Bangxu ladies chat and meal at Boss Zhou's and very, very late night

I suppose getting up at 11am after seven hours' sleep isn't too bad. I just had one quandary - do I put the washing on now or later today? It's lovely and warm during the day but we don't get sunlight on the porch where the clothes hang to dry so it takes quite a long time for them to do so. Washing now would mean only washing one pair of trousers though so not very efficient. Sod it, I'd do it later.

Jiuma came at around 11.30am and asked me to take her to the train station. Fair enough, but I hadn't charged up the dian dong che so I'd have to take it easy. She noticed I'd forgotten to put on my helmet and made sure I did before we left. At the station I asked about tickets to Nanning airport as the other day I'd just bought a ticket to Shenzhen rather than take trains. Not that I like flying, but with the new train to the airport it makes it a lot less of a hassle. The lady showed me the trains I needed to take and the tiny cost but said she needed my passport to sell them to me. I said I had all the details plus a scan on my phone but she insisted that she needed to see the physical copy. Now if I were to buy them online they'd only need the passport info, but I thought better about arguing this point.

My friend Yang had pinged me to ask if I was up in order to go for a walk earlier, and I honestly said I'd just got up and was he about? But he was going back to Tiandong and has been inviting me to go for a while, so I said I'd see if I could make it tomorrow.

So it was just gone 1pm and I had a bit of time on my hands. After the ride to the train station I'd put the dian dong che on to charge so decided to go for a walk in the 24 degree sun as I wouldn't be able to in a couple of weeks. I went and had another portion of jiaozi, and afterwards decided on taking a longer route back home past the old market. I was just reaching there when I heard "Peng!", and I noticed Er jie and Lin Hong sitting down outside with two other Bangxu women I'd first met 20 years ago. Well there was nothing for it but to sit down with them and chat. I'd not really spoken much to Er jie in the summer and barely seen Lin Hong for years, so it was actually quite a comfortable session, although session seems a bit excessive a term for a chat.

Bumping into Er jie on the left and Lin Hong on the right and two other Bangxu ladies in the middle

Lin Hong insisted that she get me some red wine from her place and promptly disappeared for 15 minutes, coming back with two bottles of Chilean Merlot. Well at least I'd have something to bring to the meal with Uncle Yellow and Boss Zhou this evening. We chatted for about an hour or so about family and stuff, then Lin Hong said to come back tomorrow evening to the same place to eat something. I explained I was planning to go to Tiandong but checked the train times and the last one back was at 5.40pm so said I should have time.

Er jie left to go to Bangxu, and at getting on for 3pm I too left to go home. As I was walking I had to go past the Zhong yi shop, which I originally thought was a tea shop but in fact is a traditional Chinese medicine place. There were a couple of people there and told me to come in and drink tea. The next 40 minutes or so were quite difficult and a good test of my Mandarin. The woman was explaining how this Chinese therapy worked, and that if you come here for a session you won't have to take medicine. Then there was some more stuff about how they send their wares to over 100 countries around the world, and that each country has its own restrictions about what can be accepted. I wasn't quite sure what she meant as she had just said that they made people avoid medicine, so what was being exported wasn't clear. It would have been a real jar to try to understand each and every word so I made do with just getting the gist of it. There was no way I was going to ask about double-blind experiments etc. But I enjoyed the tea and the satsuma (or mandarin?) they shared with me...not too sweet but very refreshing, and I made my excuses as it was getting on for 3.30pm and I reckoned I'd need to get the washing done if I had any chance for clean and dry trousers for tomorrow.

I really should have done some IT security study, as has been my plan, but at 4pm I allowed myself to have a refreshing beer. Then Uncle Yellow pinged me to say where we'd be eating and to be there by 6pm, so I decided to have a nice walk in the guangchang and and sup up the remaining heat of the day. What a simple pleasure to be had from 20 minutes just walking about. But Uncle Yellow pinged me to ask if I wanted cold beer and I replied in the affirmative, even though at this time of year everyone else seems to be drinking white alcohol.

I grabbed a shower and was only 10 minutes late when I was pinged again to be asked where I was. On the way, at the traffic lights in the centre of town I saw a woman on a dian dong che get stopped by the police, who questioned her about her "hat" - I think they should have said "tou kuai" for helmet but I didn't stop long enough to see if she got a fine. I just noticed that she had a tiny tot sitting in front of her under a bag.

