Early KTV

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.

Trial English lesson but clean bike stops working

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.