Teacher Lu's school again

Tan didn't want the kids to go to school today for some reason but I did, so I drove to Er Jie's and got them there a bit later. I'm glad I did as the teacher told me school would be closed tomorrow and the next day for a festival I didn't quite understand. As soon as I got home karma set in as I saw that teacher Lu was calling me. He had tried to call me yesterday but I didn't pick it up so I decided to face my fate.... In fact he wanted me to have my picture taken with another of his English classes. So I said "ok" in order to do my penance and popped around for 11 as agreed.

Once again I had to shake hands with every child, and ask "how do you do?" and "what is your name?". I didn't really mind - it's probably very very rare that they get the chance to put their spoken English into practice with a genuine mother-tonguer, and the beaming smiles made it worth it. They were around 14 years old. There were four rows of desks, the front three occupied with four girls each and the one at the back by three boys, similar to as you might expect in the UK. However, the boys' English was far better than the girls', which is not what you might expect. I put it down to the shyness of the girls compared to the boys who couldn't wait to show off what they'd learned from American films.

Me with some of the kids from teacher Lu's school

Thankfully, the rest of the day panned out with electricity, so no more trips elsewhere to work. At about 4pm I called Lisa P in le Pago to wish her a Happy Birthday, except ma answered to say she was the only one up! Luckily, I got the chance to speak to her and And a bit later...sounds like they were having plenty of fun 5000 miles away too.

Patchy leccy but fixed wireless at Waip's

We woke up rather warmer than when we had gone to sleep. There was still no electricity and it was warming up. It was getting beyond a joke, but luckily I had the foresight to leave a wireless router at Er Jie's house last year, so I packed up my stuff again and trundled over there to see the kids and get back to work.

They had stopped using the router there for some reason...maybe it had disconnected and they didn't know how to reconnect it. I don't know but Chuan chuan had a laptop that probably hadn't been online since we left last August. So I re-setup the wireless so we now had three computers surfing happily as I got back to work.

Finally, at around 2pm I found we had electricity again, so moved my work stuff back home to continue working without kids to disturb me. And then we had the rematch from yesterday at 6pm. Splendid lightning struck up again with its accompanying thunder and downpour. It's quite exciting to watch, actually, if you don't see this all the time...but the "tick" that happened soon after was not exciting as the house plunged into twilight and we were without electricity once more.

As I was with Tan and the kids we went out to get some grub again. The rain had subsided somewhat so we trekked the 13 floors down only to find it had changed its mind and it was torrenting down again. To make matters worse I'd forgotten to bring the brolly and I wasn't going to soil my clothes by hiking up to our place again, so we got slightly less soiled by walking along the base of the house to shield us from a little of the rain, and I went out and commandeered a san lun che to take us back to Er Jie's house to eat. Once there I checked back every half an hour until the leccy was back on around 8.30pm. Phew. Tan and the kids stayed with Jiuma at Er Jie's house as they didn't trust that the leccy would stay, but I took a chance and went back to finish my work. Then I was able to go for a quick bbq at 12.45 and be back in bed by 2.

Geeking for wireless after storm halted electricity at home

I had a productive day at the office, and all was going well until around 6pm when darkness descended an hour or so earlier than usual. I then noticed that one layer of dark clouds was galloping along from the east to the west, and another, darker and lower was cantering in from the west to the east. They locked blades and sparks flew - a moment later there was torrential downpouring of clear blood washing the streets below. The rain lasted around half an hour but had the undesired effect of killing the electricity supply to our building. Annoyingly, ours was the only building within eyeshot to be affected. After a while of doing what we could with our bare eyes as the last light drained away, we left the place to get a bite to eat. I brought my laptop and other work bits and after eating went to Number 5 cafe as I know they have wireless Internet there.

I asked the bloke for the wifi key and he gave me a phone number - that seems quite normal here. But it didn't work, so he kept telling me to try different variations of it, with no variation on the success front. So I put on my geek hat and went to his computer where he was watching some American cop programme. I opened up the command prompt and typed in "ipconfig"; ah, the gateway was at 192.168.1.1. So I opened up a browser and navigated to that address to be greeted with a username/password dialog. On my second attempt I cracked it (not hard, really, it was "admin/admin"). My next hurdle was the User Interface in Chinese. I looked for the character for "wu", as in "wu xian" (without cable), and found it on the left hand side. Upon clicking it showed me all the wireless details, including the SSID so I knew I was connected to the right place, and then, lower down, the password "12345". Phone number my arse.

