the car for 10 minutes waiting for them. All this time I could have been doing useful stuff in the house but hey-ho that's life here.

The boys weren't interested in going, preferring to go to the guangchang to work out. I hope that was the case, though at 6.30pm it was far too hot. We ended up parking on the street by A Xia's old place and walking in to a nice restaurant near the cinema. These days you need to pay to park, but there are no machines; instead someone will come and print out a ticket and stick it in your door handle, and you have to scan it and pay it or get a fine. Anyway, this time instead of sitting at one of the tables we walked straight through to a private KTV room. It felt a bit odd being in such a place before 7pm but I was hungry and there was food. One woman delighted in finding me duck ack and I delighted in eating it, followed by some quail eggs and snails...another relatively high-protein meal that was "balanced" by the copious beers I had to take.

A Wu ganbei'ing the woman on the right who'd just given us a nice rendition of a famous song

Sing for your supper

Eventually the usual cai ma started and I held my own pretty well, but I didn't mind losing a bit as I was told I'd need to sing Pengyou again, this time with A Wu actually remembering it. Boss Wei saw me looking at my phone reading the Cantonese pin yin, and snatched it away from me in jest. I managed a couple of lines but reading traditional Chinese and interpreting it as Cantonese is just beyond me currently...though I should have memorised it by now. We stayed till gone 10pm before getting a san lun che to Boss Zhou's place behind the other KTV. At least A Wu was sensible enough not to drive. Obviously more ganbei's were done there and I ended up walking back not long before midnight and it didn't take much to get to sleep shortly after.

Trial English lesson but clean bike stops working

I awoke to a message from Haiwei's older son at 10am inviting me to go to a trial English lesson he is giving, but was too tired and dozed off till Haiwei called me to come and pick me up at 11am. Of course I couldn't not do this so I told him 15 minutes and grabbed a shower and shave. I had no idea how many people there would be so put on a decent shirt just in case. Haiwei picked me up bang on 11.15am and a few minutes later we were at the school. We walked upstairs into a room where I saw the older son (I really should know his name after 15 years) standing up in front of the younger son (Zixuan) and two other 13 year-olds.

Trial English lesson

My job was to be English and try to engage the guys in some sort of conversation. After a while they came out of their shells when I got them to talk about what they wanted to talk about rather than teaching them about King Charles III. One of them wanted to talk about Japanese sports cars and the other about sports. Then one of them asked how old I was, and as usual I told them to guess. One said 40, another said 30, and Zixuan said 66! But I was shocked when I asked Zixuan what his name was and he replied with the N word. Jeez, for all the "development" the country has gone through, some aspects have been left behind. It's quite shocking that this is still used in daily parlance, but maybe it's now restricted to relatively uneducated places. I told them in no uncertain terms never to use that word again.

Well, as if to prove to their parents what a good class this was, Haiwei filmed almost all of the 45 minutes or so that I was there engaging with the kids. His older son said he wanted to break down the barrier between the teacher and the pupils but as good as that sounded he spent most of the time standing up by the whiteboard while I sat down with them. At about 12.30pm Haiwei and his kids and me went to eat at the goose place we used to frequent, and had a welcome meal of, well, goose. 105 kuai for all four of us seemed reasonable. One nice thing about this year is that I don't think I've had a single lunch with beer, not that I could have justified one having got up only 90 minutes previously.

A Wu called to say he would pick me up to look for football tickets, and indeed as Haiwei dropped me off I car-hopped into the BMW to go to some clothes shop that had a model with a replica kit in the window. Inside there was a woman and a little tot, and dozens of replica tops, unlike my top from the previous match which was not like what the players wear. At 70 kuai I couldn't resist and asked if they were genuine. Of course not, if I wanted that I'd have to go to the stadium where it would be 300+ kuai. So I tried on a 3XL and it fitted fine, so took that. She didn't have tickets but said she'd try to get some for tomorrow.

