The hotel gave me a lift to the airport at 11.30 for the 2.35pm flight. It is a nice new airport, and was quite empty. This gave me some hope for the flight. No queues for checking in my bag, nor for security, and the lounge was pretty empty too save for a foreigner. They only had 2.8% beer on offer so I availed myself of a few of those and they actually did the trick. Boarding was right outside the lounge and I was worried I’d missed the flight as there were so few people there.
Grabbing breakfast at 11ish it was interesting to see people boozing at that time...had it been me it would only have been acceptable if a flight was incoming
When I heard the “boarding complete” announcement I nearly leapt for joy as I had the three middle seats all to myself and I saw that we were at most 1/6th full. After take-off I even moved to in front of the first bulkhead on the side of the plane so would get less disturbance and after the meal and a couple of white wines managed the most sleep I ever have in a non-business class long haul. Apparently this route was a lot busier in the summer...I doubt they’ll have it this late next year though..
Literally wonderful, though maybe not from a carbon footprint perspective....but I slept so well
I’d had a bonus two weeks in Pingguo that I hadn’t taken for granted. I caught up with friends and finished off with a double-bonus empty flight with extra-bonus little turbulence. Arriving in Heathrow I celebrated with a quick bite in the T4 landside lounge and maybe a G&T before getting home to see the family. I wonder if I’ll get such a chance again.
A bonus way to end a bonus trip that I hadn't expected this year
I woke up relaxed as pretty much everything was ready, so I decided to pay Ma Laoban a visit as I haven’t seen him for a while. As luck would have it he was in and bade me sit down for a chat. I explained that I was leaving in an hour or so and he decided now would be a good time to give me a present of four bottles of concentrated wild pear juice. But not only were there four bottles, they were boxed, and for some reason he needed to unbox them. I had arrived at his shop knowing I was in good time but it dawned on me that the longer I spent here the less time I’d have to get to the station.
Ma Laoban is such a good friend but I didn't need the pear juice episode
I graciously accepted my gift and before I worried about how to get them into my luggage (I couldn’t) he started to worry about whether I could get them into the train. I told him it would be fine but he insisted in trying to call a mate who worked in the railway business, but couldn’t get through at first. He tried again and while he did I checked online and clearly you could take fruit juice on the train, but he had to get it checked before he agreed. Then he was concerned about bringing it on the plane but I told him I’d check it in. Again, this wasn’t good enough and he made another call, during which I started to get really concerned about the time. I’d hoped to see him and give him a hug goodbye but I was getting bogged down by pear juice miscellany.
Eventually I took my leave of him (and got the hug), and got home just in time to remove two bottles from the polystyrene box and leave the rest on the dinner table, before ringing Li Kun to see if he wanted to share lunch of jiao zi as that was all I had time for, and I wanted to say goodbye to him too. He came straight away, but was not able to park outside the jiao zi place for some reason - apparently they now have parking attendants and it would not look good for him, a member of the police/government, to be breaking the rules. So he found a place to park and came back five minutes later not knowing that I was getting a little anxious about catching the train in under an hour. The jiao zi were a great way to say “goodbye” to Pingguo till the next time but Li Kun insisted on bringing me back to his house to drink tea. I couldn’t really argue as I have a go at people arriving at the train station nearly an hour before their train, so complied and enjoyed a few mini glasses of red tea at his place until 20 mins before the train, when he drove me to the station and it would have been cutting it very fine had there been a queue at security (or had they wanted to search my bags). I barely had time to go to the loo before we were called to board. And so much for goodbyes here...it was more of a “seeya” and maybe it’s better that way.
This place has become so important in the last few years...I can have a full meal with the kids for 18 kuai - and today Li Kun also appreciated her dumplings
A little bit sad at seeing Li Kun shutting up shop for what was probably only an hour or so
I got to the Nanning coach stop to the airport not too long after 2.30pm, and the driver asked me what time my flight was. I instantly thought about it and decided it was better to lie and tell him it was 4pm instead of 5pm. I don’t know if I thought that would give him more urgency or something but he then said “no”, I couldn’t get on the coach. What? I remonstrated with him that I certainly needed to get on this coach but again he said “no”. As we were outside of the coach I walked around the front of it and thought sod it, I’d put my suitcase inside and get on anyway, and paid my 20 kuai for the ticket. I was hoping he meant that if I took the coach I’d miss my four o’clock flight, and he didn’t want to be in any way responsible. Bloody hell if only I’d told the truth. As it transpired we arrived soon after 3.30 so probably would have made a 4pm flight due to VIP access to the lounge security, but he wasn’t to have known that.
The sanitary bags have become a bit more readable
So, bag checked in, I went to my friendly landside lounge and had a quick decant before thinking sod it I could manage an internal flight without Dutch courage, though I may have partaken in the train and coach. And indeed the flight to Wuhan was fine. I grabbed my luggage and looked for the shuttle to my hotel. It wasn’t really clear but some security guards pointed me to where it should be. When the bus arrived I got on and asked the driver if he was going to my hotel. He didn’t know, but I thought I’d take a chance, but before that he closed the doors while my luggage was outside. I was more than annoyed and told him that was my bloody luggage outside and without changing his expression he opened the door to enable me to fetch them. As I walked inside the bus I saw a western girl and sort of up-nodded my head in a way to “tut tut”, and immediately felt a bit racist.
