Dustbin snake plus I am not a fan of VAR

Yay it was Saturday...no concerns about finishing for the day at 10pm being too early. Tan was planning to order crappy fried chicken for lunch, which was incentive enough for me to get out of the house with the kids to the yumi tang place for our standard order of sweetcorn soup, fried egg, and fried rice. In retrospect maybe not that much healthier than the other option.

Surely the healthier option...

After that I dropped off the kids at A Xia’s. While we walked down into the underground shopping centre we all noticed a large snake rising out of a bin at the bottom of the stairs. Almost as quick we realised of course that it wasn’t a boa constrictor but rather a balloon, but it is like there is something ingrained in our genes to be aware of snake-like objects, and those that didn’t have it in the past just died from snakebites or being crushed. It reminded me of those videos of cats eating and the owners leave a cucumber next to them and most of them jump to high heaven when they finally see it. We’re basically cats.

It only doesn't look like a snake when you focus on it

At A Xia's shop in the underground shopping centre...they have the AC turned rather low

An hour later I got a call from Xixi to take her back as she was bored. Then evening dawned (or at least the pm equivalent) and we went to the guangchang for skating again, which is a rather healthy habit. I left them to see racist Huang and have a bite to eat, then went to pick them up again at 9pm to take them back to Huang. This time at least Leilei talked a bit to the people on our table, which made me more relieved than proud. I know he has it in him but he doesn’t show it much. But after a few mouthfuls the kids clearly weren’t in the mood to stay so I took them back home and came back by myself to Huang’s where we ate and chatted till midnight.

Silly girl got her hair caught up in fan

I got back in time to watch the City - Spurs match. We were fantastic but as VAR and luck would have it it ended 2-2. I wasn’t as disappointed as I would have been in previous years...the performance was what counted. But VAR has started to kill the game for me. You really can’t cheer any goal any more. It’s only been around a bit but every bloody goal is checked so you’re constantly worried. Football used to be about fun and included human error on the part of referees. Now that they’re trying to take out the errors (and I believe they are) they are sucking out the soul of the game. This is why I find winning the Premier League so much more important than the Champions League. The former can only be done with skill and some luck, the latter makes the luck proportion go up too much for my liking. Hopefully if we play the way we did today we’ll have a decent chance, though Liverpool are looking ominous.

I guess I had a bit of adrenaline after the match so stayed awake to chat with Mat and Awl for a while...Sunday tomorrow so doesn’t really matter what time sleep.

Flat finally paid for

Lunch of beef and salty biscuits again but I didn’t want to waste working time as I’d been invited to drink tea with some friends later. Luckily this time tea really did mean only tea. While I was there Tan called to ask if I had removed Lin Hong from my friends list in WeChat? Well no I hadn’t and is there a context for this question? Apparently she needed to call me for some mortgage business but couldn’t find me. Maybe it was because I had changed my picture that she couldn’t find me but I hadn’t changed my name. I mean fair enough I often go by people’s avatars as I can’t always read the characters but she can and 彭多明 has not changed. I was a bit concerned as no news is good news regarding the mortgage, and this was news. Last time it was to tell me we still had a month outstanding to pay. So I found Lin Hong in my contacts (by name, no less, though it took a while), and rang but she didn’t answer. It can’t have been that important. I let Tan know and then she told me the kids and her were about to get on a train back to Pingguo from Baise. So I finished my tea and went back to tidy up the house in sweltering conditions. Just doing the dusting got me sweaty enough to wash the floor, and as soon as I’d grabbed a shower Tan called to open the door downstairs for the kids as she was sorting out the mortgage with Lin Hong, and then arrived half an hour later with the deeds in her hand - officially the flat is paid for!

At 6.30 I took the kids to eat chao fen again at the guangchang. Instead of just the 10 kuai portion the kids shared last time (and actually nearly finished - meaning the cheapest meal for a long time) I also added a portion of ribs and some kong xin cai, but immediately regretted it as the kids only had most of the chao fen leaving me with two complete other portions, which I manly managed in the next 20 mins while the kids took themselves off to skate.

A rare sight - Leilei actually helping Xixi to skate

When I said "hold my beer" I didn't mean drink it! The two portions I had to finish in front of me...

