Last day in Pingguo 2011 and another temporary blackout

Normally this day is a panic-stricken few hours of getting our stuff sorted and leaving an almighty mess before getting a lift to Nanning airport. This year was a bit of an exception. The kids had slept at Waipo's place so Tan and I were able to get up a little later than normal, justified by the fact that we'd been up late last night after the karaoke packing bags. But it makes it so much nicer when you know that if you're leaving stuff behind it's in your own house rather than a relative's. I left a few more clothes and some toiletries that would have taken up some weight and will be of more value waiting for the next time we come. The same went for some of the kids' toys and even Tan's stuff. I did take a picture of some of my toiletries though, so I know what not to bring next time. Unfortunately, when it comes to clothes I've left the same ones there for a few years now and although they only get worn for a few weeks a year my photographs would lead people to believe I haven't refreshed my wardrobe much since coming to Pingguo.

A reminder of my toiletries

I actually had to pop into the local supermarket and took a pic of the booze section in case Awl or another friend might be interested

Well something typical had to happen on our last day, and it duly did. Although we have now been moved to "City Electricity" as opposed to "Country Electricity", the effect of a tropical storm this morning had some unwelcome effects on our plans. My first task was to take back the flat screen telly to Waipo's house, where we borrowed it from seven weeks ago. This would have been easy had it not been pissing down by the time I got onto the electric bike. I decided to wrap the tv in a couple of supermarket bags and it seemed to managed the journey to Waipo's even though I got soaked to the bone in lovely warm rain. I didn't stay long enough to actually test the tv, but this was my last time with Waipo so I gave her a genuinely loving hug. Although she is mostly skin and bones, she is now a bit used to this Westernism; she actually put her arms out to hug me before I did so to her. That is actually quite a profound change. I do think she likes me now.

So much for the tv. I had to drop some stuff off at A Hua's then get back via the market. But as soon as I arrived at the market the heavens truly opened and it was all I could do to find refuge by one of the market sellers and manage to keep a tiny amount of dryness on my tee-shirt. I knew it wasn't even midday, and we didn't have to leave till 3pm, so I just sat there chatting with the market seller, and realised that this was another of the things I love about being here. I was no longer just a white bloke, we were just talking about the seasonal variations of fruit, and how it affected business etc. It took nearly half an hour for the rain to die down but when it did I drove to A Hua's again since the rain had aborted my previous attempt. There I left my trusty electric steed, and said my goodbyes to A Hua and a couple of other lovely ladies.

Stuck in the rain but happy to be in the market place!

For the last time in 2011 I took a san lun che to get back home. I knew that we'd pretty much packed up all we needed.
I pressed the button on the lift to get me up to our 14th floor (13th in English) and promptly found out that the recent storm had screwed the electricity. Bugger. There was nothing for it; in the 30+ degree heat I walked up to our place and grabbed the heaviest bag (as Tan was taking a shower). It might have taken half an hour but I got the bugger down after losing two pints of sweat. By this time Lin Hong and her husband had arrived to help us. I explained about the lack of electricity so her husband A Zheng walked up with me to get the rest. Somehow, while I was upstairs the electricity came back on. That should have been great news except for the fact that I had started taking the second heaviest bag downstairs. I finally noticed that the electricity was back when I was on the eigtht floor, and gladly took the lift for the remainder of the trip...but I could have been told earlier I'm sure...

Finally the dreaded hour of departure arrived, and Lin Hong and her husband took us to Waipo's house where the kids were ready to go. I don't want to dwell on the journey but it was as it has been since 2003, with the "Don't drive tired" road signs on the way to the airport. And the airport was the same, with our best friends staying until we got past the security point. Really sad, as they are not just friends but actual relatives.

The flight to Beijing was on time and thankfully not too turbulent. I'd already ordered a taxi (at 40 quid I thought it was extortionate but a sign of the times), and we got to our shitty Beijing hotel (Forest Land hotel) around midnight. Unfortunately it was quite a dirty place, but after a long day we just slept (I would have preferred the advertised wifi). Not a great welcome to the capital city.

Last, lovely, family meal

I think this is just about the first weekday that the kids haven't gone to school. But of course they had other places to go to. So I was allowed some time to mull. I have been reading some rather worrying articles about world population recently, and how although it is possible to manage to feed everyone (through non-organic farming means), it isn't going to be tenable going forward. At least that's my understanding. It's one of the reasons I don't generally buy organic food, as it seems to be encouraging a market that, if it was the only way of producing food, would only be able to feed about half of the world's current population. If that is anything near the truth then I am justified in my avoidance of organic. Having said that, it may be that most of what I eat here is organic. If so that's great as it feeds the local population and we don't ship it half way across the world. Plus, here we have a policy that limits population.

What a sore point. Almost as a reaction I was against this. But being aware of, and living in two very different cultures, I have to at least analyse things I would otherwise dismiss out of hand. The one child policy is rather severe, but was probably born (no pun) out of a perceived necessity. I am now of the opinion that regulating population is a necessity. It is a hard thing to say, but now that we are aware of the impacts of what we do we have a responsibility to not totally screw things up for our future generations. If people really agree (as it seems they do) that fossil fuel pollution and other such man-made planet-endangering things are bad then it makes sense to not have as many people who are doing this to the planet. Although I recognise this as being a completely different reason from the Chinese policy, I have been thinking about what might be the best way. I don't want to have a blanket "one-child-unless-you-live-in-the-countryside-and-your-first-child-is-a-girl-or-disfigured" approach, but I'm thinking something more like "two-children-unless-both-are-the-same-sex-in-which-case-you-can-have-more-until-you-have-both-genders". I love having two kids and I know so very very well I'm lucky to have one of each. Just about every Chinese parent I know has said such nice things about us having had a boy and a girl, with no remorse about only having had one kid. I feel almost embarrassed. But I think my horrible algorithmic way of population control would be a good thing. I just can't stand the way that certain cultures (more like religions) emphasise the importance of breeding just so they can have more than the others.

For the evening meal we kept it a family affair. Waipo and Jiuma, having spent so much time with the kids outside of school (and allowing Tan and I to have our own lives with our own friends, and our own marital time together) were to make a rare venture out, along with Lin Hong and her daughter Tian Tian. A Heng and Ling Ming also came and us blokes shared a couple of beers and some nice food, and we had a genuinely nice family meal. Our last such for a long time.

Last family meal
Rather than be sad for the rest of the waking day, A Hua invited us to karaoke for a final time. Though it was a mainly girls' night out there were a couple of blokes so I managed a few last ganbei's of the year. But knowing that you're leaving the next day somewhat sobers you up and I got Tan home around 1amish. "Home" - I don't take that for granted here as it is more our own place than our abode in London.

KTV on last night in Pingguo 2011

Water scrolls as presents

We're leaving on Saturday so I needed to do some stuff. As I was coming back from taking the kids to school I remembered the local shop I like that sells sporting goods, toys and knick-knacks. I was particularly keen on getting some interesting scrolls that were designed to allow you to practise writing your characters. I had been surprised to see the shop owner writing with black ink on such a scroll with apparent disregard for where spillages might occur. Until, that was, I realised he was dipping his brush in water and it was the scroll itself that was displaying the characters in black. Not rocket science, but a great design anyway; the characters would fade away after a minute or two as the water dried up. I thought it would be an interesting and rather unique present to bring back (quite rare to find such a thing here) so I ended up buying ten of them at 15 kuai each. Until the shop owner bargained me down to 12 kuai a piece. Only in Pingguo have I ever encountered anti-bartering. Well, maybe it wasn't as I also bought ten calligraphy brushes at 4 to 6 kuai a piece.

Though I felt I should be in a rush to do things during my last 48 hours I didn't rush. I rather boringly chilled out and just lived. I picked up the kids at the usual time but it had changed - there were only a handful of kids there as most were now back in normal school. In fact I'd been told not to take them tomorrow as they'd be practically the only kids there. So I brought some cash and paid the teacher the princely sum of 1250 kuai or thereabouts for all the time Leilei and Xixi had been there. About 120 quid for the best part of two months - bargain!