Then, a little later into the journey when I was trying to see where we were relative to my hotel when we were at a stop, the western girl spoke to the driver in perfect Mandarin asking if he could leave the doors open a little longer as more people needed to alight. Damn I was jealous, and it took all my resolve not to try to talk to the driver so that I could let people know I could also speak the lingo. But for once in my life I didn’t take the opportunity to show off or steal her thunder; she had spoken for a good reason, and I wouldn’t have. And then a voice (a Chinese voice, thankfully) told me I should get off here for my hotel too. I thought we were some way away but took the advice and indeed it was 100 yards away, and in fact the western lady (she was a lady more than a girl now in my book) was going to the same place.
I was still jealous listening to her in front of me at the reception explaining that she had a flight early tomorrow morning. Not jealous that her Mandarin was better than mine (it almost certainly was), but that there was another Mandarin-speaking westerner in my midst.
Well it was a shitty hotel but I didn’t really care. I had a bite to eat (and thankfully the western woman wasn’t there) and got the chance to speak to the waitresses. And I managed to stay awake till midnight to that fateful match I knew we’d lose to Liverpool. Damn, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for us really, and in a way I’m not too pissed off the stream was crap. We’ve had two massive years, winning the PL twice...Liverpool probably deserve it and they’re being bloody efficient about it.
It was another 9am wake up that transformed into an 11.30am proper wake and get up, but I was alone and not stressed about it being the last full day (for the second time this year). And it was a Saturday, which made it better.
I somehow thought I’d be invited out to lunch but should not make such assumptions - at least it should be me doing more of the inviting. So lunch ended up being another delicious serving of dumplings for 6 kuai. As it was my last full day I took a little time to soak in the sun when I realised in London it was currently 2 degrees. I found that my newly found supermarket actually sold gin! For the first time in about five years I’ve found this spirit here, but it was a bit late. Anyhow I got a bottle for some reason, along with some more brown eggs and sugar-free lemonade, and at the till was told I could use my receipt to get a bonus. And indeed when I gave in my receipt I was asked if I would like a 12 pack of water bottles. I was honest and told them I’d prefer the 12 pack of toilet tissues but for some reason these weren’t available to me. So I graciously accepted the water and indeed I probably had more need for that at home.
Best selection in Pingguo!
The prizes you could get...in the end water was not a bad one despite the plastic bottles
And indeed back home I found myself not wanting for time, despite it being the last day. There have been plenty of last days in the last 16 years and they’re getting easier to deal with each time, especially this time as it’s only nine weeks since we were last here doing our last last day. Plus there is a possibility I could have another last day before next summer, though I won’t rely on that. But I sort of used that as an excuse to have a wee G&diet lemonade, and it went down pretty well as I perused the news after congratulating myself on having done most of my packing already.
I did find time to grab a few cuppas with Haiwei though
But I was in need of food, and not sure what to do, so I had another brown egg. Sometimes people would call me to go out, but no-one had. I pinged Luwen, who sent me a video of where he was eating and drinking with mates but told me to catch up with him later rather than invite me over. Then I pinged Huahua to ask what he was doing as I hadn’t seen him this sojourn except in passing, but he had already eaten.
Even for Pingguo, at gone 6pm it seemed a little late to find someone else to “invite” for a meal, and I accepted that I would have to eat alone. I went out on the bike to find somewhere but within a minute Uncle Yellow was calling me to come to eat at some restaurant. Saved by the bell! There didn’t seem any point going home first (even for another sneaky snifter) and by the wei zhi I guessed it was the same fish restaurant Li Kun had taken me three or four years ago which was the first time I’d managed to get rather pissed on 2.8% beer, and I realised it meant I was getting old.
As I approached the destination on the wei zhi I realised I was right - it was indeed the fish restaurant I’d got pissed at a few years ago. There were two private rooms being used; one for the men and one for the women and children. I like to think there is nothing sexist about this and that it’s just that one is smoky and one isn’t. And the best thing about the non-smoky room was that Uncle Yellow’s wife Xiao Chong was there with their new baby, so I finally got to see him.
A Ming plying people with red wine
Xiao Chong with her and Uncle Yellow's gorgeous addition whom I got to see for the first time tonight (I'd given the red envelope in the summer)
It was great to see his new son (and Xiao Chong again) but the blokes tried to ply me with red wine, and this time there was no beer alternative. So I did my best to sip but sometimes you have to fall in a bit with the crowd. But luckily I managed to craft an escape not too long after 8pm, as Luwen had pinged me to meet up as he’d suggested earlier.
I asked if it would be ok to invite Huahua to come as well and of course it was so we ended up soon after 9pm sitting outside some place I’d not been to before pretty much opposite the guangchang, and Huahua turned up a bit later. I was in my element with a few mates and just soaking up the atmosphere in my last night in Pingguo for a while. It wasn’t half as sad as some last nights have been in the past.
Up 8.45am! Yes, a decent time! But for some reason the next time I looked at my phone it was nearly midday. Bugger. Being Friday I still had work to do but almost as importantly I needed to arrange getting to Nanning tomorrow for the week-delayed flight to Wuhan. I checked trip.com to make sure there were still tickets for tomorrow but refused to pay their exorbitant $3 booking fee for a $4 ticket, so went across our road to find the place I’d bought train tickets from last year. Of course it wasn’t there. Things change big time in Pingguo, especially when you’re generally only here once a year.
I still appreciate the way that cans are often stored upside-down, but not as much as the fact there are more and more choices regarding sugar-free
So instead of paying the $3 I took the best part of an hour to drive down to the train station (and pay for the privilege of parking the dian dong che), queue up and buy my ticket in person, before finding the dian dong che and driving back home.
