Photos and Haiwei and foot massage

I spent the best or worst part of the day and early afternoon in bed feeling sorry for myself then realised it was wasted time, though grateful for a few snoozes. I hadn't forgotten the photo woman said they'd be ready after midday so still not having eaten I rode down to her shop to pick them up. Well 95 kuai for six (not five) 12" photos doesn't seem so bad when they've been laminated. I was going to buy a frame for at least one of them but I thought I'd have to cut the excess laminate, plus frames are quite personal and sometimes it's best to let others choose them.

I proudly took the prints to Waipo's house and showed them to Tan. "Why is there no frame?" was the response. Duh. I didn't know where Waipo would want to put them so the lack of a frame gave her more girth. The problem is, and I should have known, if you give a woman, or a person, a choice, then suddenly they inherit some responsibility and therefore have a chance of making things wrong. It's like when I ask if Tan wants something from the supermarket and I feel the negative vibes; she didn't want to be asked as it would be somewhat her fault if she forgot something. Men around the world should understand this, or at least accept it: don't give certain people choices. We might like it (like options on a new vehicle) but for others it's a threat - they want decisions made for them and if they're wrong they have someone to blame other than themselves.

Waipo wanted us to stay for tea as normal and as we don't have much time here, but Yang Haiwei had invited me to tea at his mum's as his elder son was back for the weekend. By "the weekend" he meant his son was back for a couple of hours and would be going back for three lessons this Saturday evening and more tomorrow. I don't think Waipo had any food prepared anyway so I drove most of the way to where I went the other week and only needed the WeChat Location info for the last bit to check where I was. It wasn't quite the large family affair of last week, but not far off. I did my requisite talking in English with elder son, then his natural mum came to pick him up at 6.20 to go to school. The mate who lives on the 23rd floor that we visited the other day also came, along with his favourite Yanjing beer. In a way I didn't mind as it was 2.8% rather than 3.1% of the Li Quans, so nearly 10% weaker.

But the problem was this mate wanted to drink 50% faster. I tried stalling tactics but he was well aware this would likely be our last time having a beer together, so fair enough wanted to make the most out of it. Haiwei's elder brother's wife and Haiwei's wife spent a good half an hour cutting up bamboo into tiny slices to put in the freezer, then set upone a huge honeymelon. Then big brother's wife used a great battery-powered mixer to make honeymelon smoothies for the whole family. It only made about a glass and a half at a time but as it only took about 30 seconds it didn't matter. Of course I instantly wanted one and she said she'd got it at a supermarket for 68 kuai. My next shopping list had already started.

One of the blokes' sons really didn't want to go and let him know in no uncertain terms

I managed to get away from the meal at a reasonable hour and made an appointment to meet the advertising people "in about an hour". Great, I had 60 minutes free time so decided to go for a foot massage as one does when one has this time. I went to the place I'd been to before when looking for an excuse of an hour's free boozing. This time though, the bloke rather than the woman took me. It's not that the woman is in any way pretty, I just don't like blokes massaging me. Looking back I clearly could have asked for the woman to do it but being British I just accepted it was him. To be fair instead of starting on the feet he did the top half first while my feet soaked, before moving, err, down.

But even half way through this massage I got a message to say that the advertising people were already at the bbq place waiting for me and it was I who had invited them. So I embarrassedly told the massage bloke I had to go rather quickly and although he nodded in some sort of agreement he continued as normal. I knew A Wu wanted me to go to the bosses' office but I'd clearly not turned up. When he called I made the mistake of telling him where I was. A few minutes later a red-faced boss turned up in the massage place and held his hand up and said "no no no!". I knew he wanted me to go upstairs and drink beer but I said quite firmly I was staying here and would be there "later".

But when it had finished I went to the advertising place. Nothing felt less enticing than 11 bosses drinking except for 12 singers singing. It was only the boss and her "little sister", yes that was what she was introduced as but I had my doubts and enquired further. It transpired she was six years younger than the boss and not blood-related. I asked how they had played with each other for 30 years when the younger was clearly 26 years old, and they mumbled some sort of answer. But this time I wasn't having any of it - I mentioned a few examples of when A meant B etc in Pingguo and they just had to accept that sometimes they said things that weren't officially true. So I got them to confirm this and then made some statements like Pingguo is two hours from England and asked them if that was ok. I'd like to think they got the point but they probably thought I was pissed. Then the annoyingly good-looking boss/partner came and at least gave me an excuse to drink more than half a thimbleful of beer.

It was actually a rather sobre and nice evening and I'm glad I chose it above the bosses' office, though it was nearly 2am by the time I got home.

My new football kit

The other day I went to find somewhere to print a couple of the photos of Waipo and her daughters. I didn't want something really posh, just a decent 12" sized print that she could look back on. I found a suitable looking place, rather than going to the wedding photo place that would have cost 400 kuai and taken a week, but found that the boss wasn't in as s/he was eating. So I came back in the evening and indeed she was there and said she could do some nice photos but it would take 14 days. Well I barely had four, so instead of telling her what I wanted I told her how much time I had and she understood and said we could print some 12" photos. I had chosen three of the nice ones from when Da Jie was here, and ordered five prints, with a couple of copies, that would be ready for tomorrow. She asked me if I'd already beautified them and I sheepishly said I had, well I'd let Picasa do a little work on them as I knew Tan or her sisters would have done the same.

Later, despite still feeling quite ill with this cough, I decided to pay a visit to Zhang Hua. He was on his own watching the shop but still invited me in for a beer. The football kit had arrived! It even had the matching shorts, both with the number 27 adorned on them. I really hope he hadn't paid the 118 kuai that was on the price tag for the top, but didn't question. There was certainly no question of my paying for it anyway, at least not with money. Eventually his wife and other family-in-law came around so we had a couple more beers, but nothing excessive.

Zhang Hua is on the right, and second from the left is "Lao da" - I think he's the father-in-law and he certainly likes a drink - Zhang Hua's son is in my arms

Zhuang Hua and wife

I'm sure more happened today but quite possibly I spent the rest of the time in bed feeling a little ill.

