Democracy and 4 evening meals

Although I woke up at 11am I felt shit and had a cold I blame on catching from Xiao Nong. I stayed in bed until she pinged me at 1pm to go for lunch. Fair enough we'd talked about lunch for a few days but either her or I had got up too late. I really wasn't in the mood but forced myself to wash my face and shave, and put on the nicely dry clothes from the drier Tan had only let me know about yesterday. Xiao Nong was waiting for me at her building's gate, but she had forgotten I'd left my dian dong che there last night. So it was slightly fun to have a go at her as normally she has a go at me for forgetting things.

I drove her to the centre of town where we went down to the underground mall and she got won tun and I had jiaozi. For some reason it was just a really nice experience despite me feeling hungover. We then went for a drink of cola and green tea. We were talking about irrational fears; she doesn't like insects and I don't like flying. She's never flown before, and only been as far away as Guangzhou. She didn't even understand "turbulence" in Mandarin and I had to explain it sometimes got bumpy. After that she said she'd never set foot in a plane. I explained that I use logic (and G&T) to get over it, and opened up the Flightradar24 app to show her how many planes were currently flying over China and how none of them would crash. Then she told me that seeing those aeroplane icons gave her trypophobia. What? I had to look it up - an aversion to the sight of irregular patterns. Well I suppose we had just both learnt a new word in our mother tongues.

She then invited me to eat with them again tonight and asked me what I liked to eat. Well, I'm quite partial to the raw fish so she called the people who were at the market to get some. Then we went there ourselves and I had another hit of the sensory overload that is a market here. We met a mate at the market who was buying the food and I made my excuses to leave for a while before tea.

The first time I've seen "democracy" in Pingguo

So I had a little time to go home and take a shit on a proper toilet, and take a shower. I went to Nong's neighbour a bit before 6pm but really wasn't feeling well. They'd bought the raw fish for me so I forced myself to have some of it. And had to force the beer down too. Nong didn't drink for a while but then we started playing mo pai, which I'm getting used to but still don't know how to play properly. I managed till 8pm but A Wu had invited me out so I made my excuses and left.

Typical scene at Pingguo market

A Wu had just come back from Nanning and was with his family having a bite to eat so I joined him for a bit. Yet more food, including oysters, but he took family back then some other bloke came and when A Wu came back I took him to Pingguo International Hotel and we met a couple of other bosses for some boring beer. Then advertising friend Nong pinged me to meet up at the same place as last time so that was a fine excuse to make my excuses and leave. But A Wu reminded me that his Boss Zhou (as opposed to Uncle Yellow's Boss Zhou) had cooked and we were to go there later to eat. Oh.

So it was off to my third eating place of the evening and I spent a pleasant 45 minutes with Nong and muscle boss where I had two cups of you cha and very few strong Li Quan beers. I couldn't really get much more into my stomach though. Nong said if I needed an excuse to remove myself from company I didn't want to be with I didn't have to wait for her to ping me, which is nice to know, if a bit late. We tried to arrange a meet-up before I left and agreed Tuesday would probably be the best day. Whether that happens or not is probably 50/50.

At getting on for midnight I left for Boss Zhou's having remembered to bring the bottle of red wine I'd got from Sainsbury's a month back. Even Xixi recognised him as a decent bloke during the summer when we went for a meal there, so I wanted to give him a small token of appreciation for his company and food. Of course the table was full of drunk men and a couple of women, and of course I had to ganbei with most of them over the course of the next hour or so.

I noticed the beer tops are changing

Cute cats and meals with Xiao Nong and A Qiu

After last night's shenanigans I was up before the afternoon but didn't feel like eating and only managed a yoghurt. Very annoyingly the washing machine then refused to work; it would turn on then turn itself off again a few seconds later. I thought about calling Lin Hong to ask if I could wash my clothes at hers but wanted to check with Tan first if that was culturally acceptable. I recall being given towels as a wedding gift and Tan saying that could never be an acceptable gift in China, so I just thought washing clothes in someone else's house might be similar. But apparently it wasn't so I called her and she said to come round right away no problem. But then Tan called to ask what was wrong with the washing machine. I didn't know, but had intended to sort it out myself, or at least find someone to sort it by myself. Oh no, Tan would call Jiuma, who would find someone to come around. I thought about arguing but really with something as important as a washing machine I guess it's safer to be in someone else's hands. A couple of days ago Tan had also asked me to give Lin Hong's dad a red envelope with 200 kuai as he has dementia. I was about to sort it out but in the same phone call she told me in very definite terms I could not hand such an envelope to Lin Hong...it had to be hand delivered to her father. But Tan didn't know if they lived together or where he was so it could be an issue. 