After work I pinged Uncle Yellow to see what he was up to and he told me to meet up in a bit. A “bit” was 17 minutes, which seems quite reasonable really. Then he sent me a weizhi and I realised we were to go to A Ming’s place to have a bite to drink. Unlike a usual meal it was very much drink first eat later, and I did the latter as I was rather hungry. A Ming’s father and son were there so it was quite a family affair despite the cigarette smoke. I managed to leave relatively soberly not long after midnight and called it a night. Too many times I’ve decided to “just pop in” to somewhere around this time and it has consumed the early hours. Tonight I was good. Well, better.
The rather pretty outside of A Ming's family place where we spent a couple of hours
Got up a little late for work but luckily my Thai clients hadn’t been pinging me, and spent the rest of the day in meetings until 10.30pm, when I pinged advertising friend, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, to go to 3000 du bar but she said she didn’t like it since the new management had taken over. I wanted to disagree as I think it’s great, but thought better of it. But then she invited me to go to sing song so who was I to turn this down?
It was the usual mates there (does she even have any female friends?) and we had a good old time except I still had a bit of a nasty cold and couldn’t really sing (not that I can anyway), but had to turn most songs I did know down an octave. But that wasn’t the point...there was merriment and that was all that mattered (although the “Budweiser” was as weak as the local brew). I made my excuses at 1.45am and although we’d had scraps to eat was still hungry when I got home at 2am so had the very easy task of finding a bite to eat then.
There was not really any other option than the 4th floor
Not the earliest of starts, but a normal day of work until cabin fever forced me out of my study and into the warmish night. I had no plans so biked down to racist Huang’s place again for a chat and to see if I could make him hate the Japanese less. As it was he was stone cold sober and slightly boring. I only stayed for five minutes as had other things to do but was slightly disappointed that the sober Huang was not as interesting as the drunk one.
I sometimes hear a strange noise and today decided to investigate a little. It was like some ice cream van from a horror film (I should evolve my language to say movie). But this time when it went round I made an effort to find out what it was and it seemed to be a van spewing out smoke, but from which intake I had no idea. This is something I'll definitely need to check out soon...
Interesting whisky I had no interest in buying
Got a snap of the local Lamborghini
So I got home and had a bit of fun before I remembered that Waterman had pinged me so I knew I had to make up for not having been much of a personality the last time I turned up at his place. I met up with him and his mates and had a much better time than last time as I was actually feeling like a human. It was a relaxing evening...I knew the guys and knew that there would not be a token female that would make them act like bosses, and we would chill and eat fish-related produce.
It made me think about how lab-produced meat will evolve....it has to become exponentially less energy-intensive in the short to medium to long term. Assuming there’s enough fat in it to make it taste good, if not indistinguishable from a steak or whatever one is used to. This is why the first strides are being made with mince meat.
But I for one would be totally willing to buy lab-grown meat if only because it was safer than shitty killed meat with all its injected hormones. Yes it may be some time yet, but surely not that long. When I think of automation taking over most jobs I like to think that humans will be much better employed in working out solutions for this and other problems that affect our species.
Man, there is an organisation SENS that is dedicated to finding out and potentially “curing” ageing...imagine if they “fix” things….telomeres no longer shortening etc….it’s not beyond the realms of fantasy any more. If people don’t die other than by accident (so unlikely with self-driven cars/buses/planes) then maybe we’ll need to find another planet or spaceship to live sooner than we thought.
But at some time after midnight I came back down to earth and somehow met up with Zhang Hongping again….I wanted to explain telomeres to him but thought better of it and just enjoyed a chat and a couple more before going to bed.
It was more work but I so looked forward to my lunchtime hour walk before Europe woke up. This time I came across a tangerine orange (or maybe orange orange) Lamborghini parked among the various dian dong ches and other cheap Chinese cars and very much out of place. It looked very much like a toy car, but a pretty one at that.
When I chucked in work for the day I needed some human intercourse so went to see racist Huang before his bedtime. He was incredibly drunk and kept telling me to call him tomorrow for some reason. It was one of those times where an English person could have stayed half an hour embarrassingly entertaining him. But I realised he probably wouldn’t remember this episode so kept it down to 20 minutes before taking leave of him. The sad thing is that I found out his wife is due to give birth in a few days….
Back to work. Not much fun but I could have been on a plane to the UK so I wasn’t complaining. I didn’t finish till 11.30pm in the end. But I did make the time to have a walk around 2pm when the weather was a beautiful 28 degrees without clouds. I had to do this...no bike just legs and a nice hit of sun I wouldn’t normally get at this time of year. No sooner had I left the house when I heard “Duoming!”, and saw Yang Zhangliang on his bike approaching me. I was honest enough to say I hadn’t been getting up early enough to join him for a jog in the guangchang, and he was honest enough not to care, but we had an enjoyable chat, mainly because he is the one person I seem to understand every word of in Chinese. He pointed me to his local supermarket as I had told him I needed to get some shower gel and shit, and I was quite happily surprised to see they also had Absolut vodka albeit at 180 kuai a bottle, not that I got one.
New supermarket with a bit of foreign booze
...but they don't seem to know much about shampoo
On the way back I made a long detour to spend a bit more time in the sun but also to stop in the electricity grid place. I wanted to check how much dian we had but both the machines inside were not working. The security guard told me there was one outside which I duly went to but after three unsuccessful attempts at keying on our number with the prefix 040100 I gave up and went to the counter where I was told within 30 seconds that we had 147 kuai’s worth, which I reckon should last me more than this week.
