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| Leilei saying goodbye to Waipo |
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| Leilei not saying goodbye to his family at Nanning airport |
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| Leilei, Tan, and me at the guangchang |
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| Our last evening meal |
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| Last karaoke with Boss Liang |
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| Boss Liang dancing with some strange girl |
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| At Venky's and my favourite daytime eatery |
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| Venky's new hairstyle! |
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| Venky's last supper |
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| The shoe polisher was not the only happy one! |
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| ...but painful at times...not that I would show it |
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| Venky loving it |
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| My friend |
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| Who's scared of who? |
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| Venky seems to be in a slow-motion strip with some important people of Pingguo |
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| Lin Hong on the right proposing a toast with her colleagues I think - that was the only glass of red I had tonight |
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| Well I suppose last time it was me doing the same thing... |
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| Yeah this was me last year... |
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| This seems to be Venky's party trick |
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| ...and this was Venky last year! |
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| One rather drunk bloke and two rather worried people |
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| Karaoke is about letting off steam as much as it is about singing |
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| Er...maybe had there been women we'd have behaved more decently... |
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| Good buddies! |
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| Tan's new butterfly tattoo |
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| Bees |
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| A long-nosed turtle |
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| We found some vege stuff for Venky |
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| Lack of females |
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| Lu Wen, me, Lu Wen's little brother, Venky, A Wu |
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| Leilei waiting for Venky's arrival |
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| Venky in full swing |
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| We had some nice ducks tongues |
I took advantage and went back to sleep until 11. Tan had borrowed a camcorder from Xiao Li’s brother-in-law, in order that I could copy the tape I had made some weeks previously onto a cd via the laptop. Unfortunately, after I put the tape in and turned the camcorder on, it just displayed an error message. Damn. I tried with a brand new tape and still got the same error. It was only a minute later when I realised that the tape I had recorded on the other month (and had been lying in the bookshelf since) was utterly infested with tiny red ants. They were now crawling all over the tape – not just inside…and I noticed they were carrying eggs. Yes, some bastard family of ants had decided to make a nest inside my 90 minutes of video tape from China. As I banged the tape on the windowsill more and more ants came out…and eventually a couple of larger ones with wings…, which I presume, are queens or something.
I did a search on google for the error message “C:31:23”, and found that normally it can be fixed by removing the battery, or by smacking the camcorder on the side. Thankfully (very thankfully, as they are not cheap), the camcorder responded to the former and I was spared the embarrassment of telling the owner that a bunch of ants had ruined his pride and joy. I have not since tried to play the original tape – there are still ants crawling about inside….
The other day Xiao Wei arrived home with her son Li Mingda on a new motorbike. It was a pretty nice looking moped in dark blue. They already have a red one, but this was a present from her mother – and apparently is not a moped but an electric bicycle due to the lack of any petrol engine. This means anyone can ride it without a licence. Thanks mum what a great present! It looks just like a moped but is silent. You just plug it in to the mains every few nights and there you go – much less pollution (ok I know the electricity has to be produced somewhere – but still…). And the best thing about it is the price – 2000 kuai – about £130. I swear if I’d known that I’d have got one as soon as we arrived (note to self: buy one next time I spend any appreciable time in China).
New electric moped. Not bad for £130!
As we were having a fantastic bbq with Biao ge (the one who is the master of cooking duck – and, it transpires, lamb) I found myself mulling over sexual equality in China. I’ve read that one of the things that will slow down China becoming a predominant world power is its subjugation of women. Now I’ll admit that the one-child policy has brought an increasing awareness of how important it is to have a son – and I find that abhorrent. I also am aware of the dearth of females in politics and high-powered jobs in this country (but I don’t think it’s drastically different in the UK). What I have noticed, though, is many women doing traditionally men’s jobs, such as driving buses and building houses.
Also, women are much more feminine here than in the UK. They wear dresses more often and look like women. They rarely drink beer and don’t burp as much as the men. They look happier than English women and don’t have chips on their shoulders about trying to be “equal”. That’s the important thing. Women are happy. Yes, they have a more defined role than in the UK, and so do the men – and I think it works better.
The reason it smells of sick is that Leilei woke up on the stroke of half time (not a bad time to wake up as we were ahead 3-0), and sicked on my shoulder. Unfortunately he had a bit of a cough and wouldn’t go to bed, so I took him downstairs for a bit, and then made him play the car game on my mobile that always gets him asleep.
Except that he wouldn’t sleep this time. It took a half hour phone call from Awl before Leilei was asleep.