Cough and cold and a Boss Huang meal

Despite the lack of sleep yesterday for some inexplicable, although probably explicable, reason I got up at 9.30am. I suppose it was related to the fact I've come down with a cough and a cold. At about 10am I found myself in the top of a big wheel. For some reason I was part of a small party allowed to have the first chance to look inside one of the capsules. But then a few more people came inside and it started moving, and I realised I was now part of the first time this big wheel would go. It was ok until we got near the bottom and then we were plunged into the sea/lake for the last quarter. Luckily the capsule didn't leak and I worked out it was waterproof for this reason, but on coming out of the water we suddenly went up very quickly, and it made me feel sick. This went on for at least another revolution before I woke up. This was quite close to another Chinese hallucination I'd had a few years ago, and I hope to consolidate the ideas of graffiti and underwater exploration for my first big wheel - maybe I should crowdfund it.

Due to the weirdness of lack of sleep I remained in bed for more time that would be acceptable if I was working or had to look after kids. It's at these times when having a reasonably large phone really pays for itself; it wasn't much - mainly reading some Guardian articles with comments and theregister.co.uk - but it helped wile the time away as I coughed up phlegm.

Then Lu Wen called me to check about the boss meal. Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that - I'd told him that yesterday would be ok but had rearranged Baksec Zhai only to be told he couldn't make it. So really it should have happened yesterday, but what the heck? Could I make it tonight? I wasn't feeling particularly up for it but of course I said yes. Tan was invited too but wasn't that interested, so I took the kids to Li Jia He Xiang where I thought the English teacher's husband had invited us. But despite my WeChat conversation with Lu Wen, who said it was "the bloke who spoke a little English" I had got it totally wrong.

The bloke who had invited us was one of those from the other night where we'd got particularly drunk at A Ni's, and I didn't massively recognise him. But he recognised me for some reason. As we were about to sit down he made a rearrangement and suddenly we were put in a different room as the current one would be too small. I was fine with that and the kids didn't care as they had wifi (with an "88888888" password). We waited quite a long time for others to come, but they did eventually.

Leilei with Lu Wen's cute and podgy daughter - she clings to me

I think the boss's name is Boss Yong, though when I found him on WeChat he was Huang something. Again, I felt the pang of logic go through me and felt the need to ask why Yong and Huang? Which was correct? Which did he prefer? But despite the absence of beer I managed to hold it back - something that only 13 years of coming here will allow you to do.

Of course the meal was great, and much more was ordered than was needed. Then the boss's elder sister's husband (Jiefu) arrived, followed a bit later by Jiejie herself. Well everyone had wine glasses, and this time with my cold I thought this might be slightly better than beer. Boss Huang was transfixed on the kids and I told him I thought it was really important for them to be here mainly for the cultural experience. I told him I thought living in a different country was a great education and he seemed to agree with me more than is necessary. Then Xixi made a remark that she could be considered quite rude if she were to drink her glass and stick her little finger in the air, as is considered quite posh by some English ladies (according to her).

I translated this to Boss Huang and he went into a tirade about how intelligent Leilei and Xixi were! I didn't milk it at all and was merely presenting it as a fact. But he seemed to think I'd revealed the tincture of life or something. His elder sister then brought things back down to earth by proposing a toast and by this time I reached for ice cubes for my wine. I'd mentioned to them that the French would hate the way the Chinese drank wine, but after having tasted the room temperature way I realised they had probably been sent a dodgy box from Australia. I managed wine for a while, but protested about downing it due to my cold/cough, which I was really was milking. I'd done a pretty good job by the time A Wu ordered beer and the two of us continued with that for the remainder of the meal.

A Wu, Boss Huang's elder sister, and Peng

Chuan Chuan came to pick up the kids at 7.22 in her big Mazda, and off they went to see Ice Age 5, while I went back to nurse my beer. I had half a mind to add lemonade to it but at 1.25% that would almost literally have been taking the piss. I was quite impressed at how Huang's big sister was knocking the red wine back, though was is a bit larger than many women here. She overtook her husband in the drinking stakes, which I understand is akin to losing your face here. Then she insisted on inviting us to come to hers to eat. I couldn't do the next evening, or the next, but eventually settled on the 29th - oh great her birthday. But it's also the last night before we leave, which could be tricky if there's a family meal planned. But booking something four days in advance here? Something must go wrong.

I must have been quite ill as I don't recall going out later, though I quite possibly did. The advice here is typical: oh you have a cough - you should drink alcohol...oh you have a cough - you should not drink alcohol. Who to believe?

Headwash and another late City match

Yesterday I invited Baksec Zhai for a meal today, but at 8.20am he sent a message apologising, but he had to be elsewhere this evening. I appreciated his prompt response and texted him back saying no problem we'd sort something when we had time.

As Chuan Chuan is on holiday for a few days the kids have mostly been staying with her. To Tan's annoyance she drove them to Baise, and then Lin Yun yesterday, where they stayed the night. The main annoying thing is that she's only recently passed her test and shouldn't be driving on motorways until she's had more experience or is with someone who has had three years at least. So yes, on hearing that I was a little annoyed too, however she seems one of the more sensible 26 year olds here, it's just that she looks literally half her age.

I didn't eat more than a couple of rice crispy cakes, which I always have in as part of a default backup breakfast here. They're not particularly healthy but can fill a gap. Although I could have found useful stuff to do, I decided to have one last (or second-to-last) head wash. Maybe because I'd had a pre-heady tipple, or because I'm just weak, when she asked if I wanted a facewash too I barely prevaricated before ascenting into the obvious, knowing it would be three times the price. But yes it was worth it.

I hadn't expected the mask

I had plans of staying up to watch the second leg of City - Steaua but didn't manage to get the chance for a late afternoon kip. Then A Wu called to say we were going to the KTV place later. At least that might wake me up. Well what he actually meant was Boss Zhou's place behind the KTV place. I took the kids but as I'd already eaten couldn't face the mountain of duck breast kindly put in my bowl. I also insisted on mostly sipping my beer, rather than gan bei'ing, and refused their 30 degree honey liqueur. I took the kids back when they were bored, but came back to the meal as promised. Luckily I only stayed another 15 minutes or so as A Wu and I were to take his son to have his shower. I had to hold his son in the car so left the dian dong che at Boss Zhou's which meant I'd have to be back.