I allowed Xixi the decadence of candyfloss and she taught me a new word: mian hua tang "cotton sugar"...pretty much translated from the American

After that I took them on a short MMT to find some places we’d never been before but that was difficult. We looked for the big wheel place but didn’t find it so surmised it must have been taken down, which wouldn’t be surprising due to the few people who ever used it (we certainly didn’t). So we left popped in to Li Kun’s which was rammed with people practising music. We drank tea for 15 mins then went as the kids were bored and it really was too busy to have a conversation. At home after shower a mate from a couple of evenings ago video called me to come over to the music pub I went to with Li Kun on the night we arrived. I really was not massively in the mood - it was getting on for midnight - but I somehow told myself I’d regret it if I didn’t so I did.. The singers were bloody good though, if loud, and I recognised one of them as someone I’d jammed with a year or so back. Then the mate tried to force me to get on the stage to sing and I was having none of it. The place was at least three times as big as the place I sang at last year and we’d just had great renditions of songs by semi-professional artists. It was for the second reason mainly that I politely refused, and no amount of beer would change my mind.

He's actually an arts teacher by day. There was no way I was going to attempt Sounds of Silence after this...

Another charge, another photo

No 2-1 but Chen and advertising friend for German beer and insects

Another day of work and instead of going out to eat where I might be tempted to stay longer I stayed inside and had some of that beef our soon-to-be ex-neighbour left us the other day together with some light-as-air salty biscuits which have about as much packing as biscuit.

I was being good and focusing on work as I was expecting 2-1 to contact me to eat as he’d said yesterday. But by 5pm nothing had happened so I guessed he’d forgotten or never really intended in the first place. It’s like that a lot of the time. Someone invites you out and nothing comes of it, or more likely no-one invites you out in advance but they call you an hour before to tell you to come. Well that was it for some other friend, who decided I needed to join them for dinner, and as my lunch had been tiny, and no beer was planned, I accepted. And it made a refreshing change that there was only one beer and a decent excuse of going back to work less than an hour after.

But the evening was a bit different. Chen IM’d me to meet up for a beer at 3000 degrees at 8ish so I said I could make it by 9 if that was ok, and of course it was. Chen doesn’t do things by halves so we had some great bbq and of course Li Quan beer, even though he’s not a local. An hour or so in, advertising friend pinged me to say they were going to drink German beer and I should join as I couldn’t make it last night. The logic was infallible and I explained as such to Chen, who accepted (knowing perhaps I’ve probably had to leave other friends to meet him in the past). Sometimes the non-locals understand me better than the locals.

So it was to a beer place where there was a choice that would have been unheard of 10 years ago, though I didn’t really have an inkling to drink Corona or any of the 5%+ beers they had. But sod it, I was given a pint glass and a 500ml can of some German-named weiss beer and I took it like a man. Cai ma is a bit different with such a glass and you need to be a bit more careful. Everyone was in high spirits at least and we ate insects from another table that left, which was slightly weird but tasty...mmm...millipedes...

Advertising friend and other friends

They looked like millipedes at least

Meal with Haiwei, beer with water man, KTV with Boss Zhou - fun!

Well I’d been wondering when to take the train back to Guangzhou - Leilei wanted to have a couple more days in Hong Kong but I wanted to stay in the mainland. I used the very genuine excuse of the current uprisings in HK to justify staying one night in Guangzhou to meet my ex-colleague and one more night in HK before our midday flight on Saturday, So at least we’d get an afternoon and evening there. Although it’s nearly two weeks in the future there were not that many tickets left already and none in business class where I thought it may be better for our suitcases, so we snapped up a couple of normal class and would hope for the best.

Leilei had told me about this experiment and I found it worked...neat but I need to understand why

The rest of the day was work until I went to Haiwei’s at 5.30 as promised. We were pretty sensible and only had a couple of cans with the meal. But that turned into a couple more after the meal as my friend 2-1 was there and his girlfriend is pregnant and before we knew it it was 9pm and pissing down outside. 2-1 invited me out tomorrow and I said thanks but I couldn’t commit due to work.

After a wet journey home advertising friend invited me out for a drink but I sadly had to refuse as water man had been badgering me for the last couple of days to meet up for a beer. But this in itself was slightly rushed as Boss Zhou had also invited me to go to sing song. But I stayed a good hour sitting in the doorway of his shop in the good company of some of his mates who are becoming my mates a bit now. Apparently we were to be eating slivers of raw fish and I was a bit disappointed when they didn’t turn up but other fishy stuff did instead. But soon after bbq turned up, including the infamous zhu bian, of which you only get one per pig, and only male ones at that.

