Lots of watching footy but at least City won!

Just remember I watched three games of Premier League football back to back and drank a few beers. Most importantly Man City won (2-0 against West Ham) for the first time in ages.

Beautiful Bangxu but not that much to do

Spent only three days in Bangxu as there wasn’t that much to do really. I went out Wednesday afternoon for a walk in the sun (which wasn’t a good idea when wearing jeans). There was some really beautiful scenery just outside the village that no-one thinks to tell you about because it’s just there.

Leilei spent a lot of time playing outside and didn't need mama and baba around him all the time. The neighbours are sort of used to us now but you still can't take Leilei out without causing all the women to break out into huge smiles displaying awkwardly fitting teeth of various colours.

A few photos from Bangxu below:

Leilei with some ladies.


Pretty babies!


Where I went on my walk.


I met some men fishing on my walk and joined them. Unfortunately I didn't catch any but they did, and invited me back for an evening meal. I had to turn them down as I'd already been invited elsewhere. That bull looked like he didn't want to let me pass, but I grabbed the bull by the horns (figuratively, I admit), and strode past and he didn't bat an eyelid.

Bangxu is where Tan’s mum lives, and where Tan spent most of her youth. It is a small market town about 2 hours drive north of Pingguo (although it is in Pingguo county), and situated, as most towns are, in the midst of some beautiful mountains. Leilei enjoyed it very much as he was free to roam around outside the house, much to the delight of the passing school children. Four times a day there were a bunch of 5 - 10 year-olds hovering about outside the house to get glimpse of Leilei…sometimes he would come out and play with them which really made their day!

Kids loitering outside Tan's mum's house to get a glimpse of Leilei.

"Safe" drive back to Bangxu

Took a taxi to Tan’s mum’s village, Bangxu (a small market town) in the afternoon.

Thankfully the taxi driver was a friend and drove with relative care. Of course this only halves the chances of having a crash as you regularly see horrendous overtaking manoeuvres, often by coaches and lorries around blind corners. I’m sure it’s like this in other countries too, but it makes French and Spanish drivers look courteous. This is one of the facets I don’t like about countries that believe in ‘fate’. What a load of bollocks. They don’t have religion so I suppose they have to explain things they don’t expect or understand in some way. It was ‘fate’ that I met Tan, ‘fate’ that we had a son blah blah blah….

We plan to spend a week in Bangxu and see relatives.

Badminton and sumptuous meals

Played badminton on court in morning with Xiao Li. 12 kuai per hour isn’t bad, although the courts weren’t air-conditioned. Xiao Li is pretty good but I think I was better. He didn’t even know the rules and just thought you served whenever you had the shuttlecock in your hand. Xiao Li has been trying to learn English since I’ve been here. Unfortunately he spends an incomprehensible amount of time trying to learn words that won’t help him much instead of useful ones like “the”. “Shuttlecock” is an example of one of those words. I won’t try to write the stuff that he came out with while trying that one.

When Xiao Li was too tired, I played a pretty girl in short shorts who worked there. She called me a hui ren (bad person) because I made her run around the court so much. Well she should have been better as she worked there.

Pretty girl with nice shorts playing badminton with Xiao Li.

Met up with Lin Hong, her husband and daughter and best friend, plus Xiao Wei and son for another meal in the MingDu hotel. We had our own private room with sofa and tv and loo, as well as a luxurious spinning table and our own young ladies to serve us. The entrance to the hotel says “Smart Dress Only” (in English as well as Chinese), but they didn’t seem to have any problem with Xiao Li and me coming in in our sweaty England tops and shorts after the badminton.

The meal was paid for by Lin Hong’s husband, whose job is to drive the top cheese in Pingguo around. This means that when he’s not doing this he drives the best car in the county – a huge shiny black Toyota Prado Landcruiser, fully loaded. It’s nicer than any car I’ve been in in the UK. When I say the meal was paid for by this bloke, I mean he signed the leader’s name on the bill – apparently this is ok as long as you are entertaining important guests (even if they are sweaty and dressed in sports gear).

Another nice meal. Lin Hong's husband is about the only one looking at the camera.

