Massive birthday meal

Oof woke up at midday regretting last night's excesses. Luckily I had no arranged luncheon, so made do at home. The main plan we had was Wei Laoban's son's birthday meal at a hotel at 5.30pm. Or so I thought. I'd asked the boys to come along as it may be an important event, and they were actually quite impressed when A Wu turned up in the brown BMW X6 to pick us up. We drove to his office to pick up five 5 litre bottles of nuo mi jiu first, and apparently a large moustached fish that we left in the end. Then indeed we drove to a hotel and put the bottles in one of the eating rooms with food already laid but no-one sitting there.

Being picked up in style

Then A Wu said he was going to pick up his wife and left us there with a few bosses trying to work out how to boil water using the machine at the tea table. Nezha asked how long it would be till we start and I said I honestly didn't know but could easily be up to half an hour. They clearly didn't want to wait around that long and I didn't blame them. And apparently they'd had little sleep so wanted a coffee. Where we were didn't look like there would be any Starbucks-like places but surely some cola would fill the caffeine gap? So all three of us went for a walk before the bosses could complain.

Sitting and waiting

20 minutes later we were still waiting. Then the son who's birthday it was ran up to me and jumped into my arms. He's a little chubby and I was taken aback, not to mention my back wasn't ready for this, but I managed to hold steady and slowly lower him down only to find him holding my hand and beckoning me to one of the other rooms. All three of us walked in with him to find it full of families around the largest spinning table I think I've seen. It was nice to see lots of women and children, but I was still worried about the number of men I might potentially have to ganbei with. But the son's mum came in apparently to tell us to go back to the first room, so we politely wished them bon appetit and gratefully left.

Eventually we did settle to eat at our table for the statutory 5 minutes before the booze was poured. I had promised myself to drink modestly this evening and for the most part I was good, only ganbei'ing when requested and after 45 minutes or so had maybe got through two cans. Then, we were each handed a can, or jug of nuo mi jiu, and we left to go to the room opposite. This was a suitable time for the boys to leave the meal.

Now the ganbei'ing was unavoidable; we'd bunch up into little groups of four or five people and ganbei at least once, and in general if it was the first time meeting someone you had to ganbei with them too, but as I knew virtually no-one I kept to the group ganbeis. It took 15 minutes or so to get round the table, and I was handed a new can of beer, but when we left, instead of going back to our original room we just moved on to the next room, of similar size and of similar occupants (mostly blokes). And the same thing happened for the next 20 mins. I was due to meet a friend at 8pm and it was already getting on for that, but I understood this was a pretty important event.

And then, I suppose predictably, we moved on the the huge room Wei's son had taken me to previously that must have sat 40 humans. Despite having a healthier percentage of ladies this didn't mean they wouldn't join in the ganbei'ing, and so another half an hour was spent moving very slowly clockwise getting through another can or two. At least after than we finally got back to the first room. The ganbei'ing continued and I made a final one with Boss Wei, before giving my apologies and finally leaving.

Table seating around 40 people

The "friend" I was supposed to meet at 8pm, which would now be 9pm, was more of an excuse not to stay any longer as I just need a break from the beer, and was true to my word until 1am when I ended up having a chat with Mat, Andge, and Awl for an hour or so. But at least it was a good four hour break from it.

Another double date

After a relatively calm late morning I got a call in the afternoon to eat at A Wu's office again at 5.30pm, which I happily accepted, but let him know I'd have to leave at 6.30pm as I had yet another meal to attend to at another hotel. The boys didn't want to go, which was ok, and meant I could take the one dian dong che I'd managed to charge, which would be useful for a quick exit later.

But of course even at 6pm the meal wasn't ready, which was fine by me but A Wu insisted that I stay till 7pm as it is in their culture to be late for an invited meal. Fair enough, I get the concept of being fashionably late, but it's a bit hypocritical when you call me 15 minutes before I'm due to arrive to ask me where I am!