Pingguo Haliao replica kit

A Wu reminded me that we were to go to a town 30 minutes north of Pingguo tomorrow morning, and it was quite important for some reason. So I said fair enough but not too early please. We were also to go for a meal tonight with some bosses, and he would pick me up at 5ish. He said it was a consequence of society and I sort of got what he meant. He's put on weight in the last four years, as I no doubt have in the last four weeks. It's not been easy to find much time to exercise other than a few bouts of table tennis.

Back home I went through old photos of the dian dong che's odometer and worked out we used to get around 40km per charge, so I'm hoping for a bit more than that with the new batteries, and we'd done 30km already. I took it for a wash about 5pm and indeed it was pretty thorough, with pressurised water in every crevice. But it looked mint afterwards and 10 kuai was a steal after sitting through three Pingguo summers without being used. But halfway through the way back, while crossing the main road, it just stopped. It could be the battery but it was more likely water getting in the system. I walked it the next 50 metres and then it burst into life again to get home.

Good as new

I'm sure it's the end part of Magnetic Rag by Scott Joplin

But at home the boys were about to go out so I gave the keys to Leilei, and it promptly didn't work again. So I explained it was probably the water and they shrugged and went off walking instead. But an hour later A Wu still hadn't turned up and I checked the bike again but still nothing...oh I so hope the wash hasn't broken it. Finally at 6.30 A Wu turned up and I hopped in to go for a longer drive than expected north of the city, and even he got lost finding the place. It seemed to be some sort of farm, with two tables of mostly naked blokes sitting around them.

Blokey meal

But when we got out we were motioned to go to another table under a roof (not that it was raining or sunny) and eat with some other people a couple of whom I recognised from previous meals. They were already in fine spirits, and the usual ganbeis ensued. As is quite normal, there were a couple of young ladies at our table, drinking non alcoholic drinks. To take a "break" I took my glass and can to one of the outside tables and had a group ganbei with the blokes there, or two ganbeis as is apparently the custom when ganbeing a tableful. Then it was the same for the neighbouring table. So much for a break. Then a handful of young ladies turned up and sat at another table under the roof, and withing 20 minutes I was sitting there too being introduced to them all. At least I am introduced as Bangxu guye so they know my marital status.

Well we ate and drank till well after 9pm, when Haiwei rang to remind me I was going to meet him soon. So someone sorted out a didi che and I went out to meet it. But nothing came, so I wandered about and came across a family making aeroplane headsets as you do. But after a phone call it seemed the didi che had been cancelled so I went back to the table where I was to wait for Haiwei who turned up a few minutes later. We went to some bar with his two sons, but I was pretty tired and a bit the worse for wear, so I did my work of conversing in English for a while but I think Haiwei could see my state and let me go earlier than would normally have been the case. I walked home and nearly made it before I recognised a bloke sitting with a mate on the pavement drinking red wine. So I joined them for a solitary glass before making my excuses yet again and going home for a relatively early night. I noticed that our dian dong che was not there so pinged Leilei to ask if it had come back to life. Indeed it had, so I could sleep easier with that knowledge.

Industrial tour and meal with Teacher Ling

As I was about to get lunch, Tan's secondary school teacher, Ling, called me to confirm tonight's meal at 6pm, and to take me out to "zhuan yi zhuan", meaning to look around I think. So he turned up in his 4x4. After buying a few bottles of baijiu we drove to his stone factory in the north of the city and he was explaining about his work, talking about how the board of directors selected the CEO etc. It was a lot of new vocab for me but this time may actually be useful. I mentioned I had a friend who was also a boss of a stone factory and gave A Wu's whole name, Li Junwu, and Ling said he thought he knew him. So I called A Wu and explained who I was with then handed the phone to Ling and they spoke for a minute or so in the local lingo before he put the phone down and apologised for speaking tu hua and said yes, he knew him, but no more info.