One day this will not be a problem for me...at least to understand
After work I went to see racist Huang but his place was already closed...it seems a long time since I first met him in 2008 and would regularly go to see him after work at gone 1am. But I did bump into some mates nearby for a beer or twelve, and lost badly at cai ma for a change.
Apparently I knew the owner so was invited to have a bite with some mates...who was I to say "no"?
Ah, just a nice relaxing and fun day in the house without any stress of work. At 5.30pm I realised I needed to call China Southern as I was due to take a flight tomorrow at 8am from Nanning due to them cancelling my flight planned for the early evening. So I called them on the five-digit number I’d been given at the airport a week ago and I got a response that thankfully gave me the option of English. I got through to a bloke and I explained that the cancellation of my flight tomorrow was very inconvenient, and that I wanted to take the equivalent flight next week. To my surprise he was understanding and gave me the options which indeed included my original plan, but put back one week, for no extra charge. I booked it there and then, but when I gave my passport details I made sure to say it both in Mandarin and English...in the former there is much less chance for getting it wrong. But basically I had “enforced” another week in Pingguo for me. I was told that if I wanted to make another change it would cost me though….
I let my PM know and he didn’t seem to be so happy mainly because it was a “change of plan”, and PMs don’t like that. But I explained I’d be able to communicate with my Thai colleagues far more efficiently in this way as I’d be in their time zone. It made total sense in every way, and he was forced to accept this.
Zhang Hongping then IM’d me to go for dinner and fortunately I had no plans so thought why not? He pinged me to meet him by the guang chang and eventually after a couple of calls I found him by the roller skating place Xixi and I frequented earlier this year. I saw the purple pair of skates she used most times and it made me feel really sad she wasn’t with me this time.
About to go to the guang chang
Xixi's purple boots in the middle...I sent the pic to her and she missed them too
But there was not much time for sadness as a car rolled up and we got in with another bloke. Apparently we were to go 10km to somewhere to eat then I guessed it was the Pingguo Aluminium place I’d been to a few times before but not recently. It’s not as far as 10km but maybe they were trying to impress. Anyway it was a Didi che, the Chinese equivalent of Uber and as cheap as a san lun che.
We arrived at a normal looking place and of course went straight to a private room. There was some legal boss there who appeared to be the host, and as I arrived he gave me his business card made of some shiny silver card with Chinese on one side and some sort of English on the other. He got out two bottles of white alcohol but I politely refused and no offence was taken as a crate of beer was ordered. The meal started but after half an hour a bloke and two women turned up and I recognised the pretty one as having been with Hongping a couple of days earlier, and it was clear that not only had they already had something to imbibe, but they’d already eaten too.
Where we ate
Legal boss on right, he put away a few glasses
The legal boss insisted on drinking a mouthful every minute, and the predictable happened as he eventually flaked out in his chair. I was able to keep the conversation going and the woman named Si next to me for some reason thought I was intelligent because I could work out what she was going to say before she said it.
I suppose I am getting used to seeing this sort of thing in the toilet...
A bit later a Didi che was ordered and five of us got in, not the legal boss, whom I guess was based in that area. I said I had a bit of business to attend to and they said “ok” but I was to meet them again a bit later. As good as my word I did indeed ping Zhang Hongping a bit later and he bade me to come to some place that was just a few mates in someone’s shop. This was perfect - no hassle just good-will and beer. And there was a catwoman-like woman too who was literally dressed like her but also a bit scary. I tried not to pay attention to her and to be cool and I think it worked as she didn’t stay too long. There was a large aunty who was in high spirits and made me play a few rounds of cai ma with various people I apparently had met before, before some of them said they were going dancing. Dancing? It was gone 1.30am so I was having none of it, and told them I was a little tired. So after a few more gan beis they let me go.
Back home it was 2am and Si then sent me a message telling me to come over to some place really close to our house by the guangchang. I pretended I’d already showered but curiosity got the better of me and I ended up going anyway. As I arrived I could tell it really was a loud disco. I parked the bike and IM’d Si and she thankfully came out to find me. We had to go through security a bit like an airport except the buzzer went off and no-one searched me.
What ensued was just too loud and too young for me to really appreciate, but I stayed a good hour and a half. Jeez I’ve not danced in a long time and it sobered me up despite the beer that was plied into me. But I’m white and over 30 so I should be aware of that. At least here it didn’t feel so embarrassing. It wasn’t hard to sleep at 4am….
I was up at a reasonablish time considering last night, but I don’t quite recall where I went for lunch. Haiwei had invited me for tea this evening, as well as a late drink with ping pong friends from Long'an, who had come to Pingguo for a tournament this evening. I so wish I was good enough to compete...going back five or six years when I’d regularly play for a couple of hours in the morning and maybe the same again in the evening I might have started approaching entertaining this possibility, but it seems I don’t have so much time now, and in a way my back probably prefers things like playing music and going for longer walks than the stress of table tennis. But having said that most of the people playing me in the old people’s leisure centre are a score or more older than me.
Tea was the usual affair at Haiwei’s mum’s place, and in a way I feel I’ve become somewhat part of the family...a cousin who is away most of the time. It’s really nice because it’s nothing to do with Tan’s family so I’ve come about it more out of choice, not that there’s anything wrong with her family. I did my duty of speaking with Haiwei’s eldest son until he had to leave to go back to school at sevenish, but we didn’t do too many beers as Haiwei was about to go to the ping pong tournament, so I took myself home for a bit.