I did make the effort to go to Ma Laoban's computer shop for a last time to say goodbye for another year. I was glad I did as I met a couple of other mates there, one of whom, Li Yi, brought me a thoughtful present of home made moon cakes. Unfortunately, moon cakes are rather heavy, so not good for travelling with - but they do make great presents for other Chinese.

Later on I went to the bbq by the guang chang to meet up with Yang Haiwei and his wife and friends. But it wasn't as fun as normal. He was rather the worse for wear again, and there was just this overhanging awareness that we were leaving soon. I bade my goodbyes around midnight, hoping earnestly that I would see them within ten or so months.

Last supper at the cool cave

The end is nigh. My other life has but a few days before it is extinguished for at least another year. I am gutted. But I'm blooming well going to invite my mates out for an evening with the lads. In true Pingguo style I waited until midday before ringing up A Wu, Uncle Yellow, Li Kun, Zhang Hongping and some others and inviting them to an evening out. I had decided on the Cool Cave - the place that Uncle Yellow had taken me to seven weeks ago. Interestingly, everyone I called answered and said they'd be there. Being Chinese, I knew I had to get there before the 6.30pm time I'd set. Luckily, I'd managed a quick siesta and picked up the kids from school and dumped them off so I was in good time. I had to stop off at the bank to get some cash out - something I've done for years without major problems. But today the bank ATM only seemed to want to give me 800 kuai. I tried to withdraw more and it decided to churn and churn before spitting out a message in Chinese to the effect that it was screwed. Luckily it gave me back my card. But I was concerned as I needed to pay for tonight, not to mention paying Lin Hong back for house stuff...

Waiting to eat at the Cool Cave

I didn't have time to worry though as as soon as (three "as"'s in four words - result) I got to the eating place by the cave I saw there was already A Wu and Boss Hu (Hu'me I hadn't actually invited), plus A Dong and a couple of others. Apparently I was late. Anyway, we walked up to the cave entrance. A Wu couldn't stop himself complaining about the place - how smelly it was, how dirty it was etc, but I knew he was just playing a game. In the ensuing quarter of an hour all the rest of my invitees arrived in good spirits and we sat down to be served with beers and promises that the food was on its way.

Enjoying the wait with a manly beer

And wasn't it worth the wait? We had a couple of platters of fried tiny prawns that you eat with the shells on, as many as you can get on a pair of chopsticks. That was followed by some sublime meaty thing that was gone within seconds. I ordered more of the same and everything was gulped down, as was the beer and the 10-12 of us had a better time than I could have hoped for. It was a truly blokeish evening. When the cook's wife came up with some friends to eat at the tables beside us we went over to pay our regards and raise a couple of glasses to them. Definitely one of my favourite Pingguo evenings!

One of my favourite evenings - good memories

I went to pay at around 9.30 and it was only 300 kuai. I had been expecting, but not hoping for, double that. I'd even borrowed 400 kuai from A Wu just in case. I decided to give an extra couple of hundred kuai to the chef as others would be staying after I left and I wanted to cover their beers.

At 10 o'clock ish we left and I had a call from Tan. She was eating zhou at the usual place near our house and I came to say hello but I was feeling the effects from the night so I took the kids home and bathed them and got them to bed before doing much the same to myself.

Driving like a boss

Just like yesterday until I picked the kids up. I could do this for donkeys’ years but only if I forced in at least an hour’s exercise every morning to cancel out a lazy late morning. But I know it won’t happen so it’s guilt free as it won’t last long.

After picking up Xixi I went to A Da's Waipo's house as Leilei had gone there with A Da apparently. I really like A Ni's parents - they may have a shrine to previous leaders downstairs in their garage but they are as loving grandparents as you will meet. Always a smile, and even bigger when Leilei comes around. He's accepted as a normal friend of A Da's and treated as such. When I came to check they were ok I fortunately had the opportunity to see A Ni's younger sister's one-year-old baby, who by all accounts is rather beautiful. I left their house a few minutes later regretting the fact that I had not spent a bit more time there like a few years ago when we went there for more than a few family-laden meals of 15-plus people. I get the impression that that is very important for them.

A Ni's sister, daughter, dad and mum - a genuinely lovely family

I went to the place where they changed the batteries for our dian dong che a few weeks back. They had said to come back one day before 6pm for a bite to eat and a glass of beer but today it seemed they were different people. I didn’t want to force myself so I went for a ride with Xixi instead. As happens, Waipo rang to ask where the kids were, so I took Xixi back to her then met up with A Wu at his office. He asked me in to have a couple of beers but I didn’t really fancy it so I had one anyway while he drank one and finished his work.

As the dian dong che didn’t have much dian, A Wu took me to some place where A Ni was having her face done. It ponged a bit inside, so we didn’t stay too long, but it transpired that I was to take his (now her) car, while he took his new one to a meeting.

So suddenly I was on my own in Pingguo in a blacked-out black saloon (sedan sounds better) coasting the streets by myself. I felt like a boss. I put the window down and put my left hand out (as it is an automatic). Then realised what a plonker I looked like so raised the window again. Despite being boss-like in my long black car, I didn’t really know what to do so I rang Tan to find she was having some bbq with Huang Chen. So I rolled up unexpected and parked the car next to them. If I had had shades I’d have been wearing them just to take them off as I got out of the car. As it was I just had to disembark coolly. Which was cool until I got to their table and realised I’d left the headlights on. It doesn’t look so cool going back and turning them off.

Anyway I had a bit of bbq with the girls. A Wu had said he would call me within 20 minutes but I didn’t expect that. But I did get a call from Uncle Yellow, my friend of five years. So I agreed to meet him, and did so outside Pingguo Middle School. I drove in the general direction of A Wu’s office and predictably got a call from him as we arrived – he was driving and going in the opposite direction. There was a bit of confusion but it ended up that I followed him as he was going to “drink tea” with A Da’s teacher.

So I’d taken Uncle Yellow on a bit of a wild goose chase, but I insisted that he come with me to drink tea as my guest. And it proved to be a very nice encounter. There was indeed a big tea table, around which were seated eight or so people, including three women - wives, judging by the ages. But I like it when women are around, it feels like it won’t just fall into a boozing session. How wrong was I? Yes, it was tea for the first 20 minutes. Then beer was ordered. Then A Wu got a few bottles of red wine delivered from the same place he previously got them from. I happily insisted that I wouldn’t touch the wine. A move justified by the fact that the ladies and gentlemen that did imbibe, also added ice cubes and slices of lemon, as though it were a cheap Spanish drink! “As though it were” or “as though it was”? Tan was asking me a similar question earlier today. Being a grammar nazi (lower case on purpose), as Lisa will tell me, this is a concerning point. I love our English language and I appreciate that it is an evolving beast, with generations far shorter than our human ones, thanks mainly to the Internet. But can you start a sentence with “But”? Yes, that’s become ok now. But can you say “as though it was”? That I just don’t know. I feel we’ve written and spoken it enough for it to be ok but it just leaves a slightly sour taste on my tongue. I think I should learn enough and become a Chinese grammar nazi – that would learn me.

Well A Da’s new teacher became rather drunk, as did a most of the nice people around the table. He went from saying he didn’t know how to cai ma, to challenging me at every opportunity, and almost liking losing. I can’t really see how this is advertising oneself as a teacher but bugger it I had a good time and everyone was very friendly and also took in Uncle Yellow as a good friend too which was very important to me. The ladies completed the unholy trinity by drinking cold red wine with ice cubes and slices of lemon and finally gan bei’ing their glasses with me. Sacre bleu!

Tea and beer and wine with A Da's new teacher and associates

Uncle Yellow left at 11pm and half an hour later I was flagging too, but A Wu said we needed to finish the alcohol before we left. I disagreed so did something I don’t normally do and stood up with my glass and proposed a toast as it was time to go. Thankfully, everyone seemed very happy to agree, and we all left within a minute. As we’d taken two cars I needed to drive back to a Wu’s office, which I wasn’t too thrilled with but the slowness of it made it a lot safer.

Fried bees for the first time in years...

Into the last week here but trying not to think about that. Did a normal school run as I was feeling a lot better – must have been another 24 hour bug. Got Tan some of her preferred “fen” for breakfast and she had it for lunch after we had a nice morning to ourselves.