Sure enough, we gave his son a shower, or rather let the ladies do it, then dumped him off at A Ni's and went back to Boss Zhou's. I managed to take it relatively easy though did have to do a fair few cai mas, before I finally said I needed to leave to sort the kids at 9.30. At home, Lu Wen called to say Boss Yong had invited us to eat tomorrow and could I make it? Yes, I suppose I could.

A had a coffee and then Tan got back from the bbq at some time after 11pm. She had a cup of sweet lime tea spare so I took it and drank as much as I could until I couldn't take any more sugar. The game wasn't to start till 2.45am so I had ages and put a wash on and had time to hang it up before I got in contact with Mat, and spent the best part of an hour playing World of Tanks with a crappy ping but it was better than nothing.

Rather than go home straightaway, A Wu took me to a place just around the corner to drink tea. In this case, the people we happened upon were drinking tea, and thought it really weird that we actually wanted to drink tea and not beer. But we persisted. Apparently one was a friend/cousin of A Wu. The tv was on and I noticed it was "Pingguo TV" - I hadn't realised we had our own tv channel so was more interested than I otherwise would be. I said that they should recognise some of the people and they nodded as if to say "of course", but then they said "Baksec Zhai!", and indeed there he was on tv, participating in some sort of opening of something. So when he texted me this morning he genuinely had something more important to do!

Baksec Zhai (on the right) on Pingguo tv!

I got back and had a coffee and then Tan got back from the bbq at some time after 11pm. She had a cup of sweet lime tea spare so I took it and drank as much as I could until I couldn't take any more sugar. The game wasn't to start till 2.45am so I had ages and put a wash on and had time to hang it up before I got in contact with Mat, and spent the best part of an hour playing World of Tanks with a crappy ping but it was better than nothing.

I'd heard that there were more football games available on Chinese tv/streaming now, and was glad to find http://www.livesoccertv.com/competitions/england/premier-league/ where it showed what you could expect to see on tv and online. I installed the bloated PPTV but couldn't find the match, and in the end just used their website to find it and watch it in Flash. It was not worth staying up for but we won 1-0 in an effective dead rubber. What was weird though was that I still couldn't sleep till 7am, two and a half hours later.

Ordering water and another boss meal

I wasn't in the best of moods for eating so skipped Waipo's for lunch and just ate some dried squid instead. After a couple of evenings of excess I decided I needed some exercise. I did a "Seven Minute" one and it really took it out of me. Then I decided to justify bringing the extra Wii Fit board I picked up cheaply in a charity all this way for the first time since 2008. As I fired up Wii Sports for the first time in a long time on this Wii it scolded me that it had been 2029 days since the last time it had seen me. Later I took the time to search how long that was, and surprisingly I found it was February 11th 2011. As I'd not been here at that time, and it was incredibly unlikely that anyone else had managed to fire up the Wii and play as me, I looked again and saw that if I only counted weekdays the last time I'd played would have been a much more likely November 12 2008. However, I couldn't understand why the Wii would only count weekdays, and also I'm pretty sure that I was in Nanning that day (as it was Xixi's first birthday) or returned to Pingguo but with the flu so unlikely to have exerted myself so much. I'll have to look into this further to see what is going on.

I need to sort out when this was

But I spent well over an hour on Wii Fit. Who cares if it isn't HD? It's a great console with some immensely fun games, and I sweated out buckets especially with a 10 minute rhythm boxing routine. I called A Wu and for some reason he was in Nanning, but coming back later and he said we'd play ping pong at 8pm.

I doubt there are many in Pingguo, but annoyingly we weren't the only ones in 2008

We were out of drinking water but annoyingly the phone number I've used for the last few years (and indeed a few weeks ago) to order it was powered off. How can you run a business if people can't call you? Maybe they have a WeChat account or something but if they have it isn't attached to their phone number. So after a tad to eat at Waipo's I went to the water place by the jiao zi place next to our building to see what was going on. Apparently this wasn't the place I normally used, but the place I did use had now closed. I wasn't sure I understood, or even trusted this, but I needed water so ordered a tong to be delivered soon. I even ordered the expensive 22 kuai bottle, but not because I actually understood the explanation for why it was the most expensive.

The water arrived nearly an hour later in the form of a phone call asking me to come downstairs as the buzzer wasn't working or something. Typically someone let the bloke in as I got to the ground floor so we shared the lift up. He gave a little more explanation about the other company - apparently the woman was getting too old to be doing such deliveries. Fair enough I suppose but I'd recently paid a 40 kuai deposit for a second bottle. I happened to mention the deposit to the bloke and said he could give it to the woman but straight away he ripped it up and insisted on giving me the difference between the water and the receipt (18 kuai) and I thought that was quite reasonable. I suppose he won't lose any money on having the big bottle back and he's now got a new customer too, though it's likely to be the last water we'll order here this year.

I had hardly expected A Wu to call me at 8pm to go to ping pong but thought I'd check with him at quarter past as I might have plans of my own. Oh he was simply at A Ni's place and that was that - no mention of ping pong. Almost as if he knew, I got a message from a different bloke to go and drink beer with him this evening. I sort of lied and replied that I'd have to play ping pong first, and he said ok. But I didn't know who he was. Even looking through his WeChat album there was no photo I recognised, but I saw that we'd registered as friends last night at 11.32pm, so I surmised it must be Zhang Hua's father-in-law who likes beer and speaking English.

At about nineish I popped round there - after all they were sorting out a footy shirt for me. Well I got there and Zhang Hua was alone in the back with his wife at the front and certainly not expecting me. Nevertheless he immediately invited me to eat the nearly finished food and join him in a Suntory beer. As his father-in-law wasn't there I realised my logic must have been wrong; it was not him who invited me over, which explained why they weren't expecting me. But somebody was expecting me somewhere. Strangely enough that same somebody then texted me to say he was on the road to Pingguo. Zhang Hua and I shared a couple of beers over a nice chat where I learnt a few more words exactly rather than roughly, like "jiaoliu" as a formal way of saying "communicate", and "zhengshi" for "formal".

