Fun and music in Tian Yang

Yet another 4am wake after a relatively early 1am sleep. Nothing for it, by 6.30 I was in the guangchang. Alhough I really wasn't in the mood for another long run I did make a slow start but as I got around to Deng Xiaoping hill I decided I'd go for more of a strength test and run up the steps there. Well my heart was in the right place but I barely made it a third of the way before my strength was sapped away under deluges of sweat and I had to walk the rest. It should be a good personal goal though, to actually jog up the entire west face of the hill one day. At the top I took one of the new walkways down after having done some stretches where I was clearly the least flexible, and least old, of anyone else.

The tiring steps up Deng Xiaoping hill

My co-walker

I plucked up the courage to attempt a quickish walk/jog up to the pagoda on the hill behind Deng Xiaoping but the bloke I'd been following became aware of my presence when some mates of his walking in the opposite direction pointed this out to him. So of course he started talking to me and we ended up walking a circuit of pagoda hill rather than jogging up it. He met a lady he knew and of course there were then photographs to be taken. He said he would do another circuit but I said I'd go to the top. No problem, he'd show me the path. Well actually we walked past two perfectly good looking branches of our circuit that looked like they'd go to the top but my friend said no...they were not good, for a reason I'll have to work out later - "tai di". By the time we got to a path that he deemed suitable we'd pretty much completed a second circuit anyway. I did get to the top in the end, and as I was enjoying the view a man came with a flute and a loudspeaker. He turned on some, I suppose, classic Chinese music, and then accompanied it in a rather pleasant manner. I wasn't sure what to do or say when I passed him on the way down from the top of the pagoda but he didn't give any expression when I caught his eye and I wondered if somehow I'd trespassed on his temporary property and I'd been hexed or something.

I decided I still didn't want to run but, as I'd not done it for a while, went to play ping pong at the old people's leisure centre. This provided over 90 minutes of further sweating but not before I'd gone home to change out of my first stinky top. By the time I got back surprisingly all were awake. The kids had had some crappy sweet stuff that I didn't want, so I cut a luscious dragonfire fruit and had that instead. Still insanely sweet but proably better for you.

Xixi said she could see something on my back and I saw the fruits of yesterday's horrid "massage"

Tan said she was about to go to Waipo's at 10.30, so I said I could take the kids to eat lunch in a bit - we still had to pick up the dian dong che from Ma Laoban's. But as I went to fill a bottle of water I noticed there was none left. So I called the water woman and said this time I wanted two large bottles instead of just replacing the one we have. Unfortunately I didn't realise the word for the large bottle was "tong" and I thought she said "dong", i.e, cold. As the bottle would be situated in the living room it made no sense for it to be cold, but I guessed the woman knew this so I cheated and handed the phone to Tan. That's when I realised my mistake, and really she was confirming the second bottle as it required a 40 kuai deposit. Of course Tan questioned why I wanted a second bottle. Because what happens if we run out of one and it's midnight? It took little over a week to run out of this one and we're not even in the house that much. Then she saw the point.

It was now 11.30 so we all went to Waipo's to find out there was not enough food, so I took yi ma's dian dong che out and the kids decided they wanted to get stuff from the dou jiang place to eat. I didn't really care as long as they ate. As the dou jiang place is mainly a breakfast place they were happy to see us as I guess what the don't sell goes to waste (they close for the day in the afternoon). The total for three of us came to 10 kuai - under 40p each for lunch.

We were due to go to Tian Yang later but I didn't know what time to messaged Yang Haiwei to ask. He called a little later to tell me he'd pick us up at 4pm. Great, the early lunch meant time for a kip while the kids stayed at Waipo's. I probably got to sleep at 1.30 and up again to my alarm at 3.30, then up again to a reset alarm at 3.45. I realised I needed to pack so set about it for the one night stay. Of course with various chargers this is a bit more than a five minute job and at 3.57pm Yang Haiwei called to say he was waiting for us downstairs. I asked him to give us five minutes and 10 more later we all boarded his blue car with the red seats that I remember from years ago.

