Wii!

Finally slept before 3am, at 2.59am, but as though Morpheus was teasing me I woke up 24 minutes later. But with the help of a long podcast I managed to drop off till 7am when I thought about getting up until it was 10am. As is usual, the routine is stepping in of me going to get four portions of jiaozi and the boys getting up later to eat it. Except this time Nezha was awake. He'd asked me for some melatonin last night and it seems to have done the trick.

They had no particular plans but I wanted to see if I could get our old Wii working again, one of the few things salvaged from our old house. It and its accoutrements were dirtier and yellower than ever, and I had severe doubts. I started by cleaning the main box, which had had its folding flaps lost many moons ago. I dared clean it and the power cable just to see if the red light would come on. Thankfully I'd left an adapter on the power cable so I put it in its stand and plugged it in an lo and behold the red light did indeed come on. But that was the first of many things that could go wrong; I had to fix the broken component cable (as I hadn't brought the HDMI adapter - silly me), then see if it would actually connect to the tv, then attach the sensor, clean and set up the Wiimotes with nunchucks etc., then hope that the old external HDD would spin up and work. If any of these went wrong it wouldn't work. But one by one I set it up. It was a real pain trying to plug in the component cables but at least the tv had this connection. But it was a real faff trying to get to them after taking a photo with my phone to see the order of the colours. But when I eventually coaxed the remote control to change input to component I saw to my satisfaction the old Wii interface, with Youtube and iPlayer etc. that would never work again. It even had the correct date and was only a couple of hours out so the internal battery must have been working.

My beloved first Wii still going strong

Next was to set up a Wiimote. I was ok to buy batteries but didn't want to venture into the searing heat so looked about and was not surprised to see a couple of random AA batteries in different places. Yes! The Wiimote came to life and I connected it to its mother station and I appeared to have a functioning Wii! Next was to see if the HDD was working so went to the Homebrew channel to try but unfortunately it didn't pick it up. But I tried the suggested "unplug and replug" and this time the titles turned up on the screen (all owned of course). I dared choose Mario Kart Wii (I even brought the disk with me) and it fired up! Ah nostalgia...even the kids now can share this with me with the Wii and recently have been playing on it at home. To my chagrin I came 8th in Luigi Circuit in the Mushroom Cup, and then in Moo Moo Meadows I was doing ok until the controller jammed turning left. I unplugged and replugged it in eventually but by now I was half a lap from 11th nearing the end of the first lap. Thanks partly to skill and partly to MK Wii's simple AI I managed to catch up within a lap and coast to victory as Daisy on the Mach bike. I got through Mushroom Gorge and Toad's Factory mostly unscathed for another victory. Simple pleasures.

Not my best win but felt better

Well there was to be no siesta; I'd got up relatively early in order to get an early night as I had no idea what time we'd be going to the funeral tomorrow. I'd asked Jiuma on Weixin but she hadn't got back to me. Anyway it was 5.30pm so I asked Leilei if he was hungry. He was eating sunflower seeds which meant he was, so I said we'd go out for a bite in half an hour. Nezha had apparently gone out by himself an hour ago and managed to order a huge bowl of rice and thank the owner and say it was "hao chi" which is pretty good progress. He said he wasn't hungry but joined us as we went across the road to Tan's aunty's place, which happened to be closed so we picked one nearby and asked if they did chao fen. Yep, plus some jiu gui yumi (drunken sweetcorn) and a pork dish, plus a large bottle of full-sugar Coke. The boys both wolfed down the fen and were nearly full by the time the yumi came, over which Nezha was asking if I believed we really put a man on the moon. I said I had no real reason to disbelieve it. Then we got on to politics and whether I thought capitalism was right...ah a tricky one. I just explained that I don't like being polarised and that both sides have their virtues.

I'd like to have had a longer conversation but Leilei had spilt Coke over the table and himself and wasn't too happy. I said I'd go to play ping pong and they were both interested in coming which surprised me in a positive way. But they wanted to go to the Guanmart supermarket first and I needed to get my raquet and theirs.

So I changed clothes and turned up and so did they. It was busier than usual but some ladies let us get on their table. Soon it was Nezha and Leilei against them and they found out the hard way (as I did many years ago) that they were shit. But to be fair it didn't stop them trying and Nezha did improve a bit. I motioned to go at 9.15pm but Leilei said he wanted to play me and I would never let him down in such a situation (we first did this when he was 5). We had a great session where I was clearly better but he won some great rallies and I was proud of him!

