Jeepers up at 3am again but this time with the help of some philosophical podcasts (well scientifically-based) I managed to drowse on-and-off till 2pm, by which time when I roused and found the boys had already gone out. I ate a couple of boiled eggs I got from the supermarket yesterday then realised we were supposed to meet at the football stadium in under 3 hours. This turned into under 2 hours, when I remembered I still hadn't registered us. And now that the lovely drizzle had left for annoying heat, I was glad to see that one of our dian dong ches had apparently charged from 12.13 to 10.30. This was a big deal as yesterday it had stopped charging after 2 hours for some reason. I wish I knew the reason though as the other bike apparently stopped charging after 5 minutes which is well annoying.
I worked out how to use the washing machine (I think) and finally went to get some jiao zi after 3pm. The boys managed 1 1/2 portions each then we went to get a new key cut for 4 kuai and I left them to get some frozen coffee while I went home to get the passports to prepare my third attempt at registering ourselves. Well I found the moved police place without too much asking but when arrived was told that the registering place was now at a different office on the other side of town. But I had a dian dong che with dian and was happy to go there.
Yes it was the typical hour or so of fuss as the person didn't know what she was doing and to be fair I had to explain the difference between surname and first/middle name in English, and the address and phone number. But an hour later we were finally officially registered as living here.
The local football team Guangxi Pingguo Haliao has only been around for 3-4 seasons, moving from another Guangxi town to Pingguo a couple of years ago. I'd seen a couple of matches live on YouTube before and wasn't massively impressed. But this year they are back to playing in front of crowds again, and boy they certainly had a crowd. According to who you talk to you have to queue up at 3am or 5am to get tickets if you weren't quick enough to snap them up online. However, if you get a kit you can go in for free as a "cheerleader".
I'd checked this with Ling Ming before leaving for China and he confirmed this and got his wife Xiao Nong to order three of them in the biggest size, and he'd delivered them a couple of days ago. But somehow it just didn't add up. Wouldn't many people just buy a kit for 120 kuai rather than queue up in the early hours for a 30 kuai ticket? Moreover, apparently having the kit can get you in to all the games too.
But the problem was I just found out a couple of days from Tan that I would have to do an interview for the local tv. She'd even written a speech for me! The news about the interview was confirmed by Xiao Nong and I'd been practising the speech while doing the registering, but I still couldn't remember it. I decided I'd try to wing it and maybe have a little Dutch courage beforehand.
Well I got home in time to pick up my kit and the lads and I were fortunate enough to find a san lun che to make the journey more bearable. I was not wearing my top but when we got there it was a sea of red, with most people milling about in replica kits. We were a little disappointed to see that our kits were not replicas, although they were the right colour, and guessed they must be the "cheerleader" variety. Then something happened that hasn't happened for quite a while here - loads of people came over to us to have their photos taken with us (especially the boys). They were wallowing in the attention and giving the peace signs etc.
It was 5.45pm and we'd been told to be there by 5.30pm and to "hurry up!". So after watching the lion dance and more supporters chanting I video-called Ling Ming and he was still on his dian dong che on the way over. So much for "hurry up!" but no surprise either. When we met I was told that we'd queue up and that there would be no ticket, and that if we wanted at half time we could leave the stadium to get something to drink and then come back. So we started queueing but the boys were thirsty so I went to get a couple of bottles and of course Weixin stopped working for payments. So I used a 20 kuai note as backup but they didn't have the 12 kuai change but thought to scan me so they could send it to me and this time it randomly worked.
But by now the boys were past security (luckily handing the flick knives they'd bought earlier in the day to Ling Ming just before) so I handed the bottles over the wall and went to queue myself. As I had a mostly finished bottle of doctored lemonade I was asked to chuck the bottle away so I took a last swig and realised that handing the water to the boys a few minutes ago was probably a bit naughty.
There was over an hour to go till kick-off but almost all the "cheerleaders" were already in their two allocated sections in the stadium, with almost no-one else sitting there at all. In the end we clearly had been given tickets with seat numbers on but it seemed that these didn't need to be honoured. A friend I recognised came to us and found us three seats near the front, then a moment later told us as we were tall we'd sit higher up. With so much time to go I fancied a beer but it didn't look like they sold anything like that here. But the "cheerleaders" were in fine fettle, as if they'd been imbibing the whole afternoon. Huge flags were being waved but it did feel a little manufactured, something akin to the "ultras" in Italian football. One of the drapes had "Welcome to hell" written on it in English.
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| Two tall cheerleaders |
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| It was a full house |
I then I realised I'd had no interview, nor anything close to one. What was going to happen? Something after the (dry) match? Whatever, pretty much bang on the start whistle the clouds that had been threatening dumped 10 minutes of Guangxi juice on us, and barely anyone had an umbrella. I used my non-Guangxi top to shield some of it and it didn't dampen the spirits of us cheerleaders as we followed a couple of main guys with loudspeakers. They were screaming non-stop till half-time, and we barely sat for any of it. The second half was the same and although we won 2-1 it wasn't a great performance. It was the first time this year that I've seen westerners in Pingguo though (on the pitch).
Thankfully, no interview materialised after the match either, so Ling Ming took me to A Wu's Boss Zhou's place leaving the boys to find stuff for themselves. Eventually there was a late meal served, with extra beer to make up for lack of any at the match, and for some reason Boss Zhou ordered a takeaway portion of snails for me as he thought I wasn't eating enough.
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| Another boss meal |