It took a little over an hour to get to Tian Yang with Haiwei's wife and younger son. It's only 25k from Baise but there was a hold up as a lorry had turned over presumably due to the bit of rain that had fallen. When we arrived we went straight to Haiwei's office to drink tea. There were a couple of blokes there and over the next hour or so I was involved in deep conversations about stuff. It was rather tiring concentrating so much but at least it was tea and not beer. I learnt a view new words too: "wu liu" (logistics), "kai fa" (develop, as in software), "wen hua shui ping" (education level), and "jie du" (detoxify). They may seem a bit random but we were talking about their work, my work, and some cultural stuff where I made sure to state that educational level does not necessary determine your ability to do certain work, and is not a direct corollary of intelligence. The main bloke I was talking to, Li Zhong, seemed to take what I said very seriously and actually said he appreciated hearing my perspective. Then he started talking about traditional Chinese medicine, and how it didn't require skin grafts as with the traditional stuff it would grow back in 14 days (something to do with detoxification of the skin). Immediately my woo radar was tickled but I held myself back and limited my questioning to general open questions like how did it work? etc., instead of how did they test? Of course I didn't get a detailed answer (fair enough, he wasn't a quack) but I wasn't very well going to rip some skin off to test it.

Passing a not-very-nice-looking lorry on its side - the driver was on a stretcher

The the subject turned, as it so often has this year, to Brexit. I have a slight suspicion that this topic is huge in China too not just because it might herald greater trade ties between the two countries, but because it shows what happens when you allow the general population to make a very important decision, which is something that wouldn't happen here. Of course it shouldn't have happened in the UK either I think, but hey. It's pretty likely strengthened the way it is politically here, but I've never got so far in a political conversation to know. But if a certain things happens in the States in November I wonder if some places will start questioning some aspects of the democratic way.

Haiwei's wife (I really should know her name by now) then came to take the kids away from computer screens and away to eat with their son, while I went with some blokes for a manly meal. There's a rather pretty area in Tian Yang where the buildings are all made in the old style with curvy bits at the end of gutters and the like. They are also building new houses in this style, which is rather more attractive than the standard new builds. Our restaurant was in such a building. We went upstairs and one thing that was slightly unusual was that the beer arrived before the food. Immediately Yang Haiwei declared the Li Quan 7du as fake, and ordered the Snowflake brand instead. I of course asked how he knew, and this is where my Chinese suddenly takes a turn for the worse, or, more likely, the explanation is unclear. I asked again but when I got a second woolly response to the tune of lots of Li Quan here is fake, I decided not to labour the point, very unsatisfactorily.

Nice style of buildings in Tian Yang

Obviously fake Li Quan in the foreground

At least the Snowflake beer was 2.5% instead of 3.1%. Yet again I found myself questioning why sometimes a 7 degree beer is 3.1% yet an 8 degree beer is 2.5%. Yet the blokes talk about beers in terms of degrees, not percentage. However, when talking about spirits degrees does equal percentage. Nobody seems to give two hoots about this, yet it's vexed me for 13 years.

Boss Huang and Yang Haiwei engaged in cai ma battle

The meal was of course great, and the Snowflake gradually deepened the hues of the imbibers' faces until the boss stage, where the boss of the restaurant first came and toasted with us. For some reason, when someone important comes to a table to do a couple of gan beis, it's quite normal for him to be given a cellophane-wrapped bowl/plate/glass/tea cup/spoon and have it unwrapped for him (it is nearly always a him), only for it not to be used. A few minutes after the boss had left we repaid the compliment by going to the room where he was eating and gan beiing everyone there. Had it been Kronenburg we'd have been paralytic by now.

I knew the plan was to go and have bbq at some point. In fact the main reason for coming here was to taste the famous bbq that puts Pingguo in the shade apparently. But Haiwei said we were now going to sing song. It was a short drive away and we arrived in a nice looking pedestrian area with what I think are mostly bars on either side for a couple of hundred yards. We stopped at the first one and I saw a couple of blokes, one of whom looked particularly drunk. Then I gradually started to understand what "sing song" meant here. We weren't going to a KTV - rather this was a place where you sang to live music. What a bloody good idea! The blokes were a guitarist and a keyboard player (he who looked drunk), and Haiwei rifled through some pages of songs before choosing one. Both the musicians of course knew the music by heart and started playing, and Haiwei rendered a really good version of this song I didn't know. Somehow being outside and having real (if amplified) music really added to the occasion in way KTV could never do. I realised the keyboard player couldn't have been very drunk as he played some quite complex riffs.