So I was connected, but it seemed incredibly slow. I just hooked up to the VPN but still couldn't get emails. I changed name servers to the google ones and this helped a bit as I was able to surf slowly without the VPN but it was no good for work, other than to IM colleagues I wouldn't be able to make that day's meeting. I gave up at midnight and went home. Tan was there and at least because of the moist atmosphere it was not hot, and we had a cooling breeze through the bedroom. The kids, though, spent another night at Er Jie's house in one of the air-conditioned bedrooms.

Paper aeroplane pleasure

Today was mostly work. Nothing to write home about. Except that at mid-afternoon we had a great storm that washed the town clean and gave the surrounding farmers more joy as their fruits were further fleshed. I managed to capture a streak of lightning as the eye of the storm approached our place. I had nearly managed a siesta when the clouds made their appearance and the rumbling thunder became more crackly and close. So my siesta was buggered but at least I was awake after the storm.

Lightning near our house

In the evening I took a break from work for a few minutes to indulge myself in a childhood pleasure that I enjoy more than an adult probably should. I found our old boarding passes that I had printed out on A4 paper before leaving London. It seems that here we just don't get the same thickness of paper...probably because it's unneccessary, but it doesn't half hinder the making of paper aeroplanes. It was around 7pm and just starting to get dark so I didn't have much time. I also didn't know when Tan or the kids might get back. So I got to work making a simple aeroplane I remembered from my days at St Joseph's Academy nearly 30 years ago. Unfortunately I haven't yet installed the hack that should allow my phone to continuously auto-focus while filming, but I did enjoy the three flights I managed before emails beckoned me back to work. Living on the 14th floor sometimes has its advantages. My first plane was the best, and went straight towards another block of flats, then took a draft from there and turned around before finally skimming the roof of a smaller two storey building and getting sucked down to the bin outside the front door.



During the nighttime I saw the terrible and disturbing scenes of the rioting in London. Those little shits looting with no excuse. I was shocked at what I was seeing and ended up staying awake refreshing the news till 4am. At least most of the London-based family near the trouble zones are away for the time being.

Kids' house-cleaning and pools

After a decent night's sleep I called Jiuma to see where the kids were, as Waipo is staying in Bangxu for a few days. I think her plan is to sell the house there to help put into a deposit for one here in Pingguo, as most of the family are living here now. Bangxu is in danger of becoming a ghost town, as so many people have now moved here. It's a bit sad, but it's the way things are moving here. Pingguo had that critical mass that meant people gravitated towards it, rather than looking to move to a bigger town or city. Nanning would be the obvious choice, but it's rather crowded and doesn't afford the fresher air and food that we get here in Pingguo. Of course, Pingguo is not as fresh as Bangxu, but in my opinion it is the best of both worlds.

Apparently the kids were at La la jie jie's, the place they spent so much of their time last year, near the centre of town by the big market. I took Xixi to have lunch at 12 as Leilei wanted to stay and play. We went to one of my favourite small haunts for a lunch of fragrant sausage and rice and soup. Xixi loved the soup (I think it was pork) and nearly finished it before we went back. I'd promised Leilei I'd ring our American friend to see if his daughter could come to play. His son answered to say they were out at the moment but we could come around. So I took both the kids and on the way bumped in to my friend, his wife and his youngest daughter whose Chinese name is Su Xiaoli. We walked back to the house with them and had a nice chat while Leilei and Xiaoli played with their new hamster named something like "Supertripod". The shop either didn't know, or didn't want to tell them that he only had three legs, a fact that they only found out a few days after getting him.

The kids were sufficiently entertained that I could eventually leave them to go back and tidy up the house a bit. I came to pick them up at 4pm and we took Xiaoli back with us to play at our house. The kids played rather nicely together, and for some (wonderful) reason decided that they would clean the house. Well, it would have been wonderfuller if they'd not used so much water and spread the dust around, but it was a neat effort even if the end result wasn't.