Boys vs girls

I left the two of them playing as I wanted to shower and get to the supermarket before it closed. Indeed I got there at 10:10 and managed to pick up the shower gel I forgot the other day. I really wanted some boiled eggs so asked a fu wu yuan. She really wanted to help and was lovely but said the only cooked eggs were quail eggs. She took me to where they were and I duly spooned a few into a bag then got it weighed. Then, with 10 minutes before closing, I asked for "wash body soap" and was told to go upstairs, which I did and found the soap but also the boiled eggs I'd been looking for. Oh poor lady she probably didn't know what wasn't on her floor.

It should have been an early night but I ended up chatting with Mat and Awl till the early hours. But only because Jiuma had finally got back to me to say not to go to the funeral tomorrow as it would be too hot. As if that would be a good reason....

Impromptu meet with Zhang Hua and Li Kun again

Still maintaining the habit of sleeping late, this time an improved 3.39am till 10.18am. I knew I was due to eat lunch with Ma Laoban so didn't eat, and instead dozed a little until at 1.20pm he pinged me to say sorry he was still busy. No problem but would have been good to know an hour ago.

So lunch became the default jiao zi from the local lady. Tan's brother was back in the house. I didn't need to see him as I could already smell the wreak of cigarettes he chain smokes. I ate my jiao zi in the bedroom because of this, and got Leilei from his slumbers to have a portion.

Tan called to confirm we are going to Jiuma's mum's funeral on the 7th and to some relative's wedding on the 8th. They will cost 200 and 300 kuai respectively which I'm not complaining about. The problem is I'll have to go to the funeral by car in the morning of the 7th and I've not yet got my sleeping patterns in toe. I guess I'll just have to get up early tomorrow and deal with the consequences. I can't see the boys going.

I pinged Zhang Hua to send me a pic of me with him and his wife from yesterday and he duly did then asked if I'd eaten and if not to come round to where he was for a bite. Well I didn't look this gift horse in the mouth and said I'd leave in 10 after a quick shower. These are some of the evenings I like best; not expected, simple, and mates coming and going over the course of a couple of hours. They were in fine fettle drinking sweet potato leaf alcohol, and I even tried half a glass and it was ok, but moved to the beer after that. More blokes came, one with a wife and kid and he ordered more food to be delivered and a new table was brought out to be put alongside the first one. They all took delight in teaching me drinking terms such as "gou rou!" (I challenge you!) and "zhang li li!" (something like "this is good!").

The fact that we were eating outside, and that there was a breeze thanks to being between two large apartment buildings made it cool in both senses, and I recognised one of the blokes from the KTV last night and it was nice to see the sober side of him, though still in high spirits...

Me with Zhang Hua's son and Zhang Hua

Relaxed meal

During the meal I got an IM from Li Kun asking if I had time tonight. I did so he said to come round at 9.30pm. This gave me the excuse to leave the meal after not too many drinks, and pick up the bottle of lemon Gin from home that I'd been meaning to give him since we got here. I turned up at 9.40pm and was the first there but a few minutes later a couple of other blokes turned up and we ended up staying over 3 hours with various bbq and other stuff delivered, as we discussed politics (to a limited extent) and I gave my opinions about the last few UK PMs. But I wanted to keep to my lower limits regarding beer so made my excuses at 1am to aim for a relatively early night.

Meeting Zhang Hua at unexpected KTV

After managing to avoid a late night out last night I had some hopes for today. Though I did ping Ma Laoban and we agreed to meet tomorrow lunchtime as he was in Tian Dong at the moment. So I ventured out in the late morning scorch but I was on a charged-up dian dong che so it wasn't so bad. I just picked up some boiled eggs and yogurt in Guanmart and didn't even think about booze as I'm looking forward to another day or two off (at least reduced).

I was annoyed to see that both the bread and bbq I'd brought back yesterday were gone and thought maybe Tan's brother had appropriated them as he came back yesterday and delivered some grapes. But late morning I knocked on Leilei's door and it transpired he had taken the bread and Nezha the bbq. So much for any breakfast for me, but at least it didn't go to waste.

So as I'd been up since not long after 9am I made myself a lunch of the leftover dofu from yesterday and two boiled eggs at 11.50. I contemplated a beer to help with a siesta but decided against it, given the last 10 days or so. I managed a 36 minute snooze according to my app and I didn't try any more as wanted a reasonably early night.

It was the first evening I hadn't been invited out and decided to take advantage by going to play table tennis at 7.45pm. I will never regret this but blimey it was so sweat-inducing and after an hour and a few minutes I explained I had to go back and shower. "There's still an hour to go" opined the probably 68-year-old who'd summoned my sweat for the last hour but I just had to tell her and the others that I needed to acclimatise and would be back soon.

