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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