As it won’t happen again for a long time, for lunch at home I enjoyed a couple of cold beers with some jiao zi from across the way, which led to a refreshing siesta before it was time to get the kids. This evening Xi Li had invited us to a meal. For a (refreshing) change this was not at Li Jia He Xian, but another restaurant, nearly as plush, near to A Wu’s office. Actually A Wu was in Nanning so couldn’t make it, but I was happy as for the first and probably only time this year they had my equal favourite: fried bees! Oh, I’ve been asking for this at every place we’ve been to, as we used to have it all the time before we were constrained to only coming here in the summer due to school holidays. They are a seasonal treat for September and October I understand.

On a similar note, the long yan (dragon eye) fruits are also drying up. Literally and figuratively. I waited until August until they were finally in the markets, and since then we’ve bought them on a regular basis. It almost goes without saying that if you go to someone’s house you bring a bag of fruit, and it is always welcomed – proven by the fact that it doesn’t last long. Now, but a score of days later it is pretty much the end of the season, but not the end of the long yans – you can now see them spread out on pavements and roads outside houses, in our car parks outside the building and in just about any cranny than is big enough and gets the sun, which is not difficult as most of the day it is directly above you. What they are doing is drying the inside of the fruit so that they will keep longer. They either sell them with the hard skin still on – looking like, but weighing much less than their fresher, fleshier counterparts, or shelled and ready to eat as an expensive treat.

This seasonal nature of eating, be it bees or dragon eyes, is a flashback to what it must have been like in Europe and the rest of the modernised world before we had cheap shipping and refrigeration. Although it means I can’t get my bees, or fresh mangoes, or fresh long yans when I want them, it does mean that when I do get them they are as fresh as the day they were picked, because they quite literally probably were. Ditto for so much of the food here. A lack of choice is something I am very willing to pay for the freshness of the food. Who knows? Maybe it is organic too….

Back at Xi Li’s meal, the restaurant actually had bees and I was enjoying them and the pi dan, but I already had rumblings from below. As Xixi was there I’d already visited the toilet a couple of times as she drinks the local orange juice like it might not be fashionable the next day. So I knew there was no tissue and the floor was very wet. And I was somewhat prepared when the signs came for an impending evacuation and although I made it in time I had forgotten how long it takes to remove a pair of long trousers and boxer shorts when you’re sweating. I suppose I could, like most Chinese, bring them down to knee level pre-squat and do my business, but I fear too much that something will spill over and spoil and soil my clothes. So off came everything below naval, and I had to balance my trousers and boxers on my flip flops to avoid wetness. I managed this just in time before an explosion I have no desire to recreate physically or mentally. Strangely, that’s all there was, and I only managed to wet the bottom of the left leg of my white trousers when putting them on again. I didn’t dare use my phone while squatting, unlike Andge, who two years ago managed the enviable feat of attaining three stars on Angry Birds on every level while squatting over a Chinese loo.

I felt like a new man upon my return, and was able to cai ma with A Dong and Lao Lin. And then another couple of blokes came in as the meal was ending and the womenfolk were leaving, and we had another couple of beers. Lu Hai rang me as we were leaving the meal to invite me to go out to eat “xiao ye”, meaning “night snack”. I told him I wasn’t sure as my stomach was dodgy and full. I had thought about going for a nice head wash instead as time was running out. But he is a good mate I have known since we stayed at his place in 2003, and I proposed to Tan there (not the most romantic of places in retrospect, but it was a fitting time for other reasons). So rather than riding home I stopped off at his salon where he was in the process of preparing some greens by the looks of things. That took about 20 minutes, during which he also managed to cut a customer’s hair, then he led me to the bbq place near the river where I actually haven’t been for a couple of years.

It’s a great thing that you can come down to a place that makes its money on the food it sells (rather than the drinks) and bring your own food. Lu Hai had brought a specialty I hadn’t had this year in raw fish, that you dip in vinegar flavoured with garlic, peanuts and other lovely stuff. I wasn’t at all hungry, and after the toiletry experience of an hour or so previously I didn’t want to tempt fate by basically daring my gut to project out its contents again, but I couldn’t resist the raw fish. Not only does it have a great taste, the texture is something to behold, and for me texture comes before taste in food.

What started out as five of us soon doubled as we brought a second table as you might do in a pub. Lots of Qi du was imbibed, but we also bought a lot of food from the bbq place we were sitting at, thus making the proprietor happy I suppose. I have asked the question before (on Awl’s behalf) about coming to a bbq place and bringing your own booze as I know Awl probably can’t do 3.1% beer, and apparently there is no problem at all – no corkage. But corkage does exist if you go to a bar and bring your own drink – I’ve never done that but I’d be interested in how much they charge.

One bloke I was chatting to (and apparently had drunk with before – a common, but embarrassing thing when you forget them), had a Nokia N8 and an iphone4. Such riches, he must realise that the former was for photos, and the latter for letting the wife play with. But no! He said that the iphone4 had the better camera. After weeks of research I could not let this lie! I explained that the 12Mp camera with professional lens and proper flash made pictures far superior that his iphone. He actually listened to my explanations of why, and would you Adam and Eve it he actually agreed! His opinion had been based on what he’d been told; he’d never printed a picture in his life. I was so happy to have met someone with an N8 and also to have told them about the wonders of its camera, I felt like the first Christian to have converted somebody in South America.

Eating raw fish with good friends

Later, after I forced myself to leave blaming a dodgy tummy and fatigue, I got home and realised that my explaining about the Nokia is an integral part of the human condition; we need to tell people how their lives can be better. If you are religious this is obvious. But if not, you still do the same in every breath you take. I think it’s impossible to avoid – you are always trying to advertise your way of life unless you are suicidal. Well maybe it’s not so black and white but I have a feeling it’s close.

More dodgy stomach but a cracking City win

I woke up feeling shit like last week. Dreadful “la du” and aches and pains all over. Tan had got up at 7am to go to her driving lesson, and Leilei had come into our bed during the night and was sleeping like a baby. I managed to find some paracetamol and aspirin capsules and downed a couple, but couldn’t get back to sleep, mainly as I felt chained to the toilet. When Tan returned she tried to get back to sleep as Leilei started to stir. This went on for a bit. Tan tapping away on QQ on her phone and Leilei eventually getting up. It took some effort, but once he was dressed I took him to Waipo to play and to put some shorts on as he had run out here.

I made it back without too much trouble but still found trouble sleeping, although reading some of the more scientific parts of “The Greatest Show on Earth” eventually helped me to a few moments of shuteye. But it wouldn’t be for long as I’d promised Leilei I’d call Su Xiaoli’s dad to ask if he could come over to play, which I did soon after lunch. It was nice to be able to leave him to play with her and grab a little more time to just do nothing and nurse my aching body, while falling in and out of dreamlike states where I felt able to see myself from the outside….

Of course I know it is because I is white. The attention that the kids and I are afforded is augmented by this fact. But I have made an effort in many other ways to blend in with the language and culture. And it’s nice to see and hear the kids do so too. From shy’uns during the first week they have blossomed in confidence and are happy to go off with other friends, chatting away sometimes using words I don’t understand. It makes the huge expense of the trip over here that much more bearable, and makes me appreciate how fortunate I am to have a boss who has allowed me to work from home in China for four weeks sandwiched between my holidays.

I was thinking of what I like about being here. Not just how I am treated, or the kids’ well-being, but just as a fly on the wall. I think it’s to do with being organic. Not in the sense of growing fruit for the middle class, but in the lack of human-written “rules” that govern life here. For example, for years before we had specific bins for recycling in the UK we had such bins in China. But it wasn’t because it was mandated, it was because stuff was really needed to be recycled as the core materials, like plastic, were too expensive to be thrown away. I suppose this is a little bit like the deposits we used to get back on Corona bottles in the 70s and 80s, presumably before glass became so cheap to manufacture it wasn’t worth returning it.

Oh...the memories...had these on my desk as a kid

Another “organic” thing I’m just becoming used to, and related to the former example, is littering. Say you just downed a delicious 4 kuai large watermelon juice but you can’t see a bin – what do you do? Well even if you see a bin you drop your plastic cup and straw on the ground because for sure there will be someone around soon to sweep it up and probably take it to be recycled. And if everyone were to put their stuff in the bin would that person still have a job?