Kids with American friend washing the house! What have I done right?

We'd been invited to eat by Chen mei, who was in Pingguo for the weekend. So at 5.30 I called Xiaoli's dad and we all went out to meet him and leave her with him. Leilei wanted her to eat with us, but apparently she had other things to do that evening. We were picked up by A Xia's husband in the Camry, and driven the three minutes to Da Xue Cheng where we ate in another rather plush restaurant. Chen mei's younger brother also came. I'd not met him before but for the first time I noticed that Tan was right about people wearing glasses for no reason other than fashion; there weren't even any lenses, and he looked like a younger Gok.

Tan and others were looking at my photo of A Wu's 800k kuai, and saying it was impossible to get that much money in that bag. So I asked him again later that day and this time he said there was 400k kuai. I don't know...if I ask him again it could be 200k, and maybe if I ask him enough times it will disappear...

After taking the kids downstairs to look at the models of the new houses and roads, we finished our meal and A Wu and I took them back to Jiuma. Leaving them to play happily, we went to the new pool place by the guang chang, that used to be a bowling alley but fell into disrepair in the last couple of years. Surprisingly the tables were in good condition and were particularly bouncy. Being rather warm, here they have silky blue gloves that fit your thumb and first two fingers so that the cue slides easily. It's such a simple and effective idea I don't know why we don't have these in the UK. The rules were pretty much like UK pub rules, though A Wu said that you were either 1-7 or 9-15, whereas I pointed out that 1-7 were dots and 9-15 were stripes, rendering it much easier to think in that way. He didn't answer. I won the first two frames and he was frustrated that my strategy was to cover pockets while he just whacked the balls. Having said that I think others might get frustrated with the way I play. Anyway I let him win the next two frames until it was 9.15pm and I reminded him I wanted to watch Man City v Man Utd in the Charity shield at 9.30. I asked how much per hour it was and he answered "12 kuai". So I went to pay and found it was 28 kuai for the hour we'd spent. Fair enough as we'd bought a couple of beers and water but when I asked what the hourly rate was the young lady said "25 kuai". But A Wu had a "VIP" card so it was 18 kuai. Still, I'm not arguing and will hopefully come back soon.

The kids love looking at the model of Da Xue Cheng

Beating A Wu with the help of a three-fingered blue glove to avoid sweat

The Charity Shield was a disaster that we lost 3-2 after having gone up 2-0 somewhat luckily. I hope this is not a portent of the season to come. I called A Wu after the match as agreed, as I was meant to go out and "drink alcohol". Luckily it was already too late, so I went out myself for a little bbq on my own. Well, I went out on my own but soon made new friends before coming back nearer 2am.

Valentine's meal

I needed this weekend.

Today was Chinese Valentine's Day. Tan went out in the morning and then told me men should give women a present. Just for an alternative opinion I called A Wu to ask what the tradition was on such a day. He said that the women should give a present to the men. Somehow I expected that response.

Actually, on the way back from getting breakfast I had seen a couple of blokes with a red rose in their hands. But I think that's a bit tacky. And as And and I agree, growing flowers when so many people are starving is one of the worst uses of land you can possibly think about.

So I called Tan and we mutually suggested and agreed that a nice meal for the two of us would be appropriate and romantic, and that the Ming Dien hotel would be the most appropriate and romantic place in Pingguo. I just hoped that there would be no pianist as the last time I was there he was playing what would have been a most passable rendition of Chopin but the strings were so out of tune I wondered how such an artist could ignore this and still play through. We agreed that we'd eat at around 5pm. Tan had gone out with A Xia around midday so I presumed she'd eaten, but I got a call at 4.30 asking me to go to the Ming Dien now as A Xia had already taken her there. I assumed that meant they were both there, so told her I needed to finish drying the clothes. This I did and then put on long trousers, socks and shoes, and a long sleeved shirt, all for the first time this year here. As I pulled in to the Ming Dien car park I got a call from her asking where I was. It wasn't even 5pm but apparently she'd forgone lunch that day - as if I'd known that...