Indeed I stayed till a little past 7pm and tried to eat as little as was politely possible but I couldn't avoid a few ganbeis. But when I saw the location of the next restaurant I found it wasn't the place I was expecting just 1 minute away but in fact well north of the guangchang. Thankfully the dian dong che had enough dian to get there relatively slowly and indeed I was fashionably late, but not as late as Boss Zhou, who evidently had also had a prior engagement. Instead of beer, we got through a litre of some sort of berry alcohol that I was told was 22%.

Afterwards, we were to go to some school to celebrate two birthdays. But after the berry alcohol I felt a little tiddly and someone helped me book a didi che to get there. Of course there was more booze there and afterwards I ended up going to the 3000° till later than is reasonable.

Pingguo Friend Day

Today is Pingguo friend day. I've tried to find the origin of this festival but when A Wu explained that 1000 years ago three friends who ran neigbouring countries got together and somehow China ended up as the main one I had to wonder why that was related to Pingguo. I have a suspicion it's a more modern excuse to go out and eat and drink, though here you could call that any day of the week.

I needed to get some random things like a coffee mug and some house slippers that actually fit my size 43 feet, so went to the supermarket by the market on the bike. At the top of the escalator in the cool A/C I noticed things had changed...there were market-like stalls to greet me. So I walked on a bit further looking for the entrance of the supermarket, before realising it was basically no longer there, and the whole place had become an indoor market. No big deal, and probably a good thing for local traders, and at least I found a pair of size 42/43 slippers for 28 kuai.

We had our evening arranged; Yang Haiwei had invited us to his friend's house to eat, then we were to go to see Li Kun perform in his band in a bar at the stadium. Sounds simple. We were still without dian dong ches so the three of us walked to Haiwei's friend's which was about 15 minutes away. He'd sent a di zhi - basically a location, but it seemed to be in the middle of an apartment complex, so I gave him a call and he said he'd send his son down. We'd met him already this year so sort of knew what he looked like and indeed five minutes later we saw what looked like him appear outside the main gate. He wasn't looking at us though, so I walked over to about 6' away from him, swearing it must be him but not trusting my western eyesight 100%. I tried calling his phone twice but it wouldn't connect, and by now the boys were with me saying it must be him. Just as I was about to ask him and risk embarrassment he just told us to follow him into the complex. It was a really surreal experience. Or maybe the culture is that you wait for your elder to greet you first but surely we were the ones sticking out like sore thumbs?

The meal was like the other day with Haiwei except this house was new and had a tv the size of a minibus. Of course Haiwei was still cooking but there were a few people to talk to for the next 20 minutes until it was served. As is their wont the boys made their excuses after a decent time during which Leilei had at least communicated with some people. He didn't have any beer and Nezha only had a couple out of politeness. And later at 8.30 there was no problem with me leaving after a few ganbeis as it's quite expected to have double dates on such an occasion.

Friend day meal at Haiwei's friend's

I showed the boys where to meet and they turned up before me but even when I got there there was no music. Li Kun said they'd wait till more people turned up. So we had a little food and drink with the people on our table and the boys did their disappearing act again. Then Xiao Nong and Ling Ming got in contact separately as they were both in the area. Ling Ming asked me to come upstairs to have a drink with him and some friends, so I was happy to do so while waiting for the music.

Wondering how strong the beer is

But upstairs in the stadium I could see nothing that looked like a bar. Not wishing to give up I started walking round the stadium and asked if it was the north or south door and they said the former which was annoying as I'd started there. So I did the tour of the stadium first floor and when I came back to the stairs I'd still seen nothing. But I heard voices behind some nondescript white door and bothered to open it to see a room the size of a janitor's office if that, full with a single table and seven men and Xiao Nong, and an empty chair for Ling Ming who had gone out to look for me. Despite the relatively lowly surroundings we spent a fun best part of an hour there just chatting. Ling Ming and Xiao Nong I'm sure have been told to keep an eye on me but they were putting them back much quicker than me. And when I decided I'd better go back downstairs to where I'd been invited, Xiao Nong decided to come with me (presumably to check on me again) and continued to down the beers making me look slow.

Sharing a couple of beers with the guys in the janitor room

Cock balls upstairs...