An important thing for me is the driving behaviour. It is purely the logic of the pavement translated onto tarmac. Only because of the slow speeds can this happen, but driving is just like walking. Yes we generally drive on the right, and generally stop at red lights (at least more than used to happen). But fundamentally everyone drives at such slow speeds there is time to react to unexpected situations such as people walking straight in front of you without looking (one of whom could be your own child). I have never felt so unsafe crossing a road as the day after having arrived in the UK after having spent time in Pingguo. Having cars pass you at 30+ mph is very scary when you’re not used to it. A Wu explained that in Pingguo there aren’t as many cars as bigger places; therefore you don’t need to drive quickly to get to places. It sort of made sense, but it still seems that driving quicker would get you there quicker. But I’m glad to say it’s frowned upon here.

I’d arranged with Awl to watch the Spurs-City game together with a couple of beers as it was 8.30pm for me, but as the time wore around I still had no desire to imbibe anything other than water and sweet green tea. But the kids were out and so was Tan, and I did have one small sealed glass of “medicine alcohol”. To be honest I’d actually bought it earlier in the day after I’d left Leilei with Su Xiaoli. Despite feeling quite sick I’d gone to a normal shop and asked about this drink, demanding if it really did have medicinal qualities. “Of course”, came the answer from the shop keeper. I decided to refrain from asking about evidence and scientific studies – the medicinal value was probably the same as the medicinal content of a homoeopathic tablet, but at least it could be medicinal in another way.

So I managed to find a shaky stream of the match and managed to drink some of my medicine during it. What a corker! I’ve rarely seen us play so confidently and the 5-1 result was deserved! United needed to win by 5 goals to push us into 2nd so finally I would see City on top of the league…. Well, until a couple of hours later when United caned Arsenal 8-2 to claim top spot. I can’t really complain though….

Day trip to Nanning to waterworld

We (the ladies and their husbands) had agreed to go to Nanning on Sunday to a couple of places of interest. We’d been talking about it for weeks but finally got around to arranging it. But the plans changed last minute and it was now to be Saturday. I had told Tan I needed to watch the Spurs – City match on Sunday evening at 8.30pm, and it was something to do with that, plus the fact that A Hua had made up with her son after a couple of fractious weeks, when Tan had thoughtfully talked to him and got him to say sorry. Rather than wait till the next day, A Hua had changed her shift so we could all go together as families. Except A Wu, I haven’t heard from him since his binge drinking session – I think he is out of town.

So I had Leilei ready by 9am in preparation for Tan’s return from her driving lesson and we ended up getting Xixi and having breakfast together as she was late back. Somehow this transpired to be my fault and there were more calls to “hurry up!” while we were eating in the breakfast place. So I just said to pick us up from there, which they did, in A Xia’s car, a few minutes later. A touch of calm is all you need.

Just outside Pingguo we stopped off as A Dong had his car and a few others inside. We ended up with A Xia’s husband driving (seems the women don’t generally drive out of town), Leilei and I in the front passenger seat, Tan, Xixi, A Xia and their son Su in the back, with A Dong, A Hua, Nong Kaicheng, A Da and A Ni in the other car. As we moved onto the motorway I remembered I had to take out the seatbelt quieteners in order to put the actual seatbelts in. All modern cars have this annoying feature of beeping quicker and quicker if they are driven without front seatbelts attached, so this is the way around that while driving in town.

Qian mei met us in Nanning in her car with her daughter. First stop was Qingxiu Mountain. It is a mountain, but from what we saw it was more of a picturesque slopey walk through some rather nice wooden walkways whose shade made the heat bearable. There were plenty of things for the kids to climb on, and what would have been an even better assault course had it not been for the temperature. I thought it was pretty good value for 15 kuai per adult and 10 kuai for over 5s, and we could have spent a bit longer, but lunchtime was beckoning. We went to a restaurant and for a refreshing change ate in a big area with other members of the public. The speciality was slightly chilli fried duck, and very good it was too – with everyone fishing out the breast bits for me. Qian mei’s husband came for the meal but soon disappeared when we went to the highlight of the day – the Caribbean Water World. It was a tad pricy at 100 kuai for an adult and half that for kids but for that you get up to seven hours in the place and all the water rides are free. Well, they would have been if I had queued up for any. But two kids in such a place are a handful, especially when crowded, so we spent most of the time in the kiddy pools going on the small slides to the delight of Xixi, and, eventually Leilei.

Kids having a laugh on one of the many rocks in the Nanning mountain park

Xixi said she was milking the elephant

Xixi decided she wanted to attempt the assault course at 1pm in 40 degree heat. I love you too darling.

Baba and mama enjoying a rare moment together

They enjoyed the false beach with its imported sand, and the wave machine. I appreciated the way that the bracelet I wore, with my locker number, not only opened the locker like a hotel room so I could go and get the camera, but also you could use it to pay for food and drinks. Not that I needed to as we’d actually brought quite a lot of stuff ourselves. We had started at around 3.30pm, and finished just before 8pm, just after a round of tsunami on the false beach. The kids had had very little sleep, so I knew they would conk out in the car and this evening would be difficult.

Tan and Xixi having fun in the pool

Tan and Xixi looking adorable

Baba and Xixi looking...well not quite adorable...I need to remove the impending spare tyre soon...

As a parent of young children who are mostly out of their midday naps, you are very conscious of car journeys, indeed any time where they may sleep during the day as it can seriously affect the quality of your evening. Here, it’s ok as all the kids have a nap, and then stay up with family and friends late into the night, similar to Spain, but back home can be a nightmare. It’s something some people sometimes don’t think about when babysitting kids, and let them sleep at 4pm in the car, knowing they won’t have to be with them till midnight that night. I would understand people who avoid taking their kids in the car for journeys over a few minutes after lunch for this reason.

I managed to wake up Leilei after 45 minutes kip. He was ok, as Xiao Pan had booked a meal at Li Jian He Xian again (very late, at 9.30pm) and the boys would be there. But Xixi was grumpy and didn’t want to get up at all, so I ended up taking her to Jiuma and Waipo where she seemed happier. We ate a lot as we’d been swimming and hadn’t eaten for seven hours, then I took Leilei home where he eventually got to sleep at gone 12.30.

Last haircut with a fighting bird

True to Tan’s word the electricity went mid morning and I was grateful that I wasn’t working. I had showered last night in preparation for such a non-event, but was glad that Tan was going for an early driving lesson and therefore would take the kids to school afterwards. Don’t tell Tan but I actually half slept and half lazed in bed till gone midday. Well, it is a holiday and the kids are being taken care of, and the wife is out, so why not? I even started reading again. The book I’ve had on the go for a few months now (in fact it was one of the three books I bought for last year’s sojourn here) is “The Greatest Show on Earth”, by Richard Dawkins. It’s a lovely explanation of how natural selection works and you’d have to be quite moronic to not see this. On the plane over here Xixi wanted to see some pictures and this was the only book I had. She was absolutely transfixed by the pictures of the various stages of the foetus in the womb, from the fertilised egg to the four, then eight cells, eventually taking some sort of shape. I haven’t said anything other than that is what she and Leilei were once, in mummy’s tummy, but over the last few weeks she has begged me to get out these pictures to show her again and again. She still thinks it’s hysterical that she used to wee and eat through that umbilical cord attached to the placenta. Sometimes teaching your kids things is utterly rewarding!

As I had no need of a siesta I took the opportunity of going to Lu Hai’s for a haircut. Tan had expressed a preference for very short so who was I to argue? It would have been quicker to use a number 1 but Lu Hai always insists on cutting by hand as well as electric razor. By the time he’d finished I hardly had anything left on the back and sides as I hadn’t been keeping an eye on him. Rather, we’d been talking about his bird. I mean a real bird, in a cage. I forget the Chinese name and I certainly don’t know the English name but it is both the most beautiful singer and a great fighter, according to Lu Hai. He recently took it to a competition and it came third out of a hundred birds, and he won a few hundred kuai. Interestingly he had the song of the female version of the bird on his mobile, which he continued to play as we drank tea in his salon. I guess this was some way of getting the male excited, in order to make him sing more, or fight better. And then he proceeded to bring in another cage, this time covered, and said this was his wife. So he had been teasing the male with a female song, then brought in the actual female, but kept them on opposite sides of the room. I’d be livid! Anyway, despite the loud singing it was quite a plain looking brown bird that I ought to find the name of – he reckons good ones go for a few grand in Hong Kong where they bet a lot of money on the fighting.