In the evening we had a similar meal to lunch, except that it was hosted by Tan’s ex-manager from when she worked in the bank about 7 years ago. He also had a magic signature that meant the local government paid for the meal. The food, like every meal was delicious and varied. I don’t think I’ve ever had the same dish twice since I’ve been here, although I can’t say the same about the beer.

"Breakfast" at Mingdu hotel

Went for “breakfast” in the posh Pingguo MingDu hotel with Lin Hong and her daughter. The deal is this: you pay 10 kuai (about 70p) and you can eat as much as you like from a buffet that has a very good range of food – but the catch is that you can’t take any home with you, and you have to pay 10 kuai for every 50 grams you don’t eat. Needless to say they piled the table high with loads of food (as it was 10.30am and the breakfast stuff was being cleared away.

We all got stuffed of course, and had a couple of beers (wouldn’t have done so if it had been Stella though). Then Lin Hong took out the tissues from the envelope they came in and started putting some of the food in it to take back! Very inspired. Luckily we weren’t charged for the leftovers, which would have been considerably more expensive than what we did pay. Thinking about it, it seems pretty unenforceable to charge for the weight of the food you didn’t eat…you could just sneakily drop it under the table – I could see a funny Mr Bean episode coming out of this.

Lin Hong appropriating some cakes and looking very guilty.

Our house

Woke up in the morning for the first time in a while. Leilei was noticeably better despite the nasty cough and quiet voice.

Lounged around the house most of the day. The houses here mostly follow a pretty simple design: a large room at the front and a smaller one at the back with a large staircase in the middle. The number of floors is a sort of indication of wealth. Xiao Li is quite rich so here we have 6 and a half floors (each about 13’ high), with a worryingly low banister on the spiral (well, square spiral) staircase that comes up to the bottom of my buttocks (I carry Leilei in my left arm when ascending and right arm when descending just in case).

There is a kitchen and a dining room, plus a sort of large bathroom where my toilet is. The rest of the rooms are bedrooms and spare rooms except for the ground floor, which is a sort of garage. Every room in the building without exception has a toilet/shower, and most have air conditioning. The roof is flat and is used for meals on special occasions and drying clothes.

The living room has a tv that is nearly always on, a computer and large, comfortable sofas that you regularly see people sleeping on. We eat in the kitchen when not eating out. Some photos below…

Leilei a bit better and "drink tea"

After a few more doses, Leilei was looking a bit better. He wanted to watch Peppa Pig (we’d brought some DVDs of his favourite program with us) although he still couldn’t talk.

About 9.30pm Xiao Li said we would go to drink tea. This is a bit of a loaded expression. It meant we went to a karaoke place where you and some friends have your own private room to drink beer, sing badly, eat snacks, and if you like drink tea served by some young beauty in traditional figure hugging dress.

I’d had a few beers before but this place sobered me up with its 3.1% beer and glasses you’d be embarrassed to serve spirits in. I couldn’t believe how drunk some of Xiao Li’s friends were (it can’t just have been this beer). They sung really badly and out of tune and time. Of course they wanted me to sing – Sound of Silence plus some Chinese song I’d been taught – “You are my rose, you are my flower, you are my lover, the thing I miss” (doesn’t sound much more romantic in Chinese). Got home 1.30am and went to bed.

Leilei tonsillitis

Leilei seemed a little better when standing up but had completely lost his voice and sicked up some nasty looking mucous. By the evening though I thought he was worse; he was really hot and whimpering all the time. I decided to take him to hospital again (this time a different one).

This time he was diagnosed with flu and tonsillitis, which sounded more likely. We were given some different medicine and told once again it wasn’t really serious and we should relax. That was one thing I found quite hard to do at the time. Back home again, Leilei managed to drink some cold water which made him look a lot more refreshed – he even managed a smile. However he wouldn’t have any of the brown concoction that was his medicine until we forced it down him. Unfortunately he then forced it and the rest of the contents of his stomach over his daddy…but I held onto him tightly and we managed to get a second lot of medicine to stay down a bit later.

Feeling a bit relieved I sat down and watched the football and had a couple of cool beers. Bed at 5am for the third day in a row. Must be the jetlag.