The music street

Haiwei on left getting ready to sing

Haiwei's wife turned up with the kids, who were looking very happy and apparently had eaten ok, and ordered bbq where we were. Ah so this was singing and bbq together, with the kids too - excellent. And the kids tucked into a lot of the bbq as did I. I don't want to say it was better than Pingguo's but for someone who was still full from the meal I did manage to eat more than was necessary. The blokes were asking me to sing of course. Now if this had been KTV I might have been able to find an English song I knew, but here it wasn't the case, and I hadn't drunk enough to consider singing "Ni shi wo de mei gui hua" even if they knew it.

One of the blokes singing to the accompaniment of keyboard and to some extent a drum

But seeing the guitar had given me a hankering to play it. And after a couple more beers I messaged Andge to ask for an idea for what to sing. He had the great idea of Hey Jude, but I didn't know the chords. His great solution was to send a screenshot of them over WhatsApp (thankfully not yet blocked) but I didn't think I could be looking down at my phone all the time and what would happen when the screen locked? So I decided I'd try The Boxer. When I said I'd sing a song they showed my to the hotseat but hadn't banked on me playing an instrument as well, so they fetched the guitar and set up two microphones for some reason (the guitar was accoustic but plugged into an amp). It was actually quite fun to sing, though inexplicably I forgot the fifth verse and went straight into "In the clearing stands a boxer" after the second "lie la lie" but I don't think anyone noticed. Annoyingly, the most drunk bloke played the drums to the song and was quite out of sync much of the time, but again, no-one really cared; they got me up to sing and apparently really enjoyed it. Haiwei was telling me he known me all these years and never knew I could play the guitar.

Really poor and short recording of me doing The Boxer accompanied by even worse drums

After a few more beers and bbq it was 11pm and I decided it was late enough to take the kids back, so said goodbye to my chums and got a lift to Tian Yang International Hotel, where one of the blokes helped us check-in to our pre-ordered room. Luckily I'd had the forethought to take our passports as these were necessary. We had a nice executive suite and I got the kids showered and into bed not long after midnight and followed soon after.

Horrible "massage" and nice meal with teacher

Finally up at 9am for a change! Even if I wanted to I couldn't go to ping pong as I had the kids asleep in Leilei's room so I had a nice morning in until Ma Laoban called me to ask me for lunch again. Sure, why not? Well there are probably reasons why not but hell, Tan's away. As soon as I put the phone down it started ringing again and it was A Wu reminding me that we were to go out fishing with the bosses from yesterday. Oh shit, I'd forgotten, or never understood that. Well I told him I was taking the kids with Ma Laoban as it had been arranged (honest, if only just), and I think A Wu now understands he can't make my mind up for me so he hung up!

Ma Laoban came to our place to pick us up shortly after midday. We stopped at a new big hotel and we picked up police mate, who was looking decidedly the worse for wear. We then drove a little while outside Pingguo to a reservoir where we saw people swimming. Ma Laoban said we'd go swimming first but it happened to be a joke. Not an obvious one as I've been in similar situations where we really have (and I've not had trunks). There were a few people sitting by a table in the shade, and it became apparent they were from Bangxu and we were to eat with them.

Police mate sat in a deckchair and fell asleep until the food was served, but even then looked like a man more hungover than awake and although he was poured a beer none met his lips. He only managed a mouthful of food before going back to sleep again. I didn't want beer either but when one of the ladies offered to gan bei I realised it would be rude not to. Luckily it was of the 2.5% variety so I wasn't too worried. I managed to get the kids to eat some yumizhou so at least they weren't hungry and I had some of the local duck. The women were rather made up for what was otherwise a very informal outside meal in the humid heat - it was almost Sunday church attire. A few more beers later we went back but police mate was still not in great shape.