...and cock balls downstairs

Well we stayed for a decent while and though I didn't know any of the songs they were pretty good. Poor Li Kun had just had an extraction so apparently couldn't drink anything more than tea but that didn't seem to dampen his spirits. I left around 11.30pm and the dian dong che was clearly on its last electric wheels.

Li Kun in the corner with the drums

But I got a ping from toast friend at gone 12.30am who said if I couldn't sleep come to join some friends in the bar we met Li Kun on the first night, so as I'm not going to be here forever I thought "why not?" for the umpteenth time already this month. I decided to trust the dian dong che and to my relief it just made it, the last 100 yards at barely walking pace. And yes I ended up there till 3am but I certainly did accept the offer of a didi che home then, and would have had the bike been fully charged.

First head wash and a friendly sing-song

Up at a leisurely 2pmish for a change. A Wu called to go for head wash so I thought why not? It's been four years since the last time. I got there a bit late to see him already having a haircut and I was told to go to the shampoo room. And yes it was a very decadent hour or so of massage and facial, much of the time with hot steamed Chinese medicine blown over my face.

Not uncomfortable when you get used to the heat

Not sure what the face mask was made of

We left at 5 to pick up his daughter from school. Then dropped her off at house using face id to get in. We then picked up his brown BMW X6 for some reason and drove a couple of minutes to a boss meal at the bottom of a house. I got bloated due to drinking beer too quickly and losing at cai ma. So after a while I went for a walk and found we were close to the guangchang.

My advertising friend pinged me to invite me to a meal she was in and I saw she was quite close. So I made my excuses to the bosses, did a last ganbei, and left around 9pm. I found her in a private room with a load of other people. They were joking about a guitar but they actually had one and I ended up having it thrust in my hands and playing The Boxer.

They were all drinking Corona beer which is stronger than I'm accustomed too, so next I played Me and Julio. Then an actual guitarist turned up and two of them start singing songs with two guitars. Finally they gave one to me again and we did Sound of Silence as a sort of finale, with the actual guitarist providing some sort of accompaniment.

Unexpected music at second meal of the evening

Then Haiwei called and I saw he was also pretty close so walked to meet him with a mate which was much less fun than the previous hour, but at least some raw fish turned up. To keep the evening going I went home via racist Huang's seafood place and he was actually there and in good spirits, so had a bit of a catch-up chat. I left shortly afterwards but before I got home to top off the night a couple of random people drinking at a table on the pavement called me over for a quick drink it was literally about three ganbeis as I didn't have space in my belly for any more of the fizzy stuff.

Football "cheerleading"

Jeepers up at 3am again but this time with the help of some philosophical podcasts (well scientifically-based) I managed to drowse on-and-off till 2pm, by which time when I roused and found the boys had already gone out. I ate a couple of boiled eggs I got from the supermarket yesterday then realised we were supposed to meet at the football stadium in under 3 hours. This turned into under 2 hours, when I remembered I still hadn't registered us. And now that the lovely drizzle had left for annoying heat, I was glad to see that one of our dian dong ches had apparently charged from 12.13 to 10.30. This was a big deal as yesterday it had stopped charging after 2 hours for some reason. I wish I knew the reason though as the other bike apparently stopped charging after 5 minutes which is well annoying.

I worked out how to use the washing machine (I think) and finally went to get some jiao zi after 3pm. The boys managed 1 1/2 portions each then we went to get a new key cut for 4 kuai and I left them to get some frozen coffee while I went home to get the passports to prepare my third attempt at registering ourselves. Well I found the moved police place without too much asking but when arrived was told that the registering place was now at a different office on the other side of town. But I had a dian dong che with dian and was happy to go there.

Yes it was the typical hour or so of fuss as the person didn't know what she was doing and to be fair I had to explain the difference between surname and first/middle name in English, and the address and phone number. But an hour later we were finally officially registered as living here.