A cute red-eyed cat I met while on a walk...

...and possibly a relative a few doors down

Then Tan told me I could use the second washing machine. The second washing machine? Why didn't I know about that? And then she said I could dry my clothes in the portable dryer in the back porch. Why didn't I know about that either? With the colder nights clothes are taking much longer to dry and I was starting to plan what I could wear and wash for the last few days. As I was looking for the second washing machine Jiuma called me to tell me if I wanted to use it I'd need to ensure the waste water pipe was plugged in and I'd need to turn on the water. That sounded a bit obvious but she was quite adamant and used the typical "Wo gen ni shuo!" - I am telling you! Then she told me someone would come round to fix the other one, so I needed to stay in. So anyway I plugged in the waste water pipe and turned on the water inlet and plugged in the electricity and said a little prayer. It turned on and started to move, which was a good sign, but when I checked the clothes a few minutes later they were perfectly dry. Oh, the water inlet had been on and I'd turned it off...finally it sprung into wet action.

Portable clothes drier? Why didn't I know about it? It works really well!

A Qiu rang me to remind me I was invited to eat with Tan's ex-colleagues at 6pm, and I pretended I'd remembered. So that was tea sorted. Then Xiao Nong pinged me to eat at her neighbour's at 5pm so I said I might be able to make it for a bit. I saw that the washing was a 64 minute cycle so hopefully the person would come to fix the washing machine before 5pm. But the clothes were just about finished when Jiuma rang to said the person would be around in 5 minutes and I should wait on the balcony for him.

In one of those really annoying moments, the bloke turned up and after stuffing a stone under the washing machine to make it stable turned it on and it bloody worked. He said we'd need to put in a load of clothes to make it work but I only had the clothes I'd just washed and spun dry. So quite annoyingly I had to risk them becoming soaked again just to test the washing machine but of course it worked fine. Bloody bollocks, but at least I had the video to show him why it wasn't working before. I thought it might be because it wasn't stable before but he said that wasn't it. Well what could I do? We waited 20 minutes and had a decent chat during that time but clearly it was working fine so he said he had to charge a 50 kuai calling out fee which was more than fair enough and would have been 10x that in the UK.

Xiao Nong was pinging me to come over before my second meal so I told her I'd leave in a few minutes, so put out what clothes I hadn't just washed for a second time to dry. I ended up getting there at 5.43pm, fashionably late, and had some rather nice huo guo mushrooms and "snail and lamb hoof" dish. Apparently "ti" is the bottom half of the leg rather than "jiao" which is just the foot. I'm glad to be learning this level of detail.

Yang ti at Xiao Nong's neighbour's

At 6.15pm A Qiu rang to see where I was and to let me know how to get to the place we were to eat. So I made my excuses with Xiao Nong and her neighbours and went to buy 4 jin of oranges that aren't called oranges because the skin is a bit green. But in my opinion they are better than oranges as they aren't so sweet. And a few minutes later as I turned into the road a lady shouted at me to follow her. I guess even though she didn't know what I looked like there weren't too many white men turning left into her road. I followed her on her dian dong che for 150 metres as A Qiu had said in her message. I really could have done it on my own...

About to start a meal with A Qiu and other ex-colleagues of Tan

The meal was really good...I like the raw fish you dip in oil and vinegar, and A Qiu, as much as she likes to drink, is genuinely good-natured at heart. Uncle Yellow and Boss Zhou turned up a bit later, clearly the worse for wear, and I managed to drink much more slowly than usual, till 9pm when Xiao Nong and her friends were asking me to come back.

Blimey, it's just like this I guess. I got back to Xiao Nong's neighbour's and we had a couple of drinks before it was decided we would go to sing song. Sod it, I went along with it and did my usual "Pengyou" a couple of times. Then a bit later Xiao Nong said we would go to a disco place. Damn, I really don't like these places...I'm just too old, but for the sake of it I took a san lun che with her to the place I'd been to once in the summer. I bet Leilei and Nezha would have loved it (maybe they went there in the summer) but I don't like the objectification of women, however much they were being paid. I stayed maybe an hour then said I needed to get back, and thankfully someone sorted me out a didi che. So I got back before 3am and had a chat with Mat for a bit before sleep.