Then A Wu called and asked me to come over to drink alcohol. I wasn't massively in the mood, but I reckoned wherever this would be had a better chance of containing the bloke that invited me than where I was. Zhang Hua invited me to play football Thursday evening and I said I should be able to, and we shared a last glass. I realised the place A Wu said he was was directly upstairs from where I was and he looked surprised that I'd got there within seconds, but the other bosses looked happy as spiders who had just coaxed a rather juicy English fly into their web. Every one without fail was drinking red wine, but I insisted on beer. They pointed out there wasn't any then I pointed to the obvious beer can in the centre of the table. Then one of the blokes calmly picked it up and removed it and said now there wasn't any. But to be fair to A Wu he did ensure beer arrived and I only had a tiny mouthful of the horrid Australian wine that was probably rejected in its mother country.

To be fair it was a bit of a laugh. There was some great food on the table but within minutes we got to the serious business of cai ma. It was dictated that I was to challenge each of the 12 other bosses on the table in turn, with best-of-threes with each. I calculated that the worst that could happen would be that I drink 12 small glasses of 3.8% beer and would probably still be the most sober.

So it was with not a little pride that I beat the first six in a row, to their and my delight. I'd just beaten the bloke who supposedly had studied in the US but wasn't really speaking much English to me when I came upon the tall bloke with glasses. I didn't mind losing the first round and having a drink, and wasn't too annoyed that I lost the second too. But on losing the third round, I found the rule was I had to move back anti-clockwise and play the English-speaker again that I'd beaten before. Well luck comes in clumps and my losing clump contined as I lost to him this time. Thankfully it only took one win to get back to tall bloke, but he bloody beat me thrice again and I was back to English-speaker. It took two goes but I beat him and then finally moved on from tall bloke with a nice "BET!" (eight) that he wasn't expecting.

The tall drinking bloke is where I first got stuck

But now that I knew that you could move backwards in this game I knew my supposed maximum of 12 beers became effectively infinite, and therefore my confidence took a turn for the worse. I tried to logic-up some confidence and argued to myself that the fact I had lost and drunk a few beers now ought to counter the confidence-drop that occurred to my recent understanding of the rules. This helped, and I managed to finally get to the end, smashing A Wu, but taking a few goes to beat the main boss sitting with me who seemed to be the main guy. There was also a rather pretty girl sitting at the table (a wife of one rather than something else) and she was the only one I didn't have to cai ma.

Well, apparently I'd made a good entrance with that stint of cai ma, and it used up a good 20 minutes or more. As the bosses got drunker, one by one they moved on to beer - I presumed I must have been somewhat of a sober figurehead that they appreciated, but it could just be because they ran out of wine. Towards the end the bloke who had studied in the US suddenly remembered a lot of his English - funny how alcohol does that - and insisted on talking to me at some length. It would have been easier in Mandarin but I was not going to language-bully him and I think he appreciated that. However, after five years in the States I would have expected just a little bit more vocabulary.

We left at well gone 1am, and downstairs outside I saw the father-in-law of Zhang Hua, who hadn't been there earlier. I left the drunken bosses talking on the broken pavement and stepped inside the shop for a couple of less-hurried beers and a wee chat. By the time I made my excuse 15 minutes later A Wu was still outside talking to a couple of bosses and it was decided that we'd go for Won Tun. Well I had the dian dong che outside and wasn't going to leave it so one of the bosses, who'd joined after me and was from Bangxu, and was now quite pissed on red wine, decided to go with me. It's not normally a problem with Leilei and Xixi but he was quite heavy and didn't make any effort to stabilize the bike with his feet as he got on and I nearly let it fall over.

We followed A Wu's car down to the river and found the Won Tun place that I recognised I'd been to before. Annoyingly, as it was served, drunken Bangxu boss poured half of his Won Tun into my bowl, even though I had no intention of finishing it. Of course he finished a couple of minutes later, so I repaid the compliment by giving him 3/4 of mine, in an exchange that had proved to be pretty pointless, especially as he finished mine.

Then a bloke and his young daughter came to talk to me. I recognised them as I'd met them the other day when going for a ride around here. He had stopped on his dian dong che and we'd got chatting. I had noticed that a few yards away there was a policeman and he was in one of the few parts of the road that actually had a gate separating the two halves. He suddenly stopped the driver of a motorcycle that was coming in the wrong direction, and I guessed that was one of the few traffic violations they may take seriously here. Well I wasn't going to go the wrong way, and after making sure that nearly all the other dian dong ches were driven by helmetless drivers (and I don't mean women), bade farewell and went that way too. Then I noticed that 20 yards past the single hidden policeman were about five policemen quite well lit up. Then a motorbike in front of me, on seeing them, made a 180° turn, presumably guilty of something, and I realised the hiding policeman was probably stopping all the 180°ers as they must be hiding something. Pretty sneaky, and I was concerned I might be stopped for some reason but my light was one and I was on the correct side of the road and I got through without incident. But yes that was the other day.

After we'd eaten we left, but drunken Bangxu boss insisted on me giving him a lift home, so we drove quite a considerable distance to his place, and when he got off he pointed in the direction I needed to go to get home. Bloody drunks. I drove a fair few minutes to the less and less populated suburbs of Pingguo before I came to a dead-end in the road. I felt a bit like I was in the Truman Show. I wondered if I tried to go beyond the concrete bollard, I'd hear a loudspeaker from the sky telling me to go back. Had it not been gone 2am I probably would have tried. Plus the fact that I didn't have great range on the dian dong che spurred me to think of a better course of action.

I could either go left or return, so decided to return as at least I should get to somewhere I knew. I found the bbq place I'd first seen last year and entered just to see what it was like, but apart from a handful of places open it was dead. I didn't go back the exact way I'd came but took a right trusting in my general sense of direction. Thankfully it ended up being a good decision and a few minutes later I could see traffic lights, meaning I must be getting closer to home. I was ever-so-slightly tempted to get invited to some of the late-night tables still eating and drinking but decided enough was enough for one night.

Fireworks and an unexpected celebration of a bloke going to university

Lu Wen called me to say one of the bosses from yesterday's meal was inviting me for a meal tomorrow. Just when I thought such advance notice didn't happen suddenly it happened. But I'd promised A Wu I'd invite Baksec Zhai for a meal tomorrow (obviously I hadn't called him so much in advance) so said I'd probably not be able to make tomorrow. Ok then, it would be the next day according to Lu Wen. This I believe even less. Nobody seems to have the capacity to arrange things 48 hours in advance unless it involves plane tickets.