Well Tan was on her own, which was good for a Valentine's meal. But we moved tables as the people next door were smoking. They had a special Valentine's meal for 220 kuai each, which included two glasses of red wine each too. Based on my experience, and knowing we don't exactly have loads of cash, we (I) decided on something slightly more frugal, and had a couple of lovely dishes, followed by pecking food such as my favourite black eggs, plus shredded beef, cucumber and dried squid with wasabi and soy sauce. We were both stuffed, and stayed there a good two hours, sneaking home the uneaten beef in an empty tissue bag.

On the way back we stopped off at the supermarket, where Tan nearly bought a bed-table, for putting your laptop on while you laze in bed. I pointed out that these were kids' tables and that I could get a proper one at Ma Laoban's computer shop. We ended up doing some normal house shopping and I bought a water-filled cushion that was meant to make your bum a bit cooler when sitting down. Maybe it will work if I put it in the fridge first, but either way, it's quite a comfortable way of sitting down. As we'd bought quite a lot, including 6 bottles of plum juice, Tan got a san lun che home, and I took the bike to Ma Laoban's to get that most romantic of Valentine's Day presents - the bed-table.

Unfortunately Ma Laoban wasn't there, so his beautiful assistant sold me the table at normal price - 80 kuai. What a mug, I could have got virtually the same table, but with a kiddy picture on top, for 25 kuai a few minutes ago. But she really liked the table and that evening was worth it!

I'd not seen the kids all day. Apparently they'd gone to Bangxu with Jiuma as Waipo was there for some reason. Tan said they'd be home at 8pm so at 8.30 I gave Jiuma a ring to find that they'd just got on the bus and would be in Pingguo at 10pm. So Tan went to meet A Xia for some chatting, which is what she spends most of her time doing it seems. I went to get my hair cut at Lu Hai's, before heading back to the supermarket to swap the shoes Tan had bought for Leilei to a bigger size. I'd even said in the shop that the ones she chose were too small...oh well. A while later she rang to say A Xia's husband was pouring tea and needed some male company. Poor bloke, having to listen to women's natter. I came down and we had some pu er cha and finished off the dried beef with them and Tan's friend Huang Chen, who now has her own 2 year old daughter. The conversation was all in Pingguo Mandarin so I struggled to catch up until 10pm when I called Jiuma and found they had arrived in Pingguo. I intercepted them on the way back to Waipo's house and brought them to where we were drinking tea. By now they were on bbq but the kids just wanted me to take them out on the bike. This I did till gone 11pm when they said they were happy to go to Waipo's house to play and sleep.

Tan's second driving lesson and very dodgy tummy

I woke up a bit later than usual as the kids had slept with Jiuma at Er Jie's house. They used to hate being with Jiuma but I suspect a little present-buying has won them over. It is so nice and refreshing that elder relatives here not only see it as their duty, but actually WANT to look after the young kids. Jiuma was a bit gutted at first that they didn't want to be with her but she sorted that out herself.

As for me I felt dreadful. It wasn't a hangover, just a really dodgy tummy. I'd survived the first four days in Pingguo really well, but since then it's been on and off (the toilet) with mostly myself to blame for eating everything I'm offered. But today was particularly rough, and even Tan took pity and went to pick up the kids to take them to school. When she got back she'd bought me a load of medicine, which I took without first looking up its efficiency on the Internet (I normally trust no medicine here anymore unless I know exactly what it is).

But it was a work day, and so, feeling a bit better at midday, I got to work and didn't stop till 10pm. Except to take Tan to her second driving lesson. I decided to stay to watch how dreadful it might be. Actually she could have done a lot worse, and at least it was a manual. Thankfully they haven't allowed her on the roads yet. On the way back, as it was nearly 6pm I stopped off at the supermarket to get some basics like toilet rolls, but as I walked in I heard a shout of "A Ming!". Ah...a couple of my recently found friends had somehow recognised me and invited me into their hamburger joint. I explained that I needed to do some shopping first but would come back in a few minutes. True to my word I did so, and as I actually was a bit peckish I succumbed to a double hamburger and fries. It wasn't great; there wasn't much meat and there was too much salad dressing, but it did the job and it didn't cause me to jump to the nearest toilet within half an hour. They wouldn't accept payment from a friend so I left saying I'd call soon....