Only one per non-sow pig

They were understanding when I made my excuses some time after 11pm and went to see Boss Zhou at the KTV. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in a KTV, and he was in high spirits, as were a number of women, one of whom apparently knew me from 15 years ago as we’d gone for a meal with her as a family. I took her word for it. But the next 15 minutes became a little bit like my former, pre-kids time in China where I was the centre of attention, and copious photographs were taken that would get sent out on WeChat in near-real-time. It was totally innocent of course, and I felt my smile was a little forced, not that they sensed this. But at least this slowed down the intake of 2.5% beer and I was able to leave the place as sober, if not more so, than when I entered.

Still friends were trying to contact me but as tempted I was to continue the night it was late enough and I managed to sleep before 4am.

Two meals at Luwen's and too much duck

The kids and Tan took the 10am train to Baise to Er Jie’s house, meaning they left home at 8am which is stupid in my book but my book contains lots of things that may be considered stupid too, like cryptocurrency. But also apparently there was some birthday in Baise which I slightly doubted as birthdays are not really celebrated here in the same way.

I had brunch at Luwen’s and he invited me to eat duck with him this evening as it’s still gui jie (not a single day celebration). Apparently everyone eats baked duck and chicken for this occasion, and judging by the copious pictures on WeChat this is true. Why I only learnt this after 16 years I really don’t know.

Luwen knows now to give me a half portion of fen but extra quail eggs but still won't let me pay

Then in the afternoon an ex-colleague called and wanted to discuss business with me so I said ok I may stop at Guangzhou on way to HK to talk face-to-face. It was something about my old work...he’s now based in China and trying to sell this product but as it’s cloud based no Chinese company will touch it unless the data resides in the country, so they are left to buy crappy equivalents that are home-grown. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to help this.

Well I worked till 6.15 then pinged Luwen and he said not to come to his place as it was too hot there so he went to his shop and I met him 15 mins later. It transpired that he had already had a family meal, which is a good thing, but he’d brought a feast for me. I was forced to eat two duck legs but my teeth really weren’t up to it so it took ages and only once I’d eaten what I could of the legs did he deem it sufficient to crack open a beer. I wasn’t massively in the mood but we get through a few cans anyway till I made my excuses at 8.30 to get back on with work.

A veritable feast for one

Which I did for an hour till I went to 3000du bar as Haiwei had invited me to talk with his elder son in English. I did this for two hours during which Haiwei spent the whole time watching programmes on his phone. Apparently the NBA has been banned on the TV because one of the owners of a team publically supported Hong Kong, and the league itself did not publicly disagree with him. It’s weird because it’s so popular here, yet Haiwei’s son didn’t seem to be critical in any way. It’s just accepted. Well maybe I’m the weird one for finding it weird - at least where I am now.

At least for the last 20 minutes it was a bit more interesting as I noticed a group of about eight ladies having some beers and one of them was taking a picture of the group. Of course I jumped in and offered to take a pic of all of them, and recognised one as a Shanghainese woman who had married a Pingguonese bloke, so we had something in common. It was much more fulfilling talking to them for a bit in Mandarin, but I felt bad for Haiwei’s son so I ganbei’d them and went off to finish talking English with him, and Haiwei said to come to his house for supper tomorrow and told him that work-allowing I’d be there thanks.

The ladies posing for someone else taking the photo so not noticing me

Early skate and late cai ma

Mainly work today as it should be and I’m grateful for them letting me WFH here. It was gui jie today, meaning some festival of the dead though I’ve never really understood it properly as they have some other special day in March or April to remember the dead. Took the kids to the guangchang again for 40 mins only as was so hot today, then worked till 10.30pm, having only eaten a little at midday and at 6pm.

Actually skating in the light for a change

I popped to see racist Huang but his wife told me he was back in Beihai till 15th, so decided to see if Boss Zhou was about. Indeed he was and he shouted to me to come over and have a bite, and I ended up staying till 1ish as more friends arrived during the meal so cai ma blah blah. Then, as going back, Zhang Hongping shouted at me from another place to have more beer and chat and didn’t leave till 2.30. A typical evening in the life...