OK. They are all asleep now! So my shirt smells of baby puke! We won! We beat Fulham 3-1! Ok we could have done better but it’s three points! And Corradi scored at last!
Leilei drinking orange. Tan's mum is on Tan's right and her brother's wife on her mum's right. The eggs are dyed red for...err...good luck.
Had a nice lie in without Leilei, but went to pick him up later in the morning. A lie in. You really can’t appreciate how nice that is unless you haven’t had one for so many months. Sometimes I get up early and do all the baby things till late morning just so Tan can experience that feeling (normally when I’m after something).
It’s really hot again now, including the nighttime. Most men, though, still wear long trousers during the day and black shoes. There is a bit of a penchant for wearing shiny black shoes with white socks. Fortunately, Xiao Li and his friends wear dark socks.
Visits to the ladies outside the shops who clean shoes are frequent, as it gets quite dusty here. In fact I’ve noticed this wherever I’ve stayed in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. I think one of the reasons it’s so dusty here is simply the amount of building going on. I went to clean my white trainers today. I took Leilei out to watch his mum dancing for a bit (more to show him off to the other ladies), then went to buy some milk powder as we’ve given the other tin to his grandma. She is meant to be taking him to Bangxu tomorrow for a couple of days.
As I was out shopping in the evening with Leilei, I thought I’d pop in on his grandma as I haven’t seen her in a week or so. After a few minutes there I said I needed to go to pick up Tan from dancing, and her mum asked if I could leave Leilei there…to stay the night. So I did. He’s got a lot better with other people now – you can leave him with just about anyone as long as he has a car or a ball in one hand.
That day I found out that the place in the mountains where they wash the iron ore, in preparation for selling to the factories, was no longer usable as the lake there had dried up. They needed a new place to wash the ore where the water would be plentiful.
Well, that day, two weeks ago was part of the plan. We eventually met the owner of a plot of land that had been used for growing maize, but was situated, conveniently, a hundred yards from the main river that flows from Pingguo (and continues to Nanning, and eventually to the sea). A few words were spoken, and I understood that we were to start washing the iron ore in this place instead of in the mountain.
So I was quite surprised to see a half built wall around an area nearly the size of a football pitch when I arrived. More than that, there was about 100 tons of iron ore awaiting washing, plus some women digging out the foundations for a new house on this plot.
They had taken this seriously. Xiao Li had paid the owner of the land for three years. The area was to be walled off, and have a couple of inhabitants in order to keep non-desirables away. A three metre deep pool was to be excavated and pumped full of water from the nearby river. I asked when the house would be ready (I gave the women a hand digging the holes for the foundation stones) and was told “five days”. I asked when the whole thing would be ready and was told “ten days”. I was surprised but believed these figures. And I will be here long enough to confirm them.
One thing is for sure, they get things done here. I presume there isn’t a lot of governmental interference, or employment laws they have to follow. We just paid the four women digging the house a few hundred kuai (works out to £1.80 a day), and those building the wall get twice that, then spent the rest of the time checking the work. I was encouraged to tell them to “kuai yi dian!!” (“hurry up!!”), but I could only do so in a laughing manner, although I did go around the workers and ask them how they were doing and what methods they were using to build the wall (they think I’m their boss).
So now I know what Xiao Li has been doing recently: overseeing the work on a new place to wash and distribute their iron ore. Ingenious! They’ll be able to produce five to ten times more than previously at not much more cost.
Lao Tao surveying the new premisis.
A woman digging the foundations of a new house that will take five days to build. She will have earned under a tenner in that time.
For the last ten days or so it has been noticeably cooler during the night. I mean, sometimes at midnight you see people in long sleeves eating their bbq. And when you get out of the shower early in the morning, it’s actually a bit cold. This makes Chinese parents go over the top and you see young children in three layers of clothes in their mothers’ arms. Leilei doesn’t escape this, and he’s bundled off to his grandma with a tee-shirt, jumper and cardigan, even though during the day it’s still 30+ degrees C.
One nice thing about this change in the weather is that it is much clearer outside, and less humid than before. The mountains around the town are much more appreciable and walking more than one pace a second does not make you break out into a sweat. Unfortunately, Leilei has developed a bit of a cough again, and of course this is blamed on the change in the weather. I asked if winter had come and was answered in the affirmative – I’m a bit saddened at the thought of having to wear long sleeves at 1am…
Wake up at 8am with Leilei. I’ll change his nappy and get his milk while Tan gets washed (takes 65 minutes). She’ll feed him some porridge and clothe him. I’ll take him to Wai po’s house (grandma’s) in a three wheeled cab at 9.30am, and maybe do some shopping in the supermarket before heading back to have a shower, by which time it will be after 11am and someone will be making lunch. After lunch I’ll try to settle down to doing some work in preparation for getting a new job. Sometimes, though, we’ll both have a little siesta. Tan will generally go out in the afternoon with Xiao Wei, and they’ll come back around 6pm with our sons for tea.