Some Bangxu ladies at the meal by the reservoir

Tan was back so I dropped off the kids with her at A Xia's and went to find a massage. Not because I really needed one but because I could and they are nice. Plus I planned on having forty winks as I hadn't planned on having beers. I found a place opposite A Hua's place, where Tan had warned me a few years ago I shouldn't go as there were prostitutes. It looked too unseedy for that, so I thought I'd take a chance. I asked if they did massages and of course they did, so was taken upstairs by a woman in a pink jumpsuit. I was brought into a small room where there was already a bloke lying down on his front with his trousers around his ankles and two sucker pump things on his buttocks. I hadn't bargained for this and was a little nervous, but at least I'd confirmed it wasn't a den of the sort of eniquity that Tan had warned of.

Horrible electric suction pads

But neither was it a massage that I was hankering after. I just wanted something that felt nice - I didn't care about how good it was for you. I idiotically told the woman that my back was in pain, in order to justify the massage in some absurdly English way, as if I couldn't have had one if it wasn't in pain. So she turned on some horrid sucking machine attached to some suckers that she attached to various parts of my back for a minute or so at a time. It hurt, but I'd made a rod for my own back in a semi literal way, and was now paying for it. Not only did it last over an hour, it was 130 kuai too, and I left hearing the woman get me to promise I'd call her before I come next time. I agreed, but it wasn't a total lie as there won't be a next time. Next time I'll be honest and just ask for a massage by someone's hands. 130 kuai for a machine massage indeed. And no chance for any shuteye either.

 Blood sucker

Tan called to say her ex-teacher had invited us to eat just outside Pingguo, and that we'd have to get a taxi there, but when I got to A Xia's she said someone would be picking us up. I don't mind this information, but it does make me take every word uttered with a pinch of salt, and it can be rather annoying. Most annoying is when you're told that so-and-so has invited you for a meal tomorrow evening, so when other people call you you say you're not free. Then, as if the most normal thing in the world, you're told you're not going now, or it's the next day, or it's somebody else inviting you. The only thing you can mostly trust is when someone arranges something for the actual day it is, which was the case today.

A bloke arrived around 5.30 to pick us up. Tan had asked me to save one of the duty-free bottles so I'd taken a whisky with me. We drove for 10 minutes and arrived at a rather picturesque setting with a pond, which was also deserted. The kids and I looked around for a bit to see our surroundings, while the driver found a room and turned on the air-con. 10 minutes later the teacher turned up with his wife and kid and apologies for being late. He gratefully received the red bag containing the whisky, but neglected to look inside (I wasn't too annoyed as it was quite cheap standard Famous Grouse or similar). Food and drink were ordered. I was in a funny situation where I didn't particularly want to drink, but teacher clearly did as he opend a bottle of bai jiu. Of course it would have been rude not to join him in at least some beer, and Tan understood this - I did make an effort to show it was 2.5% though. The food was plentiful and excellent, and the teacher good company, despite getting rather drunk after his third glass of 53% booze. He started going on about how his wife was a goddess, and stood by him while he changed his business etc.

Pretty place outside Pingguo where we ate

Tan, teacher, teacher's wife, some woman who drank beer

The kids with teacher's daughter and woman's daughter

Me with teacher and driver

A few photos were taken for good measure, and a woman joined us, and then the boss of the place. These two did share in the beer so at least I had someone else to gan bei with. Li Kun had been pinging me on WeChat to go and drink tea, and I'd kept responding that I'd hopefully have time after the meal. However, it was gone half eight before we finished and too late for tea. Instead, I took the kids to A Ni's for some juice. Lin Hong came to take the kids to the guangchang and A Ni grabbed me to go upstairs where there were at least half a dozen ladies in various states of intoxication. I just wasn't in the mood at all but performed a few gan beis before excusing myself using the kids' shower requirements when they got back as justification. I left to the order of coming back in a few minutes but I didn't want to and Tan certainly didn't want me to either, and got a reasonably earlyish night.