I skipped lunch but had tea at Waipo's, then a bit later as the kids were out with Chuan Chuan decided to go on a bike ride to see what that would bring me. I rode to a couple of places I wasn't too familiar with and then suddenly out of the blue there were fireworks nearby. When I found the source of the fireworks I found about 50 people, mostly shirtlesss blokes sitting around tables eating and drinking. I was interested in what the celebration may be and so I asked a couple of ladies sitting at one of the outside tables. Ah - it was the owner's son who was soon going to university - that was the reason for the massive fireworks display and feast. Suddenly I was bidden to have a bite to eat and have a drink with the father and had my hand held as I was brought into the mileu of blokes.

First I was made to sit at the table of the bloke who was going to university later that week. He seemed so pleased to see me, as were the others at the table, and of course I offered him a gan bei. Then they quickly latched on that I knew how to cai ma, which brough literal gasps of awe. So of course I had to prove this and immediately beat the first kid I played. This led them to break out into applause which of course I lapped up but worried about taking some of the limelight from university boy. I needn't have worried though - I cai ma'd him, then every bloke, then we broke into two teams around the table and I didn't drink a glass.

The best picture I could get of the kids' tables but about as accurate as it seemed

Moving on to the elders' table I felt a little more at home

But they the dad came again and it was decided I should now sit at the elders' table. Gosh they made the kids look sober, but I had a very fun time talking with them and also cai ma'ing for good measure. One bloke was wearing a buttoned up brown shirt with a collar and I reckoned he must have been the magic man for the evening. He was particularly drunk where you could tell his eyes were not focused, but he insisted in a couple of gan beis and cai ma too, despite being otherwise impossible to understand.

I did check the beer - it was "Suntory" - 7.5 degrees, or 3.1%, so not the weakest. The other day I took advantage of some time to myself and tried to sort out once and for all the relationship between "degrees" and percentage when it comes to beer. For wine and spirits it does seem to be a one-to-one relationship, but totally muddled for pijiu. I spent more time than is decent making notes of the degree/percent relationships from some of the beers on offer and found that even though Li Quan 7° is 3.1% and Snow 8° is 2.5%, at least within brands there was some consistency, i.e. a higher degree has not (so far) resulted in a lower percentage. I'll need to add to this spreadsheet but here is the first draft that one day I may show to a local to try to fathom some explanation.

Brand	7°	7.5°	8°	9°	9.7°	10°	11°	11.2°
Li Quan	3.10%					3.60%
Snow			2.50%	3.60%
Blue Riband						3.60%	4.30%
Qingdao			3.10%
Melchers Dutch								5%
Budweiser					3.60%
Suntory		3.10%

I spent a good hour there in every sense but made some child-related excuses and left around 9.30. As the kids weren't around I decided I'd have a quick drive to the bloke I'd met yesterday who brought beer to the bosses. He and his family-in-law were there and indeed drinking beer and I was welcomed in like a long-lost family member. The "father" had had a few clearly and was using his best English to try to communicate with me. They were listening to music and he put on his favourite "Yesterday Once More" by Carol Carpenter I believe. I noticed that my friend, who I now realised was Zhang Hua, was wearing a cool football top in a slightly darker that City blue (though hardly different from this season's abomination) and I told him I liked it. That was enough for him to start asking my size and favourite number. Ok I sort of knew I'd be offered one and I did my best to say I'd pay for it but they would hear nothing of it; it would be ready in a couple of days. At least that would mean I would have to go back, which I'm guessing is what they really wanted. After that and a couple more gan beis I called it a night.

Whoops - nearly another double date meal

I realised I didn't have much more time here so at 5pm made a spur of the moment decision to invite a couple of mates to go and eat at the Beihai seafood place. Normally such decisions work out well, and all was going well when I rang Uncle yellow, his mate the Cook, and Li Kun, and we all agreed to meet up there in 15 minutes. I swear nothing is planned more than a couple of hours away here. Organising a few beers in the pub for Thursday night on Monday would be frowned on here. But us dads in the UK need to sort out kiddy arrangements that somehow don't need to be sorted here.

As I was riding down to the seafood place I got a call from A Wu. I told him where I was going and he was invited too but he "reminded" me that Lu Wen had invited me to eat with him at A Ni's tonight. Oh shit. He quite probably had and it had escaped my mind. As it was only 5.30 and Uncle Yellow and the Cook had already turned up I thought it best to go ahead with this meal then turn up to Lu Wen's one - after all it wouldn't be the first time I'd had to do two meals in one evening. So we went upstairs to a private air-conditioned room as it was proper scorchio outside, and pierced our cling-film wrapped eating utensils as we waited for Li Kun to turn up. But I heard A Wu outside our room and went to tell him to come in. No, it had been decided that we would order some food here and take it to A Ni's to eat with Lu Wen. Actually that was a rather practical compromise.

So with significant help I ordered a few dishes and it came to 350 kuai. Not wishing to look cheap I then said "let's have two portions of..." and pointed to some shelled things. It came to 420 kuai and I only just had enough on me. A Wu was telling Beihai Huang's wife to round it to 400 but she is a born business woman and would have none of it and took the 420 from my hands. At least we arranged for it to be delivered for free. Uncle Yellow and Li Kun were coming, so at least I'd managed to get them an invitation in a roundabout way. The Cook said he would come a little later but sadly didn't turn up. Maybe he's not on A Wu's list of approved friends.

Good friends at a good meal - bonus that Li Kun and Uncle Yellow could make it

The meal was as good as it was predictable, with beers coming after the first twinges of appetites were sated. At least the addition of the seafood I'd ordered was broadly taken advantage of. I had to leave at one point for a breather so went downstairs and one of the mothers there was having trouble with her tiny daughter of six months. But as soon as I held her she just changed and hugged me like a baba. I held her for 10 minutes till she nearly fell asleep before giving her back as I could tell I was needed upstairs again.