I remembered to bring the Lego London skyline for Uncle Yellow's family, so that was most of the presents gone. I made use of the two bottles of wine Lin Hong had given me as my gift to Boss Zhou, and it was appreciated if not used, as indeed everyone but myself and his younger brother was on the white alcohol. Although not at first of course. We spent a good 20 minutes stuffing ourselves and I particularly liked the pig's blood sausage. I'm pretty sure this is blood pudding in the UK but I've never felt like trying it before. There was also some lovely chicken and they saved the breast for me, and appreciated my attempts at the local lingo again. That alone probably justified the sneaky second beer I had before my shower.

From early on in the meal about five of the blokes (and other than Uncle Yellow's wife Xiao Chong they were all blokes) played mo pai, the card game where you have to choose two pairs that add up to 9 or something like that. I've tried so many times to get to the bottom of this game, and looked online too, but I think I'll just need to sit down with a sober person for 20 minutes to understand it properly. The problem is there is never a sober person playing it. So after a while and a few beers Boss Zhou challenged me to cai ma. Challenge accepted. We played for a few minutes and then I played with Uncle Yellow. Interestingly, he told me he hardly played cai ma any more. Apparently his new role means he can't afford to be seen doing silly stuff. And given that everyone has the means of taking and sharing a film now there are very few places that are safe. I knew exactly how he felt, although in my situation it's more that Tan will see what I'm up to. But given this was Boss Zhou's place we were relatively safe, so it was game on. But we also had some relatively serious conversations about family life, and how us in our middle age had the burden of elders and youngers to deal with. Not that it's a bad burden, but it's a burden nonetheless, but we also were very aware that we would also be a burden to our youngers in the not-too-distant future. Without trying to bring in politics too much I mentioned that it was probably harder for the generation who were only allowed one child, and indeed Uncle Yellow pointed to Boss Zhou on my left explaining that he indeed only had a single daughter (well she is married, so not single in that sense, and due to give birth soon so he'll be the first of my good friends to be a grandfather).

Wu ge (Zhang Hongping) turned up after an hour or two, as did a couple of women. This is so normal as to be expected. I had to cai ma with the ladies and did a reasonable job, and Wu ge chain-smoked as is his wont. Strangely (or not), Wu ge wasn't surprised to see me, as though I just turn up from time to time and he just bumped into me. Uncle Yellow had to leave at 9pm to do the kids, but sent a nice voice message from his son thanking me for the Lego present. I'd got through around 10 cans of 2.5% beer and was bloated so around 10pm I made my excuses and promised I'd drive carefully home.

Cai ma at Boss Zhou's place, Wu ge in the middle being poured bai jiu while playing mo pai

Fish skin that you dip in the huo guo for a few seconds then dip in oil. Healthy I imagine but not the nicest texture

It was getting on for 11pm, and I wanted an early night as was planning on getting the 10.40am train to Tiandong, so thought I'd pick up a couple of beers to help me sleep. Well that was the plan. I got to the shop and paid my 30 kuai for six cans, but the people opposite in the tea shop noticed me and told me to come over for a glass. Of course I did, but said I'd better not drink tea as wanted an early night, so of course they ordered a crate of beer and moved on to that. The boss (I think) of this place had pinged me during my evening meal to ask what I was up to. Well in fact I had been here earlier in the day, unexpectedly again, so this was my second visit. But it was rather easier than the afternoon session as I didn't have to learn about Chinese medicine.

Nice late glass of beer with the Zhong yi people in our living area

Finally at getting on for midnight I got home and was about to ping the lads for a chat but wouldn't you know it a friend sent me a picture of a glass of beer and asked me to go over. Well I don't have much time left so I was back on the dian dong che to the bar by the football stadium as I'd done a couple of times over the summer.

What I didn't quite expect was that the beer would still be pouring at 6.30am! I don't think I've been up drinking this late for over 30 years! After dropping off the said friend at 7am I finally got home and realised I would not be taking the train to Tiandong in just over three hours....

Presents for A Wu's family and another bad lift experience

Somehow I was up before 10am. I had to double check, but made it and grabbed a coffee. Apparently I'd got to sleep by 2am last night according to my watch. I thought I'd better check with A Wu if he was about and indeed he was so met him for lunch of duck breast noodles. His kids were there so I went home to pick up their Lego presents plus the London skyline for A Wu and his wife. They seemed to appreciate them, but you never really know. We then spent half an hour outside a bike shop where A Wu nearly got one for his son but it was slightly too big. Steadying him while he tried it out (his son Li Yun, not A Wu) brought me back to such days with my own kids. As all of my best friends here have much younger kids than me (mainly because the one child policy was dropped) it gives me a little bit more time to do those things I miss about being a father of youngsters, despite at the time just being tired all the time. It's the best of both worlds in a way, like walking someone else's dog but not having to look after it the rest of the time.