I must have gone out in the interim but made sure I was back to watch the start of the City match against Southampton, but got called by Haiwei later to go to a really local place I could get to in one minute in the dian dong che so already into the second half I took my laptop and arrived to great cheers of drunken men who just a couple of hours earlier had been sober and using tip-top reflexes to play semi-professional table tennis. I was a bit embarrassed to say I needed to watch the end of the game but they seemed to understand as I got out my laptop, plugged it in, and asked for the wifi password. It was worth it as we beat Southampton in the 87th minute. Then I could relax more and play a fair few rounds of cai ma and chatted with the guys from the next town down.
I felt a bit bad getting the 1pm flight back from Bangkok, but other options would have meant a late arrival at Pingguo. As it was, the Air France/KLM lounge at Bangkok was really nice and I had a good meal and couple of looseners for the journey, which thankfully this time was nondescript. I had meant to rearrange my flights back at Nanning airport but totally forgot until I was on the bus ready to go back to Nanning train station. I could have got off but thought sod it I’ll risk calling them later. I tried to book train tickets on my phone but to my massive annoyance I found I had no credit. I’d tried turning on roaming in Bangkok but only got 2.5G and could barely get a message through, so I had bought a Thai SIM and used that instead - surely that can’t have used up all my credit? I tried in vain to attach to the airport wifi but accepted I would just have to try to get tickets at the train station, something that hasn’t worked the last three times I tried, but I had hope as when I checked from Bangkok there were still 99+ spaces left.
And there was hardly even a queue at the station where I was used to waiting 30+ minutes, so I was doubly happy when I had a ticket in my hand for just over an hour’s time. This meant I could look for a China Mobile shop and see what was going on. It took 10 mins and it was quite sweaty in the early evening 27 degrees, but finally I came upon a woman who looked at my SMSs and said “liang kuai”. Only 20p to top up? Cool I have 2 kuai, then she said I needed money for credit...oh blimey, the 2 kuai was just her service fee. I had no idea how much to add but as I was due to leave in two days I gave 50 kuai and she did the top up and walked away. So did I but it soon became apparent I still wasn’t online. I went back and found her and showed her the latest SMS and she said I needed to top up more. Jeez, I gave her another 50 kuai and another 2 kuai service fee and waited. Eventually another SMS came like the previous one. Except this one mentioned -12.94, and the previous one had mentioned -62.94. Suspiciously 50 more than the previous one. I showed her this and she said yes, I’d need to top up again. Blimey she could have told me that after the first top-up, and I told her she should have but she said she didn’t see it. I guess she may not have been lying and reluctantly gave her 32 kuai so I was back in the black and straight away WeChat messages came rolling in. Well it was pricey, but I was ready to go back.
In Pingguo I thought better of asking someone to pick me up and took a 10 kuai san lun che back home at 8pm where I’d hoped to grab a shower. But friends were pestering me to go and eat and using the excuse of their kid being there who wanted to see me. Anyway I was starving as I’d not had a meal in the flight, so went to friend’s house where they’d pretty much finished the food anyway and wanted me to drink sweet red wine. There was not really any other option, so I politely fitted in. A couple of the women were pretty drunk, but they decently knew when to leave, unlike a similar scene in the might have been in the UK.
We finished at a rather sensible time at midnight and despite the levels of drunkenness everyone took their part in cleaning up. So it was back home to put out the newly washed clothes and be a “normal” resident for a couple of days at least.
Stupidly after that I was still awake so went to see racist Huang but his place was closed, so went to Boss Zhou’s around the corner. Unfortunately he had already left but as I was about to go home a couple of people around one of his tables beckoned me for a drink. I looked as non-committal as I could, which meant I parked the bike and walked over and ended up sitting with them for much longer than I should have. But it was great being back and better when Zhang Hongping turned up at about 2.. I ended up staying till 4am and enjoyed it perhaps more than I should have.
Up at 9.30am, partly as I knew I had to get a flight at 5pm, but still I could have made it later if I’d tried. I should have packed last night but oh well...so that was my morning...well actually my afternoon too until I realised I was running out of time as there were no more places on trains going to Nanning. So I ended up going to Huang Lidan’s beauty shop and asking her for help, as she’d sorted out my taxi from Nanning a few days ago. Sure enough she made a couple of phone calls and said someone would call me within a few minutes. Shit that meant I had to sort out the rest of my stuff and withdraw money. Money withdrawn I got a phone call from the taxi driver who’d picked me up from Nanning to say he couldn’t pick me up, but that someone else would call me, which is what Huang had told me. Still, it was good to confirm. I rushed home and brought down my suitcase. Then thought I would have time to get lunch at Luwen’s as I hadn’t eaten, but as soon as that thought had entered my mind I got another call from the other taxi driver. This time I had to explain where I was and though I thought I’d given a good explanation he didn’t understand. Probably because I still don’t know the roads on which we live. So I gave the phone to the shopkeeper next to me and she explained and said he’d be there in a couple of mins. Of course, so I grabbed a couple of sausages from her shop, with some crappy crisps and some glucose water, and waited for him.
As I opened up the sausage a white car arrived and beeped at me. How the driver could have known it was me waiting for the car god only knows. Before I grabbed my suitcase I bit a mouthful of the sausage as it was the only thing I’d had today. Yuck..bits of stuff broke off in my mouth and I ended up spitting most of it out. The driver hadn’t been told I had a large suitcase and wasn’t prepared, as there were already three other passengers. At least they weren’t all in my situation and we managed to squeeze the suitcase into the boot by a spare tyre that should really have had somewhere else to sit. This is another reason I prefer a strong but not hard suitcase - they tend to fit in to places slightly better and are a tad lighter, and if I had had a hard case today I might have missed my flight due to this.