Tan about to start her 2nd driving lesson - quick, run away!


...and trying to avoid the manhole covers...

I needed a haircut again, and had done for a good week, so at around 10 I gave A Wu a bell to say I'd go for a head wash and cut. He needed a cut too so we met up at the same place as last time. I was asked if I wanted a face wash and said that I'd prefer just the head wash, but somehow became acquiesed into having a face wash too... As much as I adore these decadent hours, this time it almost felt painful...even my favourite place, just behind the eyes, felt a little sore under the pressure. Maybe it is possible to have too much of...certain good things.... When it was over I decided not to have my hair cut; I didn't quite trust the young kids with scissors as much as I did with their bare hands on my scalp.

Just in time

I decided to risk using the low-batteried bike to take the kids to school, and we got there slower than usual to ensure we actually did get there. In fact there was more than enough left to get me to the garage where they had my charger waiting for me, and then back home to charge it up.

I shouldn't have actually gone to the garage to pick up the charger. I also shouldn't have gone to pick up some of Tan's favourite breakfast noodles from a local shop. I was suffering from gut rot for not the first time and although I'd managed a trip to the loo before taking the kids to school I realised when I got their breakfast that this would not be the only such trip this morning. But there is something stupidly sadistic among many of us and for some reason I felt compelled to complete as many tasks this morning as I possibly could, instead of get back to the house asap. I thought I was managing ok while I retrieved the charger, but really noticed that I should be home while waiting for the local noodle place to do Tan's breakfast...even then I thought I may have to take a squat. But I manfully kept it in and when I finally got to our building I should have gone straight to our door, instead of insisting that I needed to charge up the bike. Heaven knows I could have done that after a good shit. But as I got off the bike to plug in the charger something moved and I felt like something fountainesque was to happen. I managed to plug it in and then the security guard reminded me I needed to pay 1 kuai so tried to quickly fish one out of my sweaty shorts pocket, something that, like a nightmare, took about a minute when it should have taken 5 seconds. The walk to our door seemed like an eternity and I could only take pigeon steps by now. And then...the lift. Thankfully in the last couple of days for the first time both lifts are working. This means there is generally one on the first floor (ground) and one on the ninth. I tried to push myself into the lift before the doors were wide enought to accept me, such was my agony. I punched number 14 and then again punched the "close door" button. I was nearly in tears. I unbuttoned my shorts and even unbuttoned my shirt. The 35 second journey to the top took 11 minutes and 40 seconds...I counted. I already had my keys in my hand and ran to our new front door with my shorts falling down my legs...turn once, turn twice, turn three times and finally the lock gave way as I rushed in and dropped on our non-ensuite bog and experienced the most satisfying shit I have done since at least five years ago when I was caught short at the bbq place in Pingguo and had to take a san lun che back while virtully powering the poor taxi with my farts. Twenty minutes later I was a new man with a grin that made me look like I'd just experienced an orgasm for the first time in twelve years.

From then on until midnight it was work work work. It's all very well working in the morning and afternoon when colleagues are asleep but I can't not go to the meetings they request. Tan had arranged driving lessons for the next few days. A "crash" course costing 800 kuai and consisting of eight one-hour lessons and one bonus hour for paying in one go. Look out, streets of Pingguo...

A Wu had rung me in the morning to tell me I had to go to lunch with him today at 12 as he had an important Nanning friend coming. I said I wasn't sure due to work commitments. Midday came and went so I called him to ask what was going on and he said they hadn't arrived yet, and that it was not good manners not to have told him earlier. The irony was lost on him. Still, he said we would have an evening meal at 6 so I said I probably wouldn't make it. But 6 rolled around and I fancied a bite to eat but when I called him he said they still weren't here and we'd probably do something tomorrow.

I did go out for a small bite to eat at around 7 though. As the lift arose to floor number 14 it did not stop though, and went up to number 17. Strange, but it came back down again to my floor. As it opened I walked in and nearly yelped as I walked straight into teacher Lu. He gave me his gormless smile and I gave him my guilt-ridden one. This is not the first time we have met in the lift. I think it might be the third. But it was the first time since I tried to stand him up and I was embarrassed again. Luckily, this time he was with a young girl about the age of Leilei who I guessed was his daughter. Thank glory-be I was right! I could put my attention on her during the 35 seconds it takes to descend (I know the journey well). To be honest I'm glad he has a daughter mainly because now I know he is not a virgin.