Afterwards I did something I had been promising myself for weeks, climb up to a new pagoda I hadn’t seen before, situated on a mountain behind that with the statue of Mao Ze Deng. There was no obvious path and I had to negotiate piles of broken glass near an area that was being developed for new housing until I finally found the steps to the pagoda. It was rather tough in the humidity, but I’d brought some water, and the end result was worth it, affording a nice, new view of Pingguo from the East. And I’d burned up a fair few calories to boot.

View from the "other" pagoda - our block is the 2nd main one from left, guang chang in foreground

Tan spent most of the day out, but I was ok with the temperature in the house until I felt peckish at 5ish. I went to pick the kids up and this time took them and A Da to the Ming Dian hotel where the ladies were keeping cool. I munched on some dried beef and a couple of chicken’s feet (or was it chickens’ feet?), which kept the wolf from the door, and afterwards took all the kids to Waipo. I had some time to myself again, and went home.

Taking the kids back from school - room for a couple more!

One respectful thing they do when there is a planned electricity shortage is to enable the electricity (or generator) just for the lifts between 8-9am, 12-2.30pm, and around 6-7pm. This is solely for the workers who are lifting large amounts of cement and stones to the undecorated houses, of which there are still many in our building. I was aware of this and got the lift upstairs before 7pm.

As I was aware of my non-shrinking stomach I used the light of my phone to find the torch I’d recently bought to find my table tennis bat and a couple of bottles of water. Then started walking down the 14 flights of stairs before realising I’d forgotten to take off my flip flops and wear my trainers. I’ve played in flip flops before, and quickly changed to bare foot. Even then I felt I didn’t play to my normal ability. If I had reached the 7th floor I wouldn’t have bothered, but as it was I went back to the house to find some white socks and my trainers I bought here last year. It was much quicker and more comfortable to walk down to the bottom thus attired.

Although I could have walked it in three minutes I took the electric bike so as to use up a bit more battery before I charged it later. At the old folks’ youth centre it didn’t take more than five minutes before I was invited to play. I had a good warm-up session that suddenly turned into a game – first to three – with some old woman. I lost 3-1 but for some reason had to stay on as one of the masters had arrived and I suppose needed to warm up.

This bloke I have watched many times before and never sought to play. He is lean and nimble and holds his bat in a manner that makes you think if he were to hit anything slightly heavier than a ping pong ball it would drop to the ground. Anyway, I was pleased as punch that he deigned to spend any time at all with me. So we started a game. Normally this is my biggest problem as although I can smash a bit, and return smashes, I can’t serve or return serves for toffee. But he had not yet warmed up and I successfully lost the first game 11-7. I could have danced a victory jig not to have lost by more…..

The second game was more down to form…I was 5-1 down in a minute, but not really caring….feasting on my 7 previous points. Now I admit I wasn’t keeping score, but the woman who had just beaten me was – every point – I had just become deaf to her announcements, and was waiting for her to tell me when to swap sides after my defeat. Ok, something went awry. It took longer for me to be beaten than I expected, thanks to my new-found skills of being able to backhand smash and not fearing anyone. But suddenly, after a particularly nice scoop-smash of mine that I don’t mind admitting was very tasty, there were “whoops” abound as I shockingly realised that the reason we were changing ends was that I had won the final point. Yes, he must have been giving me some points….but it was such a great feeling please - let me have it.

I lost the next games 11-0 and 11-4 as if to prove the previous sentence but I think I earned some respect – and maybe the better players (i.e. those out of wheelchairs) will play me more in the future.


This wasn't the bloke I played but he's great to watch; he immediately adopts a defensive style, that more times that not ends up with him winning the point - not on this occasion though as the pillar comes to his opponent's aid

As if to justify my sweat of the previous two hours the electricity was back when I returned home, as I didn’t think I was capable of sweating anymore up 14 flights of stairs.

I hadn’t eaten, and despite my fatigue, took the bike out on its dead battery to meet Tan and her friends and Leilei for a bit of bbq before taking the son back and getting him showered and teethed and bedded. And that was it. One nice, full, fulfilling day.

Big bosses' meal

Up at a reasonably decadent 10am though it was a late last night. The kids seem to have moved to Er Jie’s house for the remainder of our time here. Er Jie was actually here for a couple of days earlier on in the week, and left her son Qiqi here. I bought some flatish white noodles for Tan on the way back from the school run but as I was hungry I had some while she was asleep. The electricity had come back while I was out but she didn’t arise until nearer midday and said she was going to eat with A Xia, so I ended up finishing the noodles for lunch…yum yum.

I was nearly tempted to eat another lunch with A Wu when he called at 12.15, but held off as I wanted to catch up on other things in the house, plus he had invited me to eat an evening meal at 5.30 and said it was very important! Then for no obvious reason (as the weather was fine but overcast) the electricity went again. It’s not so bad during the day as it’s not so hot we need air conditioning, but the main problem is that the water pressure goes so you can’t take a shower. Tan had taken the precaution of filling up two large buckets with water, and if necessary using that to wash, but try as I might I don’t cope too well with cold water.

So I was unwashed when I went to pick up the kids, and endured A Wu calling me a multitude of times telling me to hurry up. I dropped off the kids and proceeded to follow him as he sped through the streets at 25mph only to turn up at the wrong restaurant. I wonder if there’s an equivalent of “more haste less speed” here. One to look up.

When we got to the correct restaurant there were about a hundred people waiting outside, and lots of spent bangers smouldering. We entered an adjacent tea shop where we spent the next half an hour or so drinking pu er cha, and chatting with various bosses, who entered and left every few minutes. Apparently it was a wedding outside, but that was not where we were going. In fact our bosses' meal was in a large room next to the wedding hall. I estimate there were four score ten people there, a dozen of whom were the fairer sex.

Most people were already sitting down (I was guessing we were arriving fashionably late) and the tables were resplendent with food and alcohol, with red wine and “bai jiu” (spirits) among the ubiquitous Li Quan. As most meals do, it started with a lot of eating until the wolves were chased from their doors, then they got into the drinking. I still don’t know what exactly the occasion was, but the best I could find was that it was Yang Haiwei’s new factory opening celebration. I suppose that was cause to get drunk, as women and children apart, just about every bloke proceeded to gan bei everyone else, whether it be with bai jia, red wine or beer. The thoughtful young lady sat by me, (who I knew from having a meal with two years ago at the mango field in Tian Yang) went and got me a shot glass for her and my beers, meaning we didn’t have to down so much. This was a very good plan indeed, as we had to go around all the tables and gan bei till my tummy could take no more. I made the excuse of going to the toilet, and instead went for a little walk on the roof. It is very pleasant here as it is tiled a bit like a non-grassy garden, with plants and benches. It was funny to see two or three drunk men sat down together on one of the swing benches, arms around each other like lovers. I ended up talking to a mother and her three month old son, and remembered what it was like to have such a light individual in my arms again (but not tempted!).

At the big bosses' meal, A Wu on the right already looking a little tipsy

Back in the room I sat down with a couple of the old folks from the table tennis place. I ended up playing cai ma in the hope of slowing down the drinking but I didn’t have a good day at the office and ended up downing even quicker than before. I had to call it a day so after my second toilet visit I explained that I needed to look after the kids. I get away with this excuse. If I’d said the wife needed me they’d have grabbed my arms and made sure I stayed another few rounds….

At the big boss meal - the bloke next to me is a star table tennis player

Outside I saw A Wu in a state I hadn’t seen him before. He was like an archetypical drunk, swaying and laughing like a child. He was by his car, so I didn’t think twice before telling him I’d take him home. Thankfully, he was in full agreement and as I drove him back he was saying how much he loved me, his big brother, then putting down the window and screaming at the ladies. It dawned on me I didn’t know exactly where he lived, and I guessed he had probably forgotten too. So I rang A Ni and she said to come round to the bbq place by the guang chang, which I did, and found her waiting for me. She drove him home while I sat with Tan and we enjoyed some duck tongues together as I realised I hadn’t actually managed much to eat during the previous meal.