My first concern was that not all four of us would be going to the airport. My fee was 150 kuai, which was a bit steep if all of us were paying that - 70 quid for two hours work for the driver was pretty lucrative regardless of how many people he might be taking back. I started to get concerned when he was saying something about dropping people off. I guessed I would be dropped off to get another car or something and realised it could be tight getting the flight. I got out the sausage again as I was starving but I heard the in the front passenger seat say something negative. I wasn’t sure what, but I felt too embarrassed to take a big bite, so thinking it might not cause so much offence, took a smaller bite. Normally this would have been a stupid thing to do (and actually the reasoning behind it was), but once again there were bits in the sausage, and so the smaller bite meant fewer bits to spit out. Then I looked again to see what horrid sausage I’d bought and found to my chagrin it was not a sausage but a duck’s neck. And I’d bought two. My hunger would go on.
I think I could have been excused for thinking it was a sausage...
We seemed to be taking the appropriate turn-offs to Nanning airport until we pulled up by the side of the road at 2.30pm. I was about to ask what the hell when he told everyone else to get off and get into the taxi that was pulled up at the side. Ah...this was pre-arranged for them, who were probably going into central Nanning. It reminded me of when a driver was taking Awl and me to the airport for Awl’s flight home, but had neglected to inform us that he was dropping off people in Nanning first which added a good hour to the journey, and made him nearly miss his plane. Just telling us these things in the first place would greatly assuage fears but it seems that might be some time off.
I asked the driver how long it would be to the airport, and he said half an hour if we took the quicker road. So I said let’s take the bloody quicker road, to which he replied it would be 20 kuai on the toll. As if it mattered at this stage. He also told me he had to have the money first as he couldn’t be seen to be taking it at the airport, presumably as he wasn’t an official taxi. Car-pooling has grown as an unofficial business here since before phones had internet access, and I quite appreciate the organic, entrepreneurial way in which it has evolved. But I would like to know certain things up front.
As it was we got there shortly after three to find that bag drop would only start at 3.25pm - for a 4.55pm flight - it made me almost glad the lounge was dry. And of course I was quite far back in the queue so by the time the bag was dropped off there was only an hour till the flight and I still needed to do immigration. But I’d had an email that the first of my two flights back to the UK had been cancelled, so went to the China Southern desk to sort it out. I had been due to take a 6pm flight to Wuhan then spend the night there and fly the next afternoon to London, but that flight to Wuhan had been cancelled. Instead they wanted to put me on the 8.40am flight to Wuhan much much earlier, which I wasn’t happy about as it would have meant a hotel in Nanning (not to mention a very early flight). The woman was quite helpful although she spoke in Mandarin and I was too embarrassed when I didn’t understand but I did understand when she said I’d better go for my flight as it was due to leave in under an hour and I still had to do immigration.
I’d forgotten about that. Yes I was leaving China so there was customs and stuff, but I made it 30 mins before the flight which meant I had time for a quick trip to the lounge to stock up on water and lemonade. I asked the woman at the desk if it was time to board and she said no, she’d come and tell me when it was. At that time a woman was leaving the lounge for my flight and the desk woman told her she didn’t need to, but the leaver insisted. Five minutes later the desk woman came to tell me it was time to board, 20 minutes before the departure time. When I got there I saw the familiar “Closing” sign and no-one to be seen. I was clearly the last on board by some time and we were in the air 10 minutes later, ahead of schedule. The flight was notable only for the dreaded announcement that arrival would be delayed due to bad weather in Bangkok.
Almost immediately we were bounced into some of the worst turbulence I’ve ever encountered. Without shame I reached for my little carry-on bottle that didn’t contain a liquid pertaining to toiletries and poured it into what was left of my lemon soda water appropriated from the lounge. It took the edge off just enough, but it was a horrible descent (they didn’t even tell us we were on approach) until we could see the lights below. Then through the next cloud and we were plunged into a thunderstorm and you could hear the torrential rain hitting the plane, and a massive flash of lightning seemed to hit us. As we got lower the same happened again and I grabbed the leg of the pretty young lady I’d been talking to previously, and was almost as embarrassed as I was scared, as I moved my hand to the armrest. We seemed to be facing down as we came in to touch down and even the Chinese were making worried noises. It was quite a firm landing and took a bloody age to stop, but I’d survived the scariest landing of my experience. I mentioned to the woman to my left about the lightning, as if it excused my errant hand. Then lightning flashed again and I realised it was just the under-wing light, and I felt like a right tit.
Up 9.30ish still feeling pretty shit, and nipped out for jiaozi at midday, where the area was buzzing with school kids. Despite feeling shit still I forced myself to do some work to prepare for Monday’s presentation in Bangkok. I worked through the England NZ semi-final of the rugby world cup, and I suppose I was privileged not only that it was at 4pm my time, but that it wasn’t 9am in the UK, as I probably would have watched it there. I’m no expert but it looked like we edged it although we were tiring towards the end. But then everyone else said it was the most wonderful game England had ever played. Oh well - hope they haven’t peaked before the final.