A bit later on in the evening I got a call from Jiuma to say that the kids wanted to stay at her (Waipo's, Er Jie's) house. I couldn't argue due to the amount of work, and was quite happy for them to make this step of independence.

Finally, my last meeting finished at midnight. Tan had gone out earlier with A Ni and A Wu to karaoke. I rang them to say I'd finished and A Wu said he'd pick me up immediately. This he did, in a new Toyota Camry (not his) and we went to a new place on the outskirts of town that was even more decadent than most of the KTV places. It was called an Opera House, though I couldn't see why. We were lead to our room over plush carpets by a beautiful young lady in a qi pao, where we met the Nanning friend and a few other blokes and ladies, most of whom I knew. For the first time this year I went through my renditions of Ni Shi Wo de Mei Gui Hua, and Pengyou. I was plied with weak beer, in an effort to catch up with the rest of the blokes but they needn't have bothered...I'd knocked back a swift Gin and Lemonade mixed with a smidgin of pulp juice before A Wu had picked me up as I knew I'd be asked to sing song in front of strangers.... Speaking of which I had a scare a couple of days ago when I went into our local supermarket and found that the alcohol section no longer contained a few bottles of Gordon's Gin or Smirnoff Vodka. Not that I'd ever bought vodka from here, but I'm partial to a little Gin and Lemonade (in the absence of Tonic) now and again. But a couple of days ago the Gin and the vodka was gone! I not only searched, but asked three separate workers where it might be, but they said it probably got removed due to lack of people buying it. What did they mean? I bought at least two bottles last year, and was about to buy my second this year. I gave it up and accepted that my only tipple this year would be the lovely Li Quan. But I had a small, sparkling hope in the back of my mind. I knew this supermarket had an alcohol section near the entrance, way after you've paid for your normal purchases. There, for at least a year now they have had on display (and probably not sold) Absolut Vodka, plus Jonny Walker whisky among other foreign booze. I dared to look again as I walked out and there they were; three perfectly formed bottles, 75cl of 43% export strength Gordon's Gin. They had gone up from 95 to 96 kuai, but I asked for a bottle and made sure I used my Nectar card when making the purchase. The devil inside me told me to buy the other two but I'm not such an alchy (although I secretly hoped they would still be there later in my stay here....).

During the time in the karaoke place I received incessant calls from the English teacher friend I'd made yesterday. I eventually had to answer one and said I wouldn't be back till very late but he kept calling. Well during that time I was taken "outside" to see the sight from the other door of our private room. In fact it was a balcony looking over what looked like a stage...where one might indeed have operas. It was rather like those expensive box seats you see in nicer theatres, except nothing was showing so it was rather dark. But I can imagine this being a great place to impress the boss when there was a show on...if you didn't like it you could go back inside and sing your own version of the song...

Ok, it's another bog, but it's an ingenious compromise between a squatter and a sitter...should have got one for our house!

Finally when back at 2am in the house I sent my incessantly ringing friend an SMS (in Chinese, I proudly add) to apologise and to say I was too tired to go out now...he actually replied and just said "no problem", not that it would have been to get to sleep regardless of his response.

Routine and a bite to eat with English teachers

Ok, the routine is settled. I take the kids for breakfast, then to school. I come back some time after 10am and I might go back to bed for a bit (ahem) or work through till 2pm or so before hopefully getting an hour or two of shuteye before the main stint of work when the UK wakes up. But there is nothing so productive as working when your colleagues are not up. The difference is amazing and I've got so much done. It's just getting dragged into the emails that start around 5pm my time when it all slows down.

Well anyway, I still picked up the kids and worked till nearly 10pm by which time as my 11pm meeting was cancelled I called A Wu and said I fancied a head wash so I met up with him at the place we have been going to for a few years now. I know the manager as her daughter used to go to the same nursery as my kids.