Tan explained that from early tomorrow morning till midnight we would once again be without electricity. I suppose on the bright side our bill will be smaller. Actually, the reason gave me some hope; the “mains” supply to our building was to be changed so that we would get “cheng shi dian wa” (city electricity) rather than “nong cun dian wa” (countryside electricity). Although I still don’t really understand exactly what this means, the difference should be that we don’t get cut off so much.

A Hua and A Xia arrived later to share some more bbq, so I was outnumbered and decided to go back to do some geeking while I could, and for a change again, did not wander out later for more bbq.

Police warning about suspicious IP traffic...

Up lateish due to late night, and this time Tan took the kids to school, while I wallowed into my study to pick up my work – it should be my last day today for two weeks but I’m sure stuff will happen… At least the electricity came back on around 10am.

While I was working in the morning Tan called to say the police had rung Ling Ming yesterday. Ling Ming had set up the Internet in the house while living here before we arrived. Apparently they had spotted a lot of IP phone traffic, and had asked him to stop! I must say I was pretty shocked as they must have been thinking I was a spy or something. Tan said I could go to the police station to explain, but I rather think it would be better to refrain from using the Sipgate software for dialing in to meetings – not such a big issue as it’s my last work day today.


For the fourth day or so in a row I was told we were invited to tea with friends. This time it was at a house rather than a restaurant and after a rather long wait (I’d got there by 6pm as demanded) we eventually sat down to eat at 7pm. During the meal a few blokes arrived and we had quite a few gan bei’s until I insisted that I go home due to meetings coming up. I could quite have happily stayed but I actually had quite a lot of work, in fact tonight was until 2am after which I didn’t even thing about going out, though I’m sure had I wanted to I could have found a few places….

Meal at a friends house, making more friends

Geeking with my Nokia N8

Another long day of work, interrupted with yet another evening meal at Li Jia He Xian! This time it was a “Big Sister” from Bang xu who invited us. Once again I needed to shower and pick up the kids first, and was called a few times to hurry up! I still don’t think they get it, that if you are on an electric bike coming back with your kids it takes more time to stop the bike and get your phone out to answer the “hurry up” call than to just keep driving and get there in the first place….

I forced myself to go out and get a bit of bbq in the evening as apart from the meal I had not really been outside today. But it felt forced, and I didn’t sit with others to eat or have a drink, and didn’t really want the bbq so I went home and put it in the fridge for tomorrow.

During a break from work in the evening I managed to update my phone – the Nokia N8 I got with financial assistance as part of my birthday present in April. I’d read a lot about this phone and the alternatives. Most important for me was having a decent camera/video camera, and although the N8 wins in this category, there are so many others in which it fails in comparison to an iphone 4 or Android. To me, what it boils down to is that if you want to benefit from a recent Nokia phone you need to be prepared to be geeky compared to an iphone, but that you will indeed reap benefits impossible with Apple’s offering. Nokia’s biggest asset, these days, seems to be its hardware, and indeed having a genuine flash on the phone was probably the tipping point for me. Not to mention the 12MP camera gives better results than my previous actual camera (and any other phone, I’m LED to believe). And in a few years time, when N8s and iphone 4s are discarded into the dustbin of history I’ll have better quality photos that will last a lot longer.

But the main reason I wanted to update was the the 30fps video recording that had been promised. I was disappointed to find that the video was still 25fps but after some searching found a beta update I could apply to the phone to get the 30fps. You really do have to be a geek to get stuff out of a Nokia phone these days. Another bugbear with me is that if you want to read or write in a language that Nokia doesn’t deign to give you in the firmware of the phone you bought, you have to break the warrantee and force a firmware from another country onto the phone. I’ve had to do that twice now just to read and write Chinese. Pathetic.

At night I wasn’t as sleepy as I should have been, and then a big storm blew around that kept me awake for a good hour or so. It was enjoyable just to watch the flashing sky and hear the deluge of rain that was coming down, so I did so for a good half an hour. And then, of course, the electricity went. So off with the computers, and as it was about 3am now I got to bed after opening one of our bedroom outside doors to let the sound of the rain, and, more importantly, some air infiltrate our room.

Lin Hong's 20th anniversary bank colleagues' meal and the local lingo

This time last year we were going home, but luckily we still have a week and a bit here. But I still have work for three days so it was back to the grindstone after taking the kids to school from Jiuma. So when Tan said she was going out for a meal with Lin Hong at 5.30pm I was fine with that as I prepared to pick up the kids. Then Lin Hong rang me to say I was coming too, and that they were ready to eat. I wasn’t sure about the veracity of that statement so I grabbed myself a shower before picking up the little ones and driving to the usual Li Jia He Xian restaurant where we’ve been so many times this and last year.

Only Lin Hong was there waiting for us in our private room that was the size of a large dining room and living room, complete with karaoke machine. At least these rooms are big enough so the kids can run around in between picking at the sunflower seeds. Two other ladies then arrived, and it was explained that this was a twenty year anniversary as these people all trained together in 1991. Lin Hong took out a photograph from that year, and I had to find the people that were in the room now. It was quite tricky and I only managed Tan on the second attempt. By now a few more people had turned up and I had to find them too…. The meal was great of course, and a welcome distraction from work. As it was a large table it had a motorised spinner to turn the inner table with the food on it. I calculated it took 1m50sec to make one revolution. Then I calculated I was the only person to have made such a calculation, except perhaps for the designer of the said table.

Leilei, Lin Hong, and Xixi about to have another nice meal

Sumptious meal with Tan's ex bank colleagues



They ordered my favourite pi dan, and I noticed that many people actually use spoons to pick them up as the consistency of the dark albumen does not lend itself to elevation by chopsticks. Although it didn’t stop me trying. I also tried to speak a little local language to the delight of those there except Tan, who said I should first learn Mandarin properly. I disagree. At most of the meals that I attend here people speak to each other in the local tongue, which is incomprehensible to me. At other times it is Pingguonese, which at least is a flavour of Mandarin, so I grab some of the meaning. Tan said me learning the local language would be like her learning Welsh. True in a sort of logical sense, but utterly false in a very important way: I am not Welsh, and she does not hear Welsh spoken when out in the UK. I win. I need to learn the local language.

Gu – I
Meng – you
Dei gun – good food
Gun gnai – eat lunch
Gun sou – eat tea
Gun lo – drink alcohol
Gun liu – gan bei
Mei ya gu duk wen Bang hee – my wife is from Bangxu
Gu bo lo – I don’t understand
Gu lo gwa – I see (understand)
Lim bit – duck tongue
Gno ack – breast (meat)
Dai lo! – expression like “oh!”
Nah lo zhan – xiong di (good mate)
Gun em gwa – chi bao le (I’m full)
Dong yuk – I’m hungry

After the meal I popped next door to the tea table bloke where I got mine from last year. The kids were telling me to “buy that one!” and pointing at the ones in excess of 6000 kuai. But I did fancy a solid wood stool, and as he said they were 100 kuai I said I’d have one. But not with the kids on the bike, so I took them to Jiuma’s before doing a little shopping and coming back to pick up a 120 kuai stool (a little bigger), which smells very pleasant.

Baba's corner along with matching stool

Black eggs, red tea, blue win

Despite my forced fasting I didn’t wake up early and famished, and even skipped breakfast, which wasn’t hard as it was getting on for midday by the time I actually properly surfaced. I didn’t even go for a proper lunch but bought a pack of Japanese “beans”, which are peanut-flavoured hard things and some fairly tasteless things the texture of skips, and they saw me through till teatime. I fancied watching the football again but Tan got a call and announced we’d been invited to eat by A Xia.

So off we went to the usual Li Jia He Xian again and had a sumptuous meal, this time with one of my favourite dishes, pi dan (black, translucent, boiled eggs). Afterwards, A Wu wanted to take us blokes to his office, but I wanted to invite them back to our house to drink tea, as we’d hardly had any visitors so far, and Biao ge (Xiao Pan’s husband) had thoughtfully given me a couple of boxes of red tea a few days ago.