Some of the aftermath of the meal

For some reason I had no urge to go out after this meal and even left the dian dong che outside A Ni's

Another City win with meal at A Wu's

Due to eating late I didn't really fancy lunch but I did want to make up for the calorific intake of recent evenings, so after coming back from Waipo's I managed the first three "Seven Minute" exercises with significant rests between. I'd like to think that A Wu's call stopped me from doing any more but I'd sweat enough for one afternoon. He was calling to invite us to eat at A Ni's and asked me to call Tan. We got there around 5.30pm, which should have been plenty of time to eat before the footy at 7.30pm, but A Wu was in the process of cooking and that went on for nearly an hour. During this time Tan said her ibuprofen from earlier was wearing off so I had a great excuse to go home to get some, and also fetch my laptop. On the way back I saw a lovely rainbow and of course took a pic. A minute later in A Ni's shop I showed the pic and I was told to look in WeChat. Six people had already posted pics of the same rainbow...there's little point in taking photos of natural phenomena nowadays.

Handsome lads

Probably the last photo I'll ever take of a rainbow...

...as everyone else in Pingguo had already it seemed

The English teacher Yoyo and her husband also turned up to eat. It turns out they have their own tutoring place and employ a few other teachers too. The husband teaches Chinese, which means the language and the culture so I suppose he really meant Chinese Literature but it was a slightly tricky subject to get into detail about. For a refreshing change it was a beer-free meal, even though A Wu offered about halfway through. As Tan was not feeling great she left to get a rest and as the door closed behind her I jokingly cried out "Laopo zou le - kai pijiu!" (wife has gone - open the beer!) but although the humour wasn't lost on them it resulted in lots of beer being opened.

I got the impression the Chinese teacher was looking forward to it as he gan bei'd me immediately and a few times later as well. It was suddenly 7.30 so I got out the laptop and found a dreadful stream but it was just about better than nothing - and I was happy to get to halftime two nil up at Stoke. Then Yoyo left and the kids had too, so it was just us blokes and A Ni, who seems to like her beers at the moment, and I found a much better stream for the second half. It was nervy after Stoke got one back but we finished off with two late goals and more very enjoyable gan beis.

After the meal I dropped of the kids at Waipo's as Chuan Chuan was back in town and would take them out. Then we went to the bosses' offices to have more beer. I recognised the bloke who delivered the beer followed him downstairs to his small shop. His family-in-law, at least some blokes, were drinking in the back room. I said I'd only stay for two drinks but the elder of the blokes said I'd stay for one hour! I argued that there were people waiting for me upstairs but it didn't seem to matter. The bloke spoke a little English and was going to use it. In the end we compromised on 20 minutes with the proviso I come back another time soon.

I showed a photo from 2008 of the younger bloke with what I thought was his sister. But in fact he told me that was his ex-girlfriend. Ah...I know what I thought was their dad and assumed he was their natural father as they both insisted on calling him baba. One of the pitfalls I'm a little prone to here but at least it didn't cause a problem. Anyway his now wife is prettier in my opinion.

The guy on the right I've known since 2008 and I think his father-in-law is the second from left, who speaks a little English

Back upstairs I underwent some routine cai ma and gan bei'ing but made my excuses later as it was getting a little much. I should have gone straight home but went for a ride on the other side of town. Typically I somehow bumped into a few blokes eating outside and they bade me come and sit with them for a while. I know I'm sort of taking advantage of the colour of my skin and hair and eyes and the shape of my nose, it's almost like inside-out racism. But it is a two-way street. People do seem genuinely interested in the whys and whats and wherefores of Western places, and that's doubled by being able to actually communicate with them fairly proficiently. It does feel rather like paying for your food and beer by entertainment sometimes, except providing the entertainment is entertainment itself, plus I am most certainly being entertained by the people I meet.

Annoyingly these blokes were only drinking white alcohol, which actually means transparent alcohol made from rice and it's about the only thing I can't drink here. But astonishingly there was no beer even as a backup. I really didn't want to be rude so first asked to look at the spirit bottle. Ok, it was 22% rather than 56%, I would take one for the team, and I gulped a sip and failed to make it look like I enjoyed it. Bloody hell it was getting on for 2.30am. I made my excuses, and took another couple for the team and finally got home.

Eating and drinking at 2.30am just seems to make sense here

Quieter day at first at least

Bit of a quiet day for a change. I was told to take the kids to Waip's for tea but when we arrived we found there was none. As I hadn't taken them to A Ni's recently I decided to treat them to steak and chips and they ate most of both the portions. I'd had nothing to eat so had a little of their leftovers before taking them to table tennis. I'd rung Zhang Liangwen and agreed to pop over there in 15 minutes, and unlike most people I know around here he turned up bang on time as we did.

There are many tables here so the kids could play by themselves as I lost 4-1 in games after stupidly winning the first meaning Liangwen moved up a gear. But the kids started to get fractiously annoying, especially when some boys come around and one of them, younger than Leilei probably, started playing with me and it was clear he'd had a lot of practice. So I took them home to find there was no water in the house again. This isn't good news after a drenching session of ping pong but not worries we just went to Waip's again where we did have a shower. I left them there and brought a large bucket back to our building. I asked the security guards what the water problem was and they said it was to do with pressure, and would be ok tomorrow. I thought that might be the case and asked where I may fill up the bucket and one of the blokes did it for me in some room on the ground floor. I wanted to know at which floor the problem started but thought better of the potential conversation; Tan was waiting for the bucket of water as she had an upset stomach and toilets would need to be flushed.

In the lift I met some people going to the sixth floor, and asked them if their water was ok. Indeed it was, well at least I've narrowed down where the problem could start. As the kids would stay at Waip's and Tan was staying in, I met up with advertising friends from yesterday again. This time it was a bit earlier and four of us played cai ma and a brilliant dice game that has a hint of both cai ma and poker about it, not to mention throwing the dice in a loud manner seems to be part of the fun. Before I knew it it was 2am again so we said our goodbyes. Except there were two blokes at another table who wanted to have a couple of gan bei's so as I waved goodbye I sat down with them but kept it to a very reasonable 20 minutes.