The women go out dancing most evenings so I’m usually looking after Leilei and bathing him and putting him to bed around 9.30pm. The girls come back around this time with some bbq (usually duck intestines and duck tongues). We’ll have a beer and I’ll help Xiao Li with some English before going to bed. Nothing special really.
For the last few weeks Xiao Li has been out of the house most days until the evening. He’ll generally come back at lunchtime with Lao Tao (his cousin and business partner) to cook something, and then again at teatime. It’s strange because for the first eight weeks I was here he seemed to be around almost all the time and I wondered what he did for a living.
We bought a sort of car for Leilei recently. You can make it go simply by moving the steering wheel which is really cool. He really likes it and so does Li Mingda, so they both share it sometimes as you can see....
Huang Chun's new house. Leilei particularly liked the glass-covered step up to the dining area, under which was an assortment of white stones, shells, and orange table tennis balls which he calls "ba ba qiu" (should be ping pang qiu). I liked the tv.
Well anyway, at 3pm Tan took me to the massage place we’d been to a couple of days before and explained the problem to a bloke. We went upstairs, where he rubbed by back with hot water infused with herbs, and then started to massage all over my back. Tan said he was making the muscles relaxed before he would attempt to crack my back, which was not what I wanted to hear. However, it later transpired that there was to be no cracking…something a lot more scary in fact.
He did a very good job of the massage, and although the pain was on my left side, he stated that my right side had problems due to having been sitting down too much at a desk and not exercising enough. I’m not sure how he came to that conclusion – if it was muscle stiffness, it might have been caused by playing badminton. Anyway, he put some oil on my back, then started to scrape my skin with an implement like a comb but without the teeth, made from bone. This was to prepare my back for…cupping.
Cupping is a strange procedure whereby you heat up a glass bowl and quickly stick it on the victim’s back while there is a vacuum, which sucks the skin up into the bowl. I really don’t understand what practical purpose it serves but I understand it has been common practice in China for around 1700 years. Check out some information for yourself: http://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+cupping
Here is a video of the procedure
Well, I don’t know what the masseur was using to heat the bowls, but it sounded like a blowtorch. The painful part was not the heat of the bowl, but the suction of the skin into it…he must have placed about twenty of these bowls on the whole of my back and by the time he had finished I felt as though I had been lifted into the air such was the pressure on my back. I could hardly talk, but managed to ask how long till he took them off – “five to ten minutes”, he replied, which felt a lot longer than that. Actually, having read a couple of pages I realise the masseur was probably heating cotton wool balls soaked in alcohol to heat the bowls.
Me after my first round of cupping.
When released, each bowl made a noise like a fart that you only half tried to keep in, but the relief was tangible. By the time he removed the last one with a satisfying “prrrrweeee” I could have laid there for an hour. But to my horror, a minute later he started putting a new set on. That’s like going to the dentist, having an injection and a filling, then going to the waiting room only to be called back a minute later for the same procedure again. This time was more painful too, and I gave a quite audible sound of relief as they were removed. It didn’t help that Tan kept saying: “ooh, that one’s really bad…look how dark”, as if I could.
I nearly passed out when I heard he was coming in for a third run, but Tan said I actually didn’t have to have it if it was painful. Well, I’m sorry, but from where I come from that’s a challenge. I said of course he could do it again, and grinned and bore another ten minutes of this strange pain…
The results are quite scary. If you didn’t know better, you’d think I had caught some alien form of disease, or was the illegitimate offspring of a human and a tortoise. Don’t look if you’re just about to eat.
Me showing I liked the experience by the international sign of the thumbs up.
They charged 30 kuai for the experience, which lasted about an hour, and included more massage and pressuring of acupoints after the cupping. I did feel a bit better afterwards, apart from a general tightness of the back, so I suppose it was value for money.
That's what it looked like afterwards. And still does three days later as I'm uploading this stuff...
Back home I was told I wasn’t allowed to have a shower for four hours, so we went out for a bbq with biao ge (the bloke who is always there – I now know he works there and his speciality is duck) and a couple of other blokes. Unfortunately my heroic story of pain and suffering didn’t appeal to anyone’s compassion as it’s quite normal for them there.