Ladies - from left to right: A Xia, Xi Li, Tan, Qian mei, A Ni, A Hua and Xiao Pan

One of my favourite dishes - liang ban pi dan

So the ladies went off to chat and the blokes came back to our place. We did actually drink a lot of red tea. But it was interspersed with gin and lemonade, as I introduced my friends to this spirit. Despite their looks of disdain on first tasting it, they continued to down the third of a bottle that I had left, and I hardly had any at all. Biao ge even called his wife to come and bring another bottle of shui bi (lemonade). It was very nice and comfortable to see our house being used as a home with friends around, especially as it centred around my tea table. As 11pm drew close I turned on Awl’s ex-laptop with the broken screen that is now plugged into the tv and searched in vain for a decent stream of the Bolton – City match.

A Dong, Biao ge and A Wu making themselves at home

The lads enjoying some tea, among other assorted beverages

As it was late the other blokes left as they don’t quite share my passion for City, and I finally managed to find a good enough stream at half-time. An ok 3-2 win for us but could have made it easier – still I’ll take 6 points from the first two games anytime. It still felt early at 1am when the game was over so I justified a visit to the bbq place by the guang chang and ended up chatting with some blokes who were from Ku Nan I think. Then I took my bbq to the seafood place where I ended up sharing a bit and chatting to some other blokes with a few more bevs. Finally got home at gone 2.30am and decided to sleep in Leilei’s room as the two of them were once again with Jiuma.

Working on "ads" and cards with Ling Ming

What a joy to have a genuine lie-in. Tan took Leilei out at some time before 10am and I managed to get a bit more kip to catch up on what I lost during the week. When I finally got out of bed at nearly 1pm I didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt, and went outside to pick up a portion of jiao zi and a portion of bao zi. This time I also remembered to buy a bottle of soy sauce, as ours must be the only abode in China without one.

It was muggy outside. It’s been a strange last seven days weather-wise – not a day without rain but also one day so hot I had to move my laptops to the air-conditioned bedroom to work one evening. And then there was one evening where there was almost a chill in the air while taking the kids back from school. It is not like a couple of years ago when Andge and Ailun were here and every day was pure relentless heat. Whether it’s due to the weather, or some other reason, we already have long yan fruit in the market a few weeks before they were expected. These are my favourite, though this year the huang pi guo (yellow skinned fruit) are a close second.

Possibly due to the fruit, I’ve put on weight since we arrived over five weeks ago, so I skipped tea and waited for the Arsenal – Liverpool match to start at 7.45. I was going to use the “Ad Rocket” that Ling Ming had left in the house. Tan says that everyone who uses it notices a difference after one week at 30 minutes a day. To me it looks like a lazy man’s sit up machine as it has a spring back to help you back up again. Well, I had to give it a try to see how my “ads” would fare. But after no more than 5 minutes of lazy sit-ups I got a call from Waipo saying Leilei wanted to go home. So I slapped a tee-shirt onto my sweaty body and picked him up and started again. This time I managed 10 minutes with Leilei watching before I got a call from A Ni. This didn’t surprise me as Tan had been on her phone for over two hours yapping on. Actually it was A Da who called using his mum’s phone, asking if Leilei could come and play. Leilei’s eyes lit up and he grabbed a couple of his aotoman toy figures and we went to A Hua’s shop where we found most of the ladies. In fact they had all been trying to call Tan as they were waiting for her to go and eat bbq. I told them I’d go home and give her a slap, and they laughed a bit more than I was expecting.

"Ad Rocket" - sit-ups for the lazy

Back home I managed a few more minutes doing my ads, but Ling Ming had rung to ask me to come around to his house to eat and drink. I guess I can exercise any time so I told him I’d be around but after a bit as I needed to wash etc. I ended up getting there at 10pm, fairly famished after exercise and lack of food since midday. Ling Ming is a mean cook, so I was looking forward to it. I arrived at the same time as the beer deliverer. This is quite common here – you just pick up the phone and dial a beer as you would a pizza back home. He was delivering four crates of nine bottles but Ling Ming wouldn’t let me help carry them up the six flights of sweaty stairs. On the way I asked him how many people were there. “Eighteen”, he said, or at least I thought that’s what he said, as I could only count six including myself. There was food on the table, but we went to sit on the veranda to play cards. We played the ever-present drinking game “mo pai”. I finally understood the rules and it’s actually quite easy (I suppose it would have to be if it’s a drinking game).

After an hour it became obvious that they had already eaten and the table contained the leftovers. I pretended I needed to go to the loo and on the way back nicked a tasty prawn. On seeing this, Ling Ming brought the whole dish to the card table, along with some long yan and some huang pi guo, and I feasted on as many prawns as I could unshell in the next 15 minutes (about six). I knew I wasn’t going to get my fill here, but Tan had said they were going to two bbq places tonight and I aimed to meet them. I hit upon the sneaky plan of texting her to ask her to call me to come and pick up Leilei. But the text wouldn’t send. And neither could I make a phone call. I worked out I’d run out of credit, as I hadn’t received anything for a couple of hours either. So at 11pm I just said I needed to pick up Leilei, did a last gan bei and left the lads to continue their game.

As it was late I guessed Tan would be at the second bbq place by now so I drove the now nearly empty-batteried bike to the guang chang to find her. No such luck, but others who knew me were there and tried to get me to sit down with them. It was tempting, actually, but I thought I’d better see how Leilei was, so I drove down to the bottom of town to Tian Yang Po’s bbq, only to be told by her that the girls had just left. “What does ‘just left’ mean?” I asked, “10 minutes ago” was the reply. So back to the guang chang again, slower this time to find they certainly were not there. I could have done with credit in my phone at this time, and asked one of the women there if there was anywhere I could top up at this time of night. “No”, was the decisive reply.

But I was trapped – two women who recognised me called out my name, and then Yang Haiwei saw I was there and called me over where he was sitting with his wife and new baby, plus about three other women. I only stayed for 15 minutes as Haiwei was pissed and I couldn’t really be bothered. But I was starving and did take a little bit of their fei niu bbq before heading home.

Where I found Tan in a facemask in bed. Apparently they’d had enough to eat at Tian Yang Po’s so came home, and Leilei had gone to sleep at Waipo’s. I didn’t fancy going back again to the bbq place to get called over by all and sundry but I did just remember to go outside to charge up the bike. Unfortunately I once again left the keys in the bike but didn’t have the energy to go and pick them up – it’s not the first time I’ve done that, and the bike is under the watchful eyes of the security guard who isn’t always asleep.

Luckily I found a bit of chilli tofu in the cupboard and finished that in order to keep the wolf from the door for the night, and watched some of the Chelsea – West Brom game...unlucky West Brom, lost 2-1 again after going ahead, same as with Man U last week.

词汇 – Cíhuì - vocabulary
睡懒觉 – Shuìlǎnjiào – lie-in
感到内疚 - Gǎndào nèijiù – to feel guilty
幸亏 – Xìngkuī – luckily
面膜 – Miànmó – facemask
勇敢 – Yǒnggǎn - brave

Biting my lip not asking questions

As Xixi stayed with Jiuma I took a lazy Leilei there at 9.30 on foot again as Tan had taken the bike again. Actually, she happened to be there because for some reason the instructor hadn’t turned up. This is not the first time; last week she found there wasn’t a lesson because he was having his car serviced. I try to force myself not to ask questions in these situations, but I was bursting to ask “Why didn’t he call you/you him?” “Had you actually planned the lesson for 9am?”. But I think it all boils down, yet again, to how people’s time is cheap here; all it was was Tan’s wasted time (and getting up earlier than necessary). In the UK that is one of the worst things you can do, and would certainly lose you business. It is also the hardest thing I find adjusting to living over here.

Well, her loss was my gain of the dian dong che so I took the kids to school (Xixi’s turn at the front) and got back to another productive morning’s work. For lunch, rather than eat more jiao zi I went for a walk to find somewhere to eat out and ended up having rice and sweet sausage with bamboo washed down with sweetish herbal tea. A Wu had called before my pot had arrived and told me to leave it and come to eat goose with him. I thought about it but decided I needed to get back to work soon, and the goose could wait for another day.