Piano and baby washing

I went for a ride in the morning and happened upon the "new" athletics/football stadium next to the basketball stadium. I'm used to it now but I still notice the state of disrepair that permeates through so much of this place, and to a great extent the mainland as a whole. Things get built quite nicely but maintenance doesn't seem to exist unless absolutely necessary, and look at the basketball stadium brought this back to me. To be fair, the Mingdien hotel that we used to go to frequently is now closed for redecoration so things may be changing. And also Zhuhai was heading in a better direction, though still noticeably less well-kept than Macau. The most common place you feel it is in the pavements - most of the paving slabs are broken and wobble underfoot, and I don't that these days it can be blamed on a lack of cash

It just looks so messy

As I was riding back from Waip's I noticed a car I recognised and followed it. It was indeed A Wu's old car that had taken us to Vietnam in 2009 - I'm surprised it's still going. As I'd got up reasonably early I decided to head for a massage where I might get a little kip too. I called A Wu to see if he wanted to go but he said we'd go later. I told him I wouldn't have time later and he asked where I was going. When I told him it was the one he had an account with he told me not to go there - "there are prostitutes there". That's the sort of thing people will say when they don't want you to go to a place for a different reason. I guess he no longer had an account there and I didn't want to question him. But I'd been there before and knew this was not a place of ill repute. And the massage was perfect - comfortable rather than overly pressurised as if to enforce the feeling that something was being done that was actually good for your body. And I managed 40 winks afterwards as well till gone 5pm when Waipo called me to eat.

It seems they maintain the cars better than the buildings

Later I had the urge to play the piano as it had been a good few days since the last time, and I turned up at the piano place near the market at well gone 8pm, knowing that they closed at 9. But I got a nice 10 minutes of practice in without others disturbing me, till A Wu called to ask where I was. When I mentioned it he decided to come over so the teacher explained where it was. Five minutes later he was there with his baby son and discussing, quite seriously, how much lessons would be. He's only one year old....

Then some other bloke teacher came along and played a little bit of music I recognised, before asking me to play some. So I played a few rags and they seemed to like it, and I saw I was being filmed too...oh dear my ragged rags would be on WeChat within seconds. The teacher then talked to me in broken English, and said the ragtime was Country Music. I wanted to argue but didn't have the vocabularly this subject would require so I acquiesed that it was "sort of".

Then A Wu and I went to the baby bath place at the bottom of our building and I spent some time chatting to some of the parents there. It was nice to see that not all were the mothers, and there were some grandparents too. But the main thing was seeing the babies held by inflatable rings around their necks leaving the rest of the body in the water - they all seemed to be loving it there.

Cute

We went back to A Ni's shop and then A Wu said he'd take his son home and to wait for me as we'd go somewhere. I had arranged to see a friend from the advertising shop later but certainly had some time now. The problem was A Wu didn't come back straightaway. Not that it mattered; I wasn't going to waste time waiting for him, but it did sort make it annoying not knowing how to pan out the rest of the evening. It was a good 90 minutes later at well gone 10pm when A Wu rang to say we would go to some place near the KTV place, and he'd call me in a bit. "A bit" would prove to be nearly an hour later, by which time I found myself having tea with a neighbouring shop. I think the daughter there has a bit of a thing for Western men as the other week when she saw me getting home she shouted out "hello!" and ran over to me. Almost instantly her mum or auntie also rushed out and said my wife was from Bangxu, before even I could say it. So tonight I made sure what looked like her dad was present so there would be no rumours about drinking tea together. A Wu finally called to say there was no-one there anymore, and we'd sort something tomorrow. This fitted perfectly as I was able to go to the advertising shop to catch up on an old friend.

Tan ordered a box of dragonfire fruit and even after giving half to Waipo we still had too many so I took a few over to A Ni's to be smoothied

It was getting on for 11.30 but all the advertising shop workers were eating and drinking outside the shop, though for no special reason it seemed. I sat down with them for a while and politely gan bei'd for a bit before three of us went to find a small bbq place that I'd not been to before and sat outside till 2am eating and drinking at a much more reasonable speed.

Headwash and getting fat

Managed to get up at 9.30 for some reason - I'd been quite good and only had two beers with the late night football. So after lunch at Waip's I left the kids swegging and popped home for a bit before deciding a post-prandial headwash was a good idea. And it was, though for some reason I let them do a facewash too which whipped the price up from 30 to 100 kuai but it's not something I can do every week so sod it.

I was in the middle one and surprised that the lady was nearly 40

Back at home I tuned up the guitar in order to have a bash before Yang Haiwei called me to come over to eat. I was sent another "location" dot on WeChat and thought "why not?". This time it was not quite as hard to find though was still a comedy of errors trying to get the exact building. I though house number 2302 was on the second floor but no of course it was the 23rd floor. By the time I got there the sky had darkened as a storm loomed up, and I wondered if I'd be trapped. Not that it would have mattered if I was; there were food and friends, well Haiwei's mate and his wife, and the Olympics were on the tv.

I needed to pop back though to get the kids as Tan was out, but I was told by Haiwei and his mate I definitely had to come back. The dian dong che was low on juice so I had to charge it and this time took the the kids on a san lun che for 10 kuai. I need to know if buying the dian dong che is justified on a purely economical basis. I estimate I average 10km a day, on about five journeys, each of which would probably be at least 5 kuai on a san lun che. So that would be roughly 25 kuai a day, or 175 a week. 3000÷175=just over 17 weeks and so far we've been here for about 11 of those weeks so if we can make it here again it will have paid for itself. Of course it was more than justified on the day I bought it in 2014 (except it was replaced by a newer, larger one last year) just as a huge convenience and giver of many memories to the kids. The problem is I've hardly walked anywhere so the only exercise I'm getting is the actual exercise I do rather than day-to-day stuff like walking to the train station. It's rather hot to be doing that a lot.

Waiting for the lift I saw these workers bringing down the scaffolding - how much is life insurance here?

Plus I was reading that the fruit we eat today almost certainly did not exist a few hundred years ago; then it was smaller and more bitter. But now we've evolved fruit to be luscious and sweet, which is all very well, especially the Tian Yang mangoes, but I think I'm seeing the effect on my belly. I guess eating five fruits a day is not necessarily that good for you if they are full of calories....