We're all just big kids really...

Li Yun testing a new bike - I thought it was fine but he ended up getting a slightly smaller model. But those couple of minutes stabilizing him really brought me back to doing it with Leilei and Xixi so many years ago...to a great extent I'm living my youth here...well not my youth but I feel about 12 years younger here... 

I left them saying we'd meet around 3.30pm for badminton. I sneakily took a last bit of gin and went shopping for some more quail eggs before the Las Vegas grand prix. I couldn't find the GP on the tv and streams were crap so I semi-followed it with a couple of beers, thinking as I'd got up relatively early I might get a siesta. But A Wu called at 3.30pm as we'd agreed and I said fair enough I'd go over to his place to play badminton.

It wasn't the easiest thing to do after three beers but at least it was only three, and it wasn't much more than 20 degrees outside. So we played a net-less 20 minutes of badminton followed by another 20 minutes of table tennis where I soundly beat him. Then he said he'd invite me for a meal this evening in a couple of hours. I did mention that I'd been invited out last night but it was already getting on for 5pm and I'd heard nothing about that, so said fair enough I'd grab a shower and come back at 6ish. But first I happened upon a group of kids with a cute kitten and just had to have a go. Then while getting ready to go I got a message from Uncle Yellow to ask if I had time to eat tomorrow evening with Boss Zhou. Well, yes I do thank you very much.

Cute kids and a kitten - couldn't resist chatting for a while

At 6.15pm I got back and had forgotten which was his block. But some of the kids from earlier were still there and we chatted for a bit. Then I walked around hoping to recognise somewhere but in fact I ended up recognising Li Kun and his wife and younger two kids. I guessed they'd been invited too, and indeed they had been and were looking for A Wu's block too. Apparently it was number 8 2A or something. Eventually we found it and got to his house. It was like nothing had really changed from the summer except we were to have huoguo. There were a few other people there and one bloke leapt up to introduce himself in English and I humoured him by trying to continue the conversation but that proved to be a bit tricky.

Li Kun's wife's top says "We should all be feminists" - I didn't bother to translate as I didn't really have an opinion

I was happy to see that the kids had built their Lego presents, and Li Yun (A Wu's son) was busy making the London skyline I'd got for his parents. It took him most of the evening but he was proud of his work as he should be. I'm glad I made the effort to get something a bit different from duty-free booze as presents this time.

Yi an getting through the London skyline...

...and the finished effort

Well the meal was fine of course, and the beer started to flow as did the white alcohol. Annoyingly, one bloke on the white alcohol got a little too drunk and started grabbing my hand and then kissing it. It's difficult to know how to react in such circumstances, so I sort of retracted my arm while smiling at the same time. I guess I had a glimpse as to how it can be as a woman receiving unwanted advances, and understand how much worse it can sometimes be for them.

We left around 11.30pm. Or rather we lift. There were eight of us blokes in the lift and suddenly the alarm went off. Oh bollocks. This happened for Leilei and I before and it wasn't a good experience as we were stuck between two floors. The alarm continued to go off and some phone calls were made but nothing seemed to be happening. I wasn't seriously worried about us falling down the 25 storeys, but then the pissed hand-kissing bloke went a bit mad and started kicking the wall of the lift. Really not cool, and he had to be restrained. For the next 20 minutes I was at least in contact with Mat and Andge back in Europe and they were giving me breathing advice. Finally, one of the blokes decided to use brute force to open the door, and it transpired we hadn't moved an inch and were still outside A Wu's house.

Horrid lift experience (again)

So we went in to get some water as you do. Still no sign of anyone from the lift company. Then we left again, straight back into the lift. I said I'd rather walk down the 25 floors but somehow got talked into getting back in and of course this time it worked fine.

So home was well gone midnight but I got pinged by a friend at 1.30am as I was chatting with Awl and Mat, so despite the fact I'd taken a melatonin and Phenergan I was out once again, this time to a place just next to the police place where I'd registered myself a couple of weeks ago. So yet more beer and a bit of cai ma but this time a loss meant a glass of beer. I managed to leave around 3am but some blokes in an eatery saw me and called me over. I think one of them knew me or Tan or something and I was somewhat forced to do a few more ganbeis until I said I really had to go. Finally back at 4am.

Another late one...