Haiwei, earlier in the week, had told me that today (Saturday) we’d be eating at his place as his older son would be home and we could speak in English. However, after the rugger it was getting on for 6pm and I still hadn’t heard from him. This was quite annoying as there was no way I was going to call him to remind him to invite me, and moreover I was peckish. Worse that that though was that I wanted to watch City v Villa at 7.30pm in the early game and could have arranged to eat before, then come back and finished off work while watching that. To add salt into the wounds Chen had pinged me yesterday as he’d seen a video of me in town and had invited me to eat at 6pm, which would have been perfect if it had meant just an evening meal. More likely he’d have wanted me for most of the evening so I wouldn’t have watched the match. I even charged up my laptop in case I had to go out. But as it was I told Chen I’d be available at 9.15ish and he was cool with that and sent me a Weizhi showing me where to go later.
I was glad that I didn’t go out at 6pm in the end but this time got myself some fried chicken instead of jiaozi after the rugby and made good progress on the demonstration work till 7.30, when I justifiably cracked open a beer that I’d left from the summer and found a stream for the match. Ok, I actually cracked it open before 7pm but it had been a long day. The stream in question was quite crap as I’m guessing 7.30pm is peak internet here, and I had to turn off my VPN, which I wasn’t happy about. It was 0-0 at half time and I feared losing yet more points but we picked it up in the second half, as did the stream and it was an enjoyable 3-0 win in the end to put a tiny bit of pressure on Liverpool.
Tea before the football
As I pulled up the dian dong che outside Huang Lidan’s beauty shop I realised although I was in the vicinity of where Chen was, I wasn’t sure exactly where he was. So I popped into her shop and showed her the photo of the place and she knew exactly where it was and gladly pointed me in that direction. Chen was as happy to see me as he always is and met me at the door of the new music bar that just two days ago I was at with Uncle Yellow and Boss Zhou. But first we left the place to go to a tea place across the way where his wife and a friend were, er, drinking tea. He told them to accompany us but they appeared to me more than happy where they were and said they’d come later.
A toilet door at the music place...
Gradually a few more friends arrived as did beers, and it was a palatable evening. I was allowed to invite a couple of friends, but then for some reason we left and moved on to another place nearby. I think the reason was that Chen knew these people and maybe wanted to show me off to them. Nevertheless it meant a few more beers and food that we just couldn’t eat. Finally we left at getting on for two so went straight home, where for some reason I was up till nearly 5am..
I woke up at 3am feeling dreadful, not even able to enjoy reading online. I assumed I’d sleep by 5am but no, indeed not at all. During the day I stayed in bed except when hunger forced me to get some jiaozi around lunchtime. I had the presence of mind to let work know I wouldn’t be up for much before attempting to slumber to the background of youtube videos of quantum physics. But as I was dropping off my cough would come back to wake me. This continued until the coughing was so bad I soon had my head over the loo like a drunken student at a party, and indeed had to keep the bin next to the bed for the rest of the day.
I really couldn’t face going out for a meal so got myself some jiaozi again as Waterman was asking me to go and eat. But I felt bad and at around 8pm I went round to his place with the same mates from last time. I managed nearly an hour and to drink just water until right at the end when I gan bei’d two small glasses of beer and made my good excuses.
Somehow I was still awake an hour later so I thought I’d at least see racist Huang for a quick drink. He was there and shouted at me when he saw me. He was in better spirits than me but I managed a couple of beers with him and got more light-headed than I would have normally, when I left an hour later.
I thought I ought to pop in to Boss Zhou’s at his place was literally a minute away, but when I got there it was empty. The sole waitress said he was upstairs so I popped up and entered the room she’d motioned me to but in fact it wasn’t him, rather some other boss I may have seen before, and an entourage of other drunken blokes. So I stayed for what felt like more than 20 minutes until I excused myself with the genuine excuse of being too knackered to carry on.
Three minutes down the road I happened upon A Wu and some mates eating out on the pavement. I couldn’t not stop off for a while so yet another bowl, chopsticks, and glass were pulled out and I spent the best part of an hour there socialising until I literally couldn’t any more. 2 or 3am welcomed me home with open arms.
I've just noticed that someone has been in our house since the summer and left a bag of rubbish and a half-smoked cigarette...
Oh dear, I’ve started to feel pretty crap now and have an annoying cough that literally everybody puts to the changing of the weather. Uncle yellow IM’d me to go for a bite to eat at 6pm so I said I would. But first a newish friend Fen said I should take some wine as medicine and despite myself I went to some place with her and some mates and had some rubbish wine until it was time for a meeting that I ended up not being able to dial into as bloody NordVPN seems to be blocking Zoom.
I’d noticed I was somewhat crabbing in the dian dong che while on the way to drink “medicinal” wine, so I used this as an excuse to leave for a while to fix it. It was one of those horrible days when you suddenly don’t understand what people are saying...I was just so focused on understanding I didn’t relax enough to allow a few words to get by my brain and allow the general gist to be understood. All I was asking was where could I go to fix the dian dong che, but it took four people in total before I got to the place all had been explaining. I’ll put it down to being ill…. I left the bike with the bloke at the garage and said I’d be back in half an hour or so. This meant time for x number of glasses of shit wine where 3 < x < 8 to be inexact, at least they were small glasses.
Fixing a crabbing dian dong che
I really was feeling shit so told the people I was drinking (and eating with) that I had to go and pick up the bike and go home to work for a while. It was only a puncture in the end and for once the owner accepted 20 kuai for what cost 15, as this was a bargain for me.