Anyway, back at Haiwei's mate's place there were a couple more mates who had arrived to join us with a couple of beers. I noticed that the home-owner had run out of Snowflake 2.5% and I thought that was rather strange. But of course his fridge was filled with another brand of beer that was actually bottled. I miss bottled beer - it used to be almost the only way of drinking 10 years ago but cans have massively taken over. Anyway, as I had the kids with me I couldn't stay too late and arrangements were made to take us home before midnight. It appeared that we were taking a taxi, though it was more likely to be a mate who just happened to be passing, as is how it normally works here.

Watching the Olympics on an HD tv that was actually HD

Swegways and late footy in gui jie

I slept in a little as I was hoping to catch City's Champions League qualifier against Steaua Bucharest that would take place at 2.45am, but the kids were keen to get to Waipo's because their swegways had arrived. So we got there about 11 and set upon opening the first box. As soon as we unfolded the first bit of cardboard a large jianglian (cockroach) jumped out and scuttled around. Leilei had been squatting and jumped back and hit his back against the table and A Heng stamped on the damn thing but it took a few goes before it was motionless. Had it been a less interesting present the kids would probably have been in tears but I managed to keep them focused on the task in hand and we pulled out the first one, which judging by its colour, was for Xixi.

We didn't expect them to be charged but Xixi's was and we set about trying to mount it first. Actually the kids got used to it pretty quickly, probably because the swegway itself is heavier relative to their weights, at least that's my excuse as I couldn't balance on it without holding the wall at first. But somehow I sort of got the knack, and was able to slowly roll from one side of the room to the other, spinning around to change direction in the process. It was only after I'd had enough that I realised I had no idea how to dismount, so I quickly put one foot behind me and the other went shooting off in front leaving the rest of my body to obey gravity and plummet to the ground. I banged my ankle and landed on my right wrist and back of my head. I think the fact it was all three places somewhat buffeted the fall a little, but I was in a bit of shock.

Leilei  getting better on the swegway

Xixi also gaining in confidence

So I popped back to the house, leaving them to happily practise. Today is gui jie, which translates as Ghost Festival, of which there is no equivalent in the UK, not even halloween, as I had been wrongly told before. The most important thing about it is that the family eat together, so I knew I'd be back soon. Yang Haiwei called me to eat later and of course I said I'd be at Waipo's but he asked me to call when I was finished there anyway. Fair enough.

On the way back to our house I couldn't help noticing this anti-Japanese sticker on a (Chinese brand) car - a sad reflection of how many still think

After Waipo's meal I duly called Haiwei around 6 and he sent me a WeChat location. I had to ride a couple of hundred yards in the wrong direction before I knew it was indeed the wrong direction as the blue dot that represented me was a fraction further away from the destination red dot. I realised I was not close, and spent a good 10 minutes finding my way to the west side of Pingguo and eventually his mum's house's complex. As I entered I heard the security guard shout at me and then realised it was my neighbour, who asked for my phone number so we could arrange to meet up soon. Then Haiwei rang to ask where I was and after a bit of fuss because the red dot wasn't exactly where he was, I found the place and was welcomed in to the family meal as if I was one of them.

The main reason for me coming was because Haiwei's first son was going back to school tomorrow. Even though it's in Pingguo he sleeps there except for the weekend. His English is relatively good and I had been drafted in to help him. It had actually improved significantly in the last two years, and he's quite a bright lad so it wasn't as boring as it might have been. We had semi-conversations about football and English culture, with frequent translation breaks for the rest of them.

Yang Haiwei's family meal: Haiwei, an uncle, a brother, Haiwe's actual brother, Haiwei's second son on a Waipo's knee, a Nai nai, and Haiwei's first son with whom I was speaking English

There had been no beer at Waipo's so it was fine to perform a few gan beis with the family. Even the resident Nainai gan beid with me a couple of times. These sorts of family meals are my favourite, as you know the blokes aren't going to get stupidly drunk as they have the womenfolk and babyfolk around. After a couple of hours though, it was declared that we were to go to bbq. We went to the place near our house, and another family turned up with their daughter, who could also speak some English, then another girl turned up who was a "sister" and spoke very good English, albeit with that American twang many speakers have. It transpired she'd lived or studied in the States for a few months.

One thing I've noticed is that there appears to be an inverse colleration between foreign language ability and good looks with women, and possibly men too (though I would be an obvious exception). I suspect this is quite natural, as those more favourable in the looks department don't need to make so much effort to find a bloke or work. It probably applies to other aspects of education too. Of course it's a sweeping generalisation but there's definitely something in it.

The English speakers then left and I was left with Haiwai and his second son as his wife took elder son back home. Haiwei was faltering and I left him to sleep in his chair as I went for a walk around the other bbq places with second son and we talked for a bit but he is only six and didn't understand about sometimes slowing down when using more complicated vocabulary. So we woke up his dad a few minutes later when wife was back, and she took them all home in their car, which meant I could go and find the kids who were still at Waipo's.

I dared not have another go on the swegways, despite their appeal after a couple of 2.5% Snowflake beers, so took them home for a shower instead. I still had well over two and a half hours before the footy but was managing so far. I took the bike out for a late night run and decided to see if Luwen was in. I couldn't be sure where his office was, but I happened upon three blokes drinking beer at a tea table. I asked them if Luwen's office was nearby and they looked at me as though to say "why the hell would we know who he is?" for a minute before inviting me to sit down for a beer. Oh well, why not?

An enjoyable hour or so with these guys

I probably spent an hour there chatting and sipping and sometimes gan bei'ing and sometimes cai ma'ing, as the blokes took photos of me with them and sent them to their social networks. It's like having your own personal CCTV service with you at all times - I've barely travelled a mile without someone taking a photo of me, and it's even more intense for the kids.

By the time I left it wasn't that far off 2am so I got home to catch up on the Olympics and some pre-match chat. This is one of the most important matches this season; lose this qualifier and that's it for the Champions League. And it's only the second game of the season, we have injuries, and the side is yet to gel. A big banana skin if ever there was one. But we played brilliantly, albeit partly because Steaua weren't really up to it, and the 5-0 away win with two missed penalties helped me easily to stay up till gone 4.30am.

We got one more later too - well worth staying up for