I hope it's not serious but I have a need to take a photo of the mileage every time I charge up - I think I'm planning to make a chart to plot how badly the battery is holding its charge and help me decide when to change it

No thermometers in Pingguo, but condoms with wine

Up slightly late, as were the kids so we once again went to the yumi tang place for lunch. I straightaway felt rather sick and had diarrhoea all afternoon. Waterman called me to ask me to invite him and some friends to drink at the same place we went to the other week. Oh well I suppose it’s my turn to do this and it’s a good thing to pay back in a way.

Yesterday a large green container was placed outside the bottom of our building. It surprised me to find out that it was actually a clothes recycling place, not just for clothes, but bags and books too for good measure. Finally something practical for the shoes the kids have grown out of but I didn’t want to chuck, and we got rid of Xixi’s white trainers that were now yellow and the shoe-cleaning shop even admitted they wouldn’t be able to get back to their former glory. Hopefully some child won’t mind and will make use of the half a million or so paces they have left in them (depending on the gait and weight of the said child). I now have an option for some of the many clothes I’ve been hoarding for the last 10 years in the hope that I might spend time here when it’s cold.

Xixi at the new clothes/shoes/bag/book recycling place having dropped off her too-small trainers

In the boiling afternoon I went out to get drinks for Tan and the kids and went to the football pitch I played on last year from where I could see our house. Why I did this I don’t really know - it’s not that interesting but it was to me - I even called Leilei at the house to come to the balcony to wave at us. He didn’t “pick up” my first call but did my second, and duly went through the kitchen to wave at us from the patio and seemed to understand why, justifying my interest a little.

Missed capturing Leilei in the window four floors down from top

By now it was so hot I wanted to know how much. I didn’t know the word for thermometer but suddenly needed to know so looked it up. But after three shops I realised it wasn’t being translated properly - they all said I needed to go to a hospital, which was probably true but not for this reason. For one of the only times here I decided to give up. It was hot and I could deal with not knowing whether it was 38 degrees or 42. Well actually I couldn’t but I didn’t want to show the kids that.

Is it wrong to find a shopping security box ticket so interesting? I don't think so...and neither do my frie...hey, where have they gone?

Going to the supermarket to look for a thermometer, the first thing you have to pass is the alcohol aisle, which I noticed had some interesting, and possibly quite appropriate, product placement

When we got home a bit later our ex-neighbours from the same floor were also there. They are selling their flat opposite ours as  they now live in her place of origin (there is probably a better term for that). They’d brought us some speciality tinned meat as a present, which Tan had for lunch. They chatted for ages and she moaned that her city was the strictest in China regarding letting civil servants travel, and they weren’t allowed to leave the country under any condition. Pity, but I guess they had a choice about moving there. Otherwise civil servants still have very strict conditions under which they may visit a foreign country, for fear of not coming back and giving out state secrets I suppose. But it was refreshing in a way to hear someone complaining about the state here, not because I agree necessarily, but it’s so rare to hear. Anyway, it looks like we will have new neighbours soon.

There was no going out until guangchang time, which is becoming a good habit now, and we left at a far too early 6.30pm and Xixi skated for a full 90 mins, before they got showered and I took them both to the bar at Jiangbin Lu to meet Waterman. I managed to get them to eat a few morsels but not get them engaged in any meaningful way so gave up and took them home at 10pm. I hope eventually they’ll become more social but with this company it won’t happen for a long time. I got back to Waterman and mates and enjoyed the next hour or so before making my excuses. They were having nothing of my attempt to pay even though I’d “invited” them, and my arguing was to no avail. I guess I have to actually invite them rather than wait for one of them to tell me I’d invited them. Fair enough. Got back in time for the 11.30pm match to see Utd beat Chelsea 4-0 - that shouldn’t have happened.

Can't imagine why the kids weren't too interested in the company...

Perfect meal at same place as 2008

Well it was a bit of a late wake-up at 10.30, which became 11.30 after dreaming about getting the Eurostar for some weird reason. Uncle Yellow texted me at 10.30 I found to go for a meal at 12.30ish. Man I’m supposed to be working…

Anyway, I went to where we were supposed to meet, and I realised this was a re-run of our meal in 2008 - something that sticks in my mind as a particularly bonding moment with my mates and me, when we ate dog in the mid-December sun and had a really nice time. Today would be no exception, and was one of those meals when you’re expecting to go for lunch but it ends up being linner. It took me longer than it should have to get there as despite WeChat location sharing they still didn’t have all the little dirt tracks that I needed, but nothing a quick phone call couldn’t fix. I imagined the same situation 11 years ago without the language or technology but even then it worked out pretty ok in the end.

