Haiwei meal

Up at 8am so logicked myself to ping pong even though I wasn't massively feeling like doing it. The Chinese (at least here) are well into sweating, like it's a really good thing to do, and I don't disagree with them in general. A good place to do this is around a table tennis table. I was hoping for a siesta but was pleasantly surprised when Yang Haiwei called me to go for lunch. Despite going for a few cups of tea first we did go before 1pm and were very reasonable with only four 500ml cans of 3.1% Li Quan beer between four blokes. I took the opportunity of asking if people were buying bitcoin here. Haiwei was not interested but the other bloke made it look like I'd tickled his funny bone. I said I was no expert by any means but was interested a bit, and he told me that A Wu recently had 5.5 BTC but had sold them. Based on the recent value I bet he wished he hadn't. But that's what it's all about - betting. Even if you don't buy any you're betting that it's too risky to. In fact, annoyingly, every decision you make in your life is a bet in some sense. In every sense actually. It's just a bit hard explaining that to your kids.

But I was really glad to have this bitcoin conversation. It brought a really international flavour to the conversation and we talked about volatility and inflation and I certainly learnt a few new words. I just felt a bit embarrassed that Haiwei was nothing to do with this conversation. I wanted to talk about the concept of money and how I'd explained scarcity, fungibility, portability, divisibility, etc to my kids during the course of a drive to school, which was much more than I'd learnt until a few months ago. But we could save that for another day.

After this nice meal I picked up the kids but they wanted to stay at A Xia's with mama for a bit. This fitted in with me and I managed just a small siesta between 5-6pm at home. At 7pm I went to Waipo's to pick up the kids to go to ping pong. Annoyingly they weren't that interested as I was playing some other friends and they wanted to play me. There is a group of kids that practise every evening at 7.30 but my kids refuse to join in. I'd really love that they do but unless we're here long-term won't force it.

Yuck! Pic from the back of our dian dong che

I left them to shower at 10.30 as Tan was home, and I had a friend calling me to go out to have some bbq. Although I thought it was at the place we'd met last year it was actually just at the bottom of our place, and eventually I got there at nearly 11.30pm. But it was great bbq and I managed to force myself in to pay too; 200 kuai for five of us including cai mai'ing with the boss for quite a time. Bargain!

Coffee and sing song

A reasonable 8am wakeup meant I was not too tired yet not in the mood for ping pong. Instead I decided I'd practise the guitar. Tan has bought a full-size and three quarter-size violin for her and Xixi to practise with, and I felt the need to do the same with my Pingguo guitar I've had since 2008 when I bought it for 300 kuai. It's not a classic work of art but at least it gives me the chance to keep my fingers in motion. But I've been neglecting the guitar in recent months in favour of the piano and after a couple of hours had blisters on my left hand. I had bought new strings three years ago but hadn't put them on so spent half an hour changing them and appreciated the new tangy sound, but it didn't disguise the fact that it's not a great instrument. I was sorely tempted to go out and buy one for 1000 kuai (which would still have been half the price I bought my one for in England in the 90s) but couldn't really justify it. I spent almost all the two hours practising picking the strings for Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall by Paul Simon and respect him more now as a guitar guru than I ever have. It's so much harder, yet so much more rewarding, than simply strumming the chords.

I picked up the kids in the afternoon from A Xia's but I'd remembered to take a pair of linen trousers with me as after being washed they were more creased than the foreskin of a particularly unlucky buddha. A Xia wasn't there, but the woman who was tried in vain to remove the creases by using a vertical steam iron. It was obvious to me after a minute that it wasn't going to work, and I suggested this to her, but it seemed she had nothing better to do so spent the next 15 minutes attempting to pull out the obstinate creases that were not having any of it. Eventually I cracked and just said thank you that's so much better than I expected, and she let me leave a couple of minutes later. Sometimes you just need a normal iron.

The Li Kun called me on Weixin to invite me to drink coffee with a camping friend. At least that's how I understood what he said. As it transpired I was right. I was with the kids and told them we'd probably be going to a posh coffee place with air-con but we ended up in a small shop with a fan. To be fair it was ok. The owner made some pretty good coffee and after a cup I was buzzing and told him I literally couldn't drink any more. Then he told me about some German bloke who'd come around some time before whose wife was also from Pingguo...I wasn't happy but tried not to let it show. So not only are there a couple of African teachers here, but now and again there is a German...so much for being the only gay in the village...the only comfort I got was that he said the German didn't speak Chinese.

There was a swegway at the shop but that only lent a few minutes of fun for the kids before they got bored, so I told Li Kun that I'd have to go. I would dearly have loved to go for a siesta but the coffee put paid to that. So although I got home at 3ish I had no chance of a sleep.

I dropped the kids of at Waipo's then got a message to go to Yang Haiwei's family at 4.15. I was expecting to go there at 5pm and at the time was still hoping for half an hour's kip but that went out of the window. I decided to go and deal with the tiredness. At least this year, whether it's the VPN or WeiXin is now using another map provider, I got a clear view of how to get to the house. However that didn't stop a good 10 minutes on the phone describing exactly where they were...we only really found each other when we were within literally shouting distance and I saw Haiwei on a balcony above....

I was feeling a bit queesy at Haiwei's family's house, and genuinely thought about excusing myself and going home, but then I though about how many people I'd potentially upset, so made a manly effort to join in in all things. It took a long time before the meal during which I was prising out English words to speak with Haiwei's son and a couple of his friends. This continued into the meal but I was still quite good and managed not to drink that much. Haiwei had said he'd bring a guitar as last night we'd been talking about Sounds of Silence and The Boxer, but luckily that didn't turn up. Despite my dicky stomach I did manage to eat some of the food although it was nearly all fish, until some beef jerky came around which I found easier to digest.

I made my excuses to leave but Haiwei said we'd meet up in a bit at a KTV place to sing song. I could hardly disagree as I'd barely drunk or eaten. He was taking his kids and I said I'd take mine and after a refreshing 45 minutes at our home took them out on the dian dong che to the new KTV place in the centre. KTV really isn't the same with kids, especially when they are singing kiddy songs. But I did cai ma with a couple of the dads...I lost the first eight in a row to one, then continued to beat him eight in a row in a mathematically unlikely scenario. I did have to sing The Boxer, though without guitar, plus Pengyou after I found the lyrics online. Tan's call before 11pm was a grateful excuse to leave to bring the kids home as they'd been stuck in their phones almost the entire time anyway.

A kiddy friendly sing song...

...though maybe not for these kids...