Unfortunately at home I only had an hour or so to lie down as 6pm was dawning. So I straddled the dian dong che once again to go to the newish music place I’d been to with Li Kun in the summer with his banking associate. Strangely, Jiuma called me when I arrived and told me not to drink alcohol. Fair enough, good advice, but not when a mate has invited you out to an evening in the bar. Uncle Yellow was there, and his wife Xiao Chong was there for a bit too before going back to look after their new son. All things considered we had a good time but my condition was not getting any better and I excused myself well before midnight to get home to cough myself to sleep.
Good food and company that would have been better if I was feeling ok
I was up at a ridiculous 5.30am and wide awake for some reason that only looking back on my last 15 years or so here will explain. Good to his word, Haiwei contacted me at 7am to say he was picking me up at 8am and we went to the new police station place to get me registered again this year and it only took 20 minutes despite having a new system that hadn’t saved my details from last time. I saw other foreigners’ names for doing the same thing but thankfully they were all Vietnamese, phew...at least they should look similar to the locals, but I wonder what business they have in Pingguo county.
Becoming registered for the second time this year
By breakfast it was pissing down and I was very, very tired. Haiwei took me to a place to eat after attempting to dodge raindrops, and we didn’t, but arrived somewhere I’d not been to before. It wasn’t just the tiredness, I was feeling positively on another planet. A woman walked in and for some reason I thought she was the prettiest girl on the planet (not sure if the same planet though) despite (looking back on the photo) her not being what I would generally call sexy. I was clearly not in my normal state of mind, but I needed to eat and had what Haiwei ordered for me.
Avoiding the rain on the way to breakfast
I must have had a fever - I thought she was the prettiest girl on the planet for a while
Actual breakfast
Even looking at a tiny mobile phone fixing shop fixated me
Then we started driving. And driving. And it just continued for a long time till I realised we weren’t going to somewhere just outside Pingguo but Tiandong, which was 60+km away. I really wanted to nod off but the music was doing my head in - at one stage “Jingle Bells” came on and I started seriously questioning my sanity. Haiwei was not driving and was in the back seat asleep the lucky bastard. I was too tired to make smalltalk to the driver, whom I’d not met before, and ended up sending some messages to the family WhatsApp group to check I wasn’t dreaming. Thankfully Cat was up in Canada and confirmed I was indeed dreaming.
It really was Jingle Bells
I later found out she was tricking me but I nearly believed it at the time...
Eventually we arrived at a factory, met a few people, donned helmets, then proceeded on a tour. There was a warehouse containing huge revolving cylinders, which were exposed at just one part of the circumference for a few inches, where some sort of dust was pouring off them down a small ramp to be collected on a conveyor belt. Had Haiwei not explained about water-cleansing I would have had no idea what I was looking at, and despite the explanation I still didn’t understand most of what I saw. But the upshot was that this red, dusty material, was being bagged and sold as the water cleanser.
Generating water cleansing powder
Working the water-cleansing powder
We left, but not to go home - we visited another factory where it was pretty much the same thing except this time apparently the quality of the water cleanser was so high you drink the result. Previously the cleaned water was not potable but able to be useful for watering plants. I actually found this quite interesting but it didn’t stifle my tiredness as much as some other subjects might have. Finally we went for lunch, and it was a pretty good huoguo despite the warm weather. Haiwei suggested a couple of beers as he said we could get a sleep afterwards...I was in total agreement but he’d spent most of the journey here asleep already.
It still seems strange seeing European cars in China
Lunch should have given way to sleep...it didn't
But post-lunch there was no bed, just a car to the next factory. Only when we arrived I realised this wasn’t the car I started the morning in; it was the other boss’s, and actually had been since we left the first factory. So was Haiwei’s being left in Tiandong? Should I even bother asking?
Haiwei inspecting something that shouldn't be photographed
We finally got back to Pingguo soon after 4pm to a restaurant with three dead dogs strung up outside it. I was so tired by now it hardly seemed to register, but this was apparently where we were to eat dog later. I said I’d first go back and grab a nap which was met with disagreement and the advice that I should just stay around. But I held firm and insisted so the boss said he’d take me back. It wasn’t happening though so I went for a walk by myself until I got the inevitable call to come back. At least they deigned on bringing me home, but in the hour I spent there I didn’t get so much as a wink of sleep despite lying on the bed all the time.
Er...dinner
I suppose it would be the same if it were any other animal...or maybe not
And at 5.25pm I got the inevitable call to hurry back to the dog restaurant, and at least I could do it under my own steam. I had forgotten this was a working day for me and by now people in Europe were up, so I had to be sending IMs during the meal, for which I apologised, but I needn’t have as it’s pretty much accepted here whether work or not. The meal was very nice, but would still have been without the dog. I still haven’t come up with an appropriate word for dog meat though, but I daresay even if I do it won’t get into the Oxford English Dictionary any time soon.
It looks better cooked (and tastes better)
Aerating the wine
I don’t recall exactly what happened next, but I made an effort in the meal with Haiwei, his wife and second son, and a couple of other bosses, to partake in the wine and the good wishes, and by rights should have collapsed in bed at 8pm. But Advertising friend had pinged me to go to “sing song” and I have this stupid reflex reaction to accept just about any invitation that comes my way, so after I received the location information I made my way soon after 9.30pm. For once it was not a great idea...there are times when going to KTV is not advised and beinge exhausted and becoming ill is one of them. She apologised after a bit as she had to sort out some business for half an hour but during that time I made possibly the only good decision of the day and made my excuses and left. Of course I IM’d her to explain and I guess she was a tad sad but my excuses were genuine, and I hope turning up for a bit was better than not turning up at all.