Wading out to release my bad fishing error

This time we clearly had time on our hands and I made use of it by trying to fish. I was crap. I rolled up balls of bait and stuck them onto the two hooks but as soon as they entered the water it seemed they were either eaten by clever fish or just fell off. I tried to be clever and swing my line to another place but embarrassingly got it caught in some fencing in the water that I guessed was for some other sort of fish. In the end I had to call some local bloke who waded into the water to free my line, and after thanking him I didn’t try to fish again.

A cute puppy to accompany us

Eventually we ate at 3.30pm  so I’m still not sure if it was lunch. But it was lush, and we were accompanied by cute puppies and some women. I finally left at 5.30 after a decent amount of cai ma and went to meet Yang whom I’d promised earlier I would dine with. Well I’d hoped to leave at 7.30 to watch the City match but I only got to his place at nearly 7, so brought my laptop. There were two other friends and they were all drinking white alcohol with the meal but I stuck to Li Quan beer, and apologised as I opened my laptop to and asked for the wifi password in order to watch the match. The company wasn’t that amazing, and strangely, as we finished the meal we all moved on to drinking only tea for the next 45 mins or so during the second half. The others seemed to use my excuse of leaving as their excuse of doing the same at nineish, but at least we won 5-0.

Literally one my best memories from Pingguo

And the same place in December 2008...plus ca change...

Then I was to meet up with Yang Haiwei where it was a lot more fun and we drank with some outsiders (outside from Guangxi at least), and I didn’t get home till pretty late but was at least able to watch the Spurs game.

Eating and drinking with Yangliang

Muslim meal and Zhang Hongping again

Up at a more appropriate 9.30 and lingered in bed. Despite work I took the kids to lunch at the Yumi tang place. Then back for more work until 7 when I took them to the Muslim place for dinner as they didn’t want to go with Tan to eat zhou. I always feel embarrassed eating here (and most places actually) - I don’t want to order too much and not eat it, but if I order just enough for the kids and me I feel like I’m being mean. I just can’t win in this situation. The only way I could be comfortable is if the kids would eat a lot more, but then I’d just worry about them getting obese, though this is a million miles away thankfully. I think some people almost force themselves to worry about every situation. I’m more 30-40% of situations so relatively sane. The way I look at situations is to imagine I’d made a different choice and see how I would be regretting that. Like if you arrive late at the airport you worry about missing the plane, but if you arrive too early you worry about having to wait ages before you can check you bag in, and that you may get too hungry before the lounge and buy something to eat. Literally first world problems though. But still as we eliminate the third world (I think we will) we may soon have to consider these ones. Bulimia is, I consider, a first world problem, but despite this it affects a few people really seriously. Once everyone’s mouth is fed we may have to start really looking at mental issues like this. I don’t imagine bulimia occurs much in drought-ridden regions.

Eating at the nice Muslim place

Anyway after ordering not enough and still not finishing it (a double whammy) we went home to get water and Leilei’s skateboard then on to the guangchang for what is becoming a nightly skating session. We also met some 15 year old girl who’d been talking to my kids and now was talking to me. It was slightly surreal as she wanted to keep talking (in Chinese) and also said she was a great fan of talking. I didn’t know how to react other than continue talking with her.

But Wenliang arrived and shouted out “Duoming!” and came to my rescue. He’d had a couple of beers for tea and decided we needed to go to walk it off so I let the kids know and we walked a lap or so of the guangchang. He is still the person I understand most here, mainly because he isn’t from here and also has worked abroad, though doesn’t speak a word of English. So it was an enjoyable conversation before bringing the kids back for showers and sleeps.

Well unlike what he said yesterday Haiwei didn’t contact me for a meal or drink, but instead later at 12:30 Zhang Hongping called me to go for a beer and I thought why not? I was glad I did as we had a good catch-up session until 2.40am when I decided it was appropriate to leave as I was due to be going out midday tomorrow.

Nice meal and drinks with Zhang Hongping