Then Tan rang as I was walking back to say she was going to eat goose with A Ni and A Wu anyway. If it had been the weekend I would have come along for a second lunch, but I declined again and went home to tempt a siesta. Tan also came back, and we beckoned a siesta, but it didn’t want to happen, thanks in part to Tan not putting her phone on silent and receiving a call from A Xia about house buying. Apparently her husband’s uncle (already sounding dodgy) works for a building company that is currently building a new complex somewhere just North East of Pingguo, I guess half a mile or more away. Tan said we could “buy” a place there, or rather he could and we could pay him back over four or five years. There is some sense in this, in that property is a good investment, though I’m not sure we have enough cash to do it, and there are the various legal questions that I have over ownership etc that some people seem happy to ignore (until something goes wrong).

So I said we could have a look over the weekend. I’m also not so keen on the area; it means you really need a means of transport to get into town, something that you don’t need living where we are now. I think the main reason Tan is interested is that A Xia and A Ni are buying properties there.

I also learnt why apparently we suffered from electricity cuts recently, and not other places close by. Apparently we are served by “country electricity” and other places by “town electricity”. The town variety takes precedence over country in times of need, which is why country sometimes gets turned off. That makes a modicum of sense, but just leaves more and more questions that if I were to have asked would have just turned into an argument. So I didn’t ask, but changed the subject to something more interesting….

Refreshed, though not through sleep, I made a coffee and worked through the rest of the day until 6pm when we were due to eat with A Wu and some friends. Xixi was at home after I’d picked her up, but Leilei was with A Da again – Tan and I had allowed him to go home with A Da’s Waipo where he could stay the night. So Xixi, Tan, and I got on the dian dong che and drove the one minute to the restaurant, next door to where we ate tea yesterday. We’ve worked out a better system for Tan and I being on the bike together; instead of Tan behind with her arms around me, I sit at the back with Tan sitting in front of me, this time with Xixi perched in front of her. It’s more practical for everyone but I think we get even more stares that way (I am still doing the driving though).

There was a Nanning-based, Guilin friend at the meal, which also comprised A Wu’s Sechuan friend and his wife, A Hua and A Ni. Unsurprisingly the Guilin friend worked at a bank in the loans department. A Wu had brought three bottles of cool red wine – the same brand as we’d had before. Again, after a slow start, we managed to finish them off by the end of the meal, but the women did have some too. I had invited Chen Hong (or “Brandy” as he likes to be known) to eat something at the Bei Hai seafood place tonight, but as it was barely 8pm we decided to play pool.

I didn’t play that well but beat A Wu twice (the first time I should have won 20 kuai and the second time was double or quits but I never saw any money). I also beat the Guilin bloke before we decided to leave around half 9. A Wu’s VIP card had run out of money, so I paid 100 kuai for the 29 kuai we were charged. I didn’t receive any change as A Wu asked it to be put on the card, and then gave me the card as a “present”. Coupled with the 60 kuai I should have won at the pool I made a fair old loss but it was a good laugh and I suppose I did have a free meal.

I had invited Mr Rong, the Guilin friend based in Nanning, to eat out with us tonight, but he had explained he needed to get a taxi back home. So I was not totally surprised when on the way to the seafood place, instead of dropping him off at the taxi rank, we stopped at the Pingguo International Hotel where A Wu had arranged a room for him. While waiting for him to have a wee, I got out of the back and into the driving seat of his brand new Camry. It was indeed comfortable to drive, and the rear-facing camera quite an interesting experience when backing up in the dark. A Wu got back and just sat in the back seat, which was my cue to drive us to the seafood place, which I did quite uneventfully as I did not want to take any chances bruising his new set of wheels.

I’d also called Boss Hu, who turned up 15 minutes later, and eventually Brandy turned up with a couple of mates too. Around the table we had Boss Hu, A Wu, Sechuan friend, two of Brandy’s friends, then Brandy himself, Mr Rong and me. We didn’t have an awful lot to eat, but there were three portions of prawns, including the fried variety that you can eat the shell of, plus some shell fish I had no idea of the name of. Much “Li Quan 7 du” was poured (the 3.1% variety, i.e. the more expensive one), and much gan bei’ing was done. Everyone was in particularly high spirits and I lost count of the number of bottles we got through until around midnight when Waipo rang to say that Leilei wanted to go home…. So much for staying the night at A Da’s Waipo’s…apparently A Da hadn’t shared a computer game so Leilei wanted to go back to his Waipo’s. Then he wanted to go home home so I picked him up, with Brandy giving us a lift in his car, and took him back to the seafood place for a few minutes so the blokes could see him. I then had a good excuse to leave, as I didn’t really want more fizz in me, and was feeling rather tipsy anyway. But I didn’t forget that it was me who had invited people, so I went to pay the boss’s wife. It was 430 kuai and embarrassingly I didn’t have enough as Tan had taken a ton from me earlier. In view of the relatively little food we’d consumed I thought it a little on the expensive side till I realised we’d had more dishes than I had counted, and more beer bottles than I could count. She wouldn’t accept more than 400 kuai anyway, and for 40 quid, keeping eight blokes entertained with food and drink for two hours is pretty good going – especially as we were eating outside.

It wasn’t hard to get Leilei to sleep as Tan was there, but he did take my place again. I was happy to take his bed tonight as I probably stank a bit. But I had the presence of mind to call BT as I’d arranged an engineer visit for Saturday, and my confirmation email had said they would turn up at our old address…. Why did it take such a long time on the phone? And then just to be cut off…. So I emailed them that I hoped they would turn up at the correct address because I would not be paying a callout charge.

Taking turns to sit at front

The kids had slept with Jiuma again last night, and as Tan had taken the bike to her driving lesson again I walked to Er Jie's house to pick them up. As it was already gone 10am Tan had finished her lesson and was there too, so I was able to take them to school on the bike. We had the daily squabble as to who is to go on the front. They seem to have selective memories as to whose turn it is as it's always both of their turns. So I decided it was Leilei, but Xixi could hold the security card and give it to the lady by the gate. Parenting requires great diplomatic skills with two of them. Heaven knows how you manage with three or more.

I prefer to have Xixi in the front between my legs where I can see her (and over her). Leilei is a tad tall now, but worse than that on a couple of occasions Xixi has been tired on the back and I've felt her hands lose their tightness around my waist as if she's dropping off. Literally.

Having skipped breakfast I bought a couple of portions of jiao zi from the local place at midday. I need to vary my lunchtime diet a bit when I'm not eating out. As I was sitting in the bog I received a call from Huang Chang, the cook/boss from the seafood place. He had simply called to apologise for the behaviour of some of the blokes last night. I told him there was no problem at all and I understand if people get a little excited sometimes, especially if it is there first time chatting with a foreigner. But it was very thoughtful of him to call me anyway.

Then it was work work work till teatime when we were invited to eat near Er Jie’s house just a couple of minutes away. The ladies and kids were there, plus A Wu and we had a pleasant meal of fish soup, something like chicken, and spicy noodles washed down with water rather than beer for a refreshing change. I got the kids to eat up and took them to Jiuma around the corner before more work work work until Waipo called me to ask me to take Leilei and A Da to A Da’s Waipo’s house as Leilei was going to stay there. I was ok with that so biked round and picked them up, leaving Xixi happy to stay there. We nearly got to A Da’s Waipo’s house near the school when Tan called to ask where we were and to tell me that there was no-one in his Waipo’s house (which I doubted). So we turned around and headed to the zhou-selling place near our house, where we found Tan, A Ni and A Xia at a table inside with a particularly drunk man smoking a fag in a cigarette holder.

It transpired that this bloke was Tan’s teacher in her middle school, though he didn’t look much older than mid-forties. He slurred some praises about how good a student Tan was and I smiled in agreement but really had to leave as I had a meeting in five minutes. Even had I not had a meeting I would have invented one as it was uncomfortable being with this bloke spewing smoke everywhere with kids around. As I left I saw him drop his cigarette holder on the table probably spilling ash into the zhou. I IM’d Tan to come home soon as I didn’t want her in this bloke’s company, and she actually came home with Leilei not so long after.

Finally finished work at gone midnight, but I didn’t even feel like going for a bbq late snack tonight. Like head washes and massages, such luxuries should not become so common-place that they become…common.