But after I'd peeled off my top and managed a shower I decided to ping Zhang Hua whom I've known for about 15 years on and off and should really contact. He said he'd get back to me with where to meet up shortly, and after a short chat with Mat and Awl I took the bigger dian dong che to go and meet him. Or rather him and his wife at the equivalent of a lemonade stand on the street, except this was more lemon tea.

We waited a few minutes while his wife sorted out one for me and although I'm not a great fan of sugar or caffeine my lack of sleep and food made me take a few gulps before Zhang Hua jumped on the dian dong che and a couple of minutes later we were at a KTV place. I'd really expected to have a couple of beers together on the side of a road but when we got in we saw a raucous place just get more raucous at my appearance and I was plied with food first (thankfully in this case) then weak "Budweiser" beers which was also fine as I hadn't drunk anything all day.

Zhang Hua, me (didn't manage to open eyes properly), and his wife

But blimey the state of the other people (mostly blokes) was a sight to behold. But I'd behelden it before and went with the flow. I'd been worried Zhang Hua had organised this for me but a bit of logic meant this had clearly been in full flow since a lot earlier this evening. I was asked, but not forced, to sing some English songs, and refused saying I didn't know how. Eventually we descended into cai ma which gave all and sundry lots to be amused about.

Some of the blokes were pretty excited

Finally at close to 1am  most of the pissed blokes had left and Zhang Hua and I were just playing a couple of girls at cai ma to finish off the opened beer. Zhang Hua looked a bit the worse for wear and accepted a lift back to his place which was luckily mostly on the way back to ours. Apparently the boys are out again...

More cai ma and picking up dian dong ches

Despite tiredness for some reason I didn't sleep till 5am but got up before midday to get some jiaozi for the three of us. It was a rather quiet day for a change until A Wu called at 4pm to ask if I could come to his office to eat at 6pm. Yeah, sure, but the boys probably won't come. Then got a message from him on Weixin to be there at 6.30pm. So at 6.15pm, as I was getting ready he called to ask why I wasn't there and that the food was on the table...ha!

Well I got there at 6.40pm and yes there was some food on the table, but the rest was still being cooked so I mulled around talking to some of the kids until two blokes and a woman arrived at 7pm. Ah - these guests were the reason for the meal and soon after we sat down to eat. For no more than five minutes until the nuo mi jiu was brought out. I had no intention of drinking any more than I had to and managed a few 2.5% beer ganbeis as Huang (one of the new people) got more and more red-faced, seeming speeding up the rate of ganbeis.

Then A Wu suggested playing cai ma and the other bloke leapt up as he is apparently one of the best around. So much for staying sober but at least A Wu and I held our own against the other two and by the end of the meal Huang was sleeping with his head in his hands. The other bloke was very complimentary on my cai ma and said something about going to another place to play sometime.

A couple of rounds of cai ma

I got a lift back with the lady and the other bloke and she drove at 5mph due to her bad eyesight (her admission). It would almost have been quicker to walk but the car's A/C kept me seated till we got to our complex. But I now had missions to pick up the two dian dong ches.

It was good to talk to Mat for 25 minutes or so during the walk up to the hotel where I'd had a meal with friends two days ago and I was very greatly relieved to find it all by itself in the carpark instead of where it should have been with the other bikes. It had enough dian to get back, and indeed I stopped off to get some badly needed bog roll from a modern convenience store I'd not seen the likes of before (and maybe a couple of cold ones). Then it was a walk to the stadium to see what I could do with the bike with the dead battery. I passed by the bbq area and got a shout from what turned out to by one of Tan's "uncles", except I had a feeling he actually is related. They've moved from their pitch around the corner for some reason and I said I'd be back soon if not tonight.

15 minutes later I found the second dian dong che and there were a couple of kids on similar bikes saying "hello" to me. I asked them where I could charge it up and they said I could just go into complexes around here. What an obvious idea. All I'd have to do would be to scan a QR code. So I got on it just to see how far it would take me and managed to get up to 15kph very slowly. I thought I'd chance it, and had some uncomfortable moments crossing roads when the lights changed but just made it back home to put on charge. Phew. It was getting on for 1am but thought I might as well get some bbq as the boys may want some too.

For once I didn't get pulled over by any hellos, more like responded similarly with a wave. And I waited for my 5 duck tongues, 5 beef, and 5 pork for 20 mins having another chat to Mat that lasted till I got back and had one of each by which time I was full and put them in the fridge. The boys were already back but not hungry apparently, so I brushed and went for an early bed, which didn't happen till well after 4am yet again.

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