Up lateish at tenish, to be told that we been invited out to eat lunch with Fan and his wife. I got a shower while Tan took Leilei to his grandma’s to babysit as he can get quite bothersome at meal times with adults, especially if he is tired. We took a taxi to the Pingguo aluminium company area. This company is one of the biggest aluminium mining places in China, and a target for American ownership, although they have only sold 8% to the Americans as there is a big need for aluminium in China itself. The reason we sometimes go to eat here (it is on the outskirts of the town) is that many of the employees of the company live there, and are catered for by numerous restaurants.
Horse boss and his wife came along for the meal, and Fan’s son was there too, so in total that made nine people. We had our own private air-conditioned room, as is quite normal now, and the table was already resplendent with coriander grass root, cow ligaments with fried boiled eggs (yes, they boil them and cut them into quarters before frying them), boiled peanuts and the like.
Then the bombshell…Fan took out four bottles of yesterday’s Spanish plonk and set about opening them with a variation of corkscrew, chopsticks, fingers and lighters. I suggested that we open one first to see how it was (just in case), but this just fell on deaf ears as Fan cumbersomely managed to open four bottles, then give one each to me, Horse boss, Xiao Li and himself (chivalrously avoiding the women), each with a crumbling, floating cork inside.
After I had exchanged my wine glass for a clean one, I poured myself a small glass, as the others filled theirs nearly to the brim. The wine had a slightly orangey hue, which, along with the pungent smell, the year and the country of origin, didn’t bode well.
Well, yes, it tasted rank. Of course I couldn’t say this, although Xiao Li did remark, “it isn’t sweet”, which would have been almost a compliment in Europe. In order to keep face, but also keep myself from looking like I was eating a lemon, I poured a small amount of lemonade in to reduce the bite. This made it bearable, and Xiao Li did the same, although Fan wouldn’t taint his pride and joy. To add to the awkwardness of the situation, as each man had his own bottle, you couldn’t just sip slowly as it would be quite evident that your bottle wasn’t going down. On the contrary, Fan seemed happy to drink half a glass at a time, which meant we all had to too. After half an hour, Horse Boss’s face was as red as his drink, although he seemed quite jovial. An hour later, more food arrived, then more and more. Suddenly we realised Fan, Xiao Li and myself had finished our bottles (I was on half lemonade by that time), but Fan noticed Horse Boss still had three quarters of a bottle left. Oh, phew, just what I wanted…how we laughed as we quaffed the rest of it down.
We got back at 3ish and I went to pick up the photos I’d put in for developing the previous day. They turned out really well, although most will be appropriated by visitors to Xiao Li’s house, as happened to forty or so of the fifty I brought from England.
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| Going back after red "wine" lunch - Horse Boss's wife, Tan, A Ni in the middle and I think that's Fan on the right |
Slept from 3.30 to 6.30pm on a bellyful of wine, then got up to eat, before being whisked off to the hair salon by Xiao Li. I had a new masseuse this time as this one specifically asked to do me, and my usual one did Xiao Li. Wow! This one was even better and really made me feel comfy with a fantastic head massage. When she started doing my neck, another girl joined in to do my arm and I was in heaven for twenty minutes. When my hour was up I felt so good I did ten slow press-ups on the couch to impress them, then jumped down to have my hair brushed and gelled. In the meantime, Xiao Li’s elder sister’s husband had turned up to take us out to “drink tea” again.
So we ended up at the same KTV bar as last time and although I was served tea, I never got the chance to drink anything else but 3.1% beer with a load of friends/business partners who seem to take delight in having a foreigner amongst them. Actually I was quite sensible and didn’t drink too much and got home at midnightish.
A friend of Xiao Li’s (Fan) and his wife came round in the evening for a drink. They brought two bottles of Spanish red wine as a gift, and I was worried we may have to drink them. They explained that you couldn’t use a cork screw to open them as the corks were too old and crumbly, something confirmed by a glance at the label that said “Denominacion origen 1993”. I mean this was 13 year old Spanish wine called “Duc de Fois” (not Rioja or something nice), was corked, and had somehow made its way to China.
Thankfully, we stuck to beer and soft drinks, and as Fan and his wife were both from outside Pingguo we all spoke Mandarin for a change. Got to bed at 3am in the end, and watched some of an Ali G video I’d downloaded…had to stop after a bit or would have woken up Tan and Leilei with the laughing.
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| Serious pose with Horse Boss |
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| Slightly less serious pose with Fan and wife |
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| The women being a bit shy |