One of Ling's mountains

We then drove down south to around the aluminium place where Ling was pointing out this factory and that factory, before driving into one where they were making industrial bags. He motioned to a bloke to close a large door, then told me that bloke was deaf, and I realised he was also the boss of this place. We then drove on to the electricity generation plant, where they use gas to generate electricity just for this industrial area. I was told that this was the "heavy industry" place and where we'd just been was the "light industry" place.

He continued to talk like this, giving me information all the while for about 2 hours, which by the end was quite tiring but satisfying too to be learning not just more Chinese, but stuff about the place I call my second home now. I sometimes get this level of information from Yang Haiwei but not for so long. On the way back we passed Haiwei's new work place and of course Ling knew about it too. Then back in town we stopped off to drink some tea at an alcohol shop for about 40 minutes before he said he needed to prepare something before our meal in 2 hours.

So 2 hours to chill in an air conditioned bedroom as the daylight heat hasn't let up since it stopped raining 2 weeks ago. Well, at least for a few minutes as I'd promised I'd go and find some sun cream for the boys since Jiuma has appropriated what we brought with us. And it was a bit of an excuse to get on the dian dong che again. £4 for a tiny bottle was a bit steep but if it does the job I suppose it's worth it. Strangely, by 6pm Ling hadn't yet rung, as most of my other friends would have, but 7 minutes later he said he was waiting outside. He drove the three of us to an interesting place by the river that I'd never seen before, with a lush garden and outside dining. We walked in and to my surprise they had fresh beer on tap, including Goose IPA and Hoegaarden.

Nice selection of beers

We were told we could have whatever we wanted so the boys chose an ice lolly each and I said I'd stick with the local Li Quan for the meal. The meal was of course in a private room, and comprised some fabulous dishes including the softest baked chicken I've ever had in Pingguo and delicious thin slices of pork that was gone in minutes. Nezha noted the way they leave the head of the chicken on the plate, something I would have probably noticed during my first time in China too but is one of those things that has just become normal now. He asked me to tell Ling that this was the best meal he'd had so far in China, which I did and agreed with him.

Best meal so far

For drink, I was the only one on beer as Ling, his son, and other men of his son's age were all on the baijiu. I know it's a cultural and a business thing but it's one step beyond where I'm willing to go in this context. The boys asked for Coke and for some reason, despite all the foreign beer, there was no Coke in the place so they had to settle for lemonade, so hopefully they don't really have a taste for beer. A few minutes after a customary toast, I was the first person to stand up, then walk over to Ling's son and offer him a one-to-one toast, which was gladly accepted. This triggered other people to do the same and after a good half an hour I was starting to feel quite full.

The only other person older than early thirties was Ling's friend Lu, who was also a boss of course. He asked which bosses I knew in Pingguo and of course he knew A Wu and Yang Haiwei and showed me them in his phone, then called A Wu as if to confirm. A bit later we descended into cai ma and a few of the blokes converted to drinking beer as it's more practical for such silliness. Unlike seven years ago, Ling didn't fall asleep after drinking his baijiu, maybe because he has diabetes he doesn't drink so much now. But he was sensible enough to order a driver to come on an electric scooter to drive us home. Except the younger chaps and myself would go to a bbq place just across the road from our complex.

Well I thought I was full, but the beautiful fried fish just kept beckoning me. We played mo pai for a short while and I started to get the hang of the game a little but I still need to find official rules. Although it's quite possible this is a regional variation. Well I managed not to drink for a while, then, as is quite normal, four young ladies turned up, three of them smokers, and continued to mo pai with us and I started to lose and have to drink again. Then someone mentioned "shaizi" - ah yes that dice game I played with Chen Mei many years ago. I'd be happy to play that again. It took a couple of minutes for my brain to recall the rules but after a couple of rounds I was having quite the laugh, bluffing and counter-bluffing.

That went on till midnight when we decided to call it a night. Except one of them didn't and sent me their location on the other side of town near the river. I had another "why not?" moment as I now had a vehicle I was confident would get me there and back, and ended up having yet another bbq treat till nearly 2am.