The local football team Guangxi Pingguo Haliao has only been around for 3-4 seasons, moving from another Guangxi town to Pingguo a couple of years ago. I'd seen a couple of matches live on YouTube before and wasn't massively impressed. But this year they are back to playing in front of crowds again, and boy they certainly had a crowd. According to who you talk to you have to queue up at 3am or 5am to get tickets if you weren't quick enough to snap them up online. However, if you get a kit you can go in for free as a "cheerleader".

I'd checked this with Ling Ming before leaving for China and he confirmed this and got his wife Xiao Nong to order three of them in the biggest size, and he'd delivered them a couple of days ago. But somehow it just didn't add up. Wouldn't many people just buy a kit for 120 kuai rather than queue up in the early hours for a 30 kuai ticket? Moreover, apparently having the kit can get you in to all the games too.

But the problem was I just found out a couple of days from Tan that I would have to do an interview for the local tv. She'd even written a speech for me! The news about the interview was confirmed by Xiao Nong and I'd been practising the speech while doing the registering, but I still couldn't remember it. I decided I'd try to wing it and maybe have a little Dutch courage beforehand.

Well I got home in time to pick up my kit and the lads and I were fortunate enough to find a san lun che to make the journey more bearable. I was not wearing my top but when we got there it was a sea of red, with most people milling about in replica kits. We were a little disappointed to see that our kits were not replicas, although they were the right colour, and guessed they must be the "cheerleader" variety. Then something happened that hasn't happened for quite a while here - loads of people came over to us to have their photos taken with us (especially the boys). They were wallowing in the attention and giving the peace signs etc.

Pre-match build up

It was 5.45pm and we'd been told to be there by 5.30pm and to "hurry up!". So after watching the lion dance and more supporters chanting I video-called Ling Ming and he was still on his dian dong che on the way over. So much for "hurry up!" but no surprise either. When we met I was told that we'd queue up and that there would be no ticket, and that if we wanted at half time we could leave the stadium to get something to drink and then come back. So we started queueing but the boys were thirsty so I went to get a couple of bottles and of course Weixin stopped working for payments. So I used a 20 kuai note as backup but they didn't have the 12 kuai change but thought to scan me so they could send it to me and this time it randomly worked.

But by now the boys were past security (luckily handing the flick knives they'd bought earlier in the day to Ling Ming just before) so I handed the bottles over the wall and went to queue myself. As I had a mostly finished bottle of doctored lemonade I was asked to chuck the bottle away so I took a last swig and realised that handing the water to the boys a few minutes ago was probably a bit naughty.

There was over an hour to go till kick-off but almost all the "cheerleaders" were already in their two allocated sections in the stadium, with almost no-one else sitting there at all. In the end we clearly had been given tickets with seat numbers on but it seemed that these didn't need to be honoured. A friend I recognised came to us and found us three seats near the front, then a moment later told us as we were tall we'd sit higher up. With so much time to go I fancied a beer but it didn't look like they sold anything like that here. But the "cheerleaders" were in fine fettle, as if they'd been imbibing the whole afternoon. Huge flags were being waved but it did feel a little manufactured, something akin to the "ultras" in Italian football. One of the drapes had "Welcome to hell" written on it in English.

Two tall cheerleaders

It was a full house

In full swing

I then I realised I'd had no interview, nor anything close to one. What was going to happen? Something after the (dry) match? Whatever, pretty much bang on the start whistle the clouds that had been threatening dumped 10 minutes of Guangxi juice on us, and barely anyone had an umbrella. I used my non-Guangxi top to shield some of it and it didn't dampen the spirits of us cheerleaders as we followed a couple of main guys with loudspeakers. They were screaming non-stop till half-time, and we barely sat for any of it. The second half was the same and although we won 2-1 it wasn't a great performance. It was the first time this year that I've seen westerners in Pingguo though (on the pitch).

Thankfully, no interview materialised after the match either, so Ling Ming took me to A Wu's Boss Zhou's place leaving the boys to find stuff for themselves. Eventually there was a late meal served, with extra beer to make up for lack of any at the match, and for some reason Boss Zhou ordered a takeaway portion of snails for me as he thought I wasn't eating enough.

Another boss meal