We had to wait our turn for a head wash

That night was rather popular, and we had to wait 20 minutes to get two women to attend to our needs. But the wait was worth it, as it always is. Once home I offered to get Tan some more bbq. She asked where I got yesterday's chicken claws from and I had to admit it wasn't from her usual preferred place. Actually she said they were better than "big sister's" place so I should get 10 claws from the same place as yesterday. This was slightly embarrassing as this time "big sister" was there and I had to walk past her and order from next door. Averting my gaze away from "big sister" I made eye-contact with a couple of people from a nearby table. They beckoned my over and I thought it best to go there rather than risk getting in eye-contact with "big sister".

This is not the first time it's happened. There were three blokes and a woman and her child. Two of the blokes were apparently English teachers, and the woman, one of their wives. I could barely make out a word of their English other than the normal "how are you?", but thankfully they were more than happy to slip back to Mandarin to enable something approaching a fluent conversation. They were nice people and I was happy to share a couple of beers until Tan's food was ready. In fact I'd ordered some stuff for myself that wasn't ready, so they bade me go and feed the wife and come back in a few minutes.... The last time I did this Tan wasn't happy about me going back to talk with some random friends at a table as she thinks everyone is from the mafia and will kill me. But this time I'd taken the initiative of taking a nice pic of them, including the wife and kid, thus proving that they were ok. Plus, the fact that the main bloke came from Bangxu should be helpful.

The English teacher, his son, his wife and a mate - components of a very friendly evening

Well, this time Tan had no issues with me going back at around midnight. Possibly this was something to do with the fact she had 10 chicken claws to enjoy in my absence. So I went back and spent the next hour in enjoyable conversation with my new friends, among others who visited the table. And we all laughed out loud when I told of my Bangxu wife, and spoke a few sentences in the local lingo. And again, it felt a bit like being in an English pub with mates. There's something very international about this. We all decided it was a good time to split around 1am and exchanged phone numbers as you do. I do expect to see them again this year.

I'm used to Chinese bogs by now, but they don't usually have a duck in them. I find it hard enough to wee with Tan in the same bathroom. This duck kept looking at me but I was nearly bursting so had no problem this time

On the way back I noticed that the battery on the bike was below "H" for High. This normally means that it will go right down within the next couple of miles. As it was a new battery I decided to drive around for a bit with the main beam on to try to kill it right down. Tan must have implanted some sort of radar tracker inside me as as soon as I was 500 yards from the house the alarm, sorry, phone, went off..."when are you back? blah blah blah..." so I made my way back with an even lower battery. When I got through the security gates I parked the bike to charge it up over night and then noticed I didn't have a charger. I must have left it at the garage the other day. Darn.

800,000 kuai and satellite TV

Another early morning, and this time to make a change from normal I took the kids to eat in the breakfast place before school. Maybe it was the change of scenery but they ate a bit more than usual. Leilei said he didn't want to go to school today, but soon changed his mind as he remembered that yesterday one of the kids had given him some cool frogs he'd made out of paper. You can even make them jump, such were his origami skills.

I worked all morning till A Wu called to ask if I wanted to eat lunch. I said ok but I couldn't be too long. I met him close to our place in a house-selling business where it looked like he was buying a house. I asked what he was doing and he said he was buying a floor, with eight buildings for a total area of 800 sq metres. I wondered what this really meant, but it seemed to transpire that he was talking accurately as out came eight contracts that were signed and fingerprinted. And I also saw 800m2 written on some other document. I just don't know when to take things as said these days. The process took half an hour, which was a bit annoying, though interesting at the same time. Then A Wu asked me to pick up his leather bag, and showed me that it was full of bunches of 100 kuai notes. Apparently there was 800,000 kuai in total, so I presumed it must be a deposit for the properties he was buying, but no. We took the bag with us into his car, where he explained this was to give as salaries to his workers at the stone quarry. I tried to work it out in my head - 80k quid for one month's salary at the wages I'm familiar here had to mean around 400 workers, and I swear there are no more than 25-30 there. Something else had to be going on - surely he doesn't pay yearly in cash. I decided not to probe further at that moment.

What 800000 kuai might look like

We drove a minute to the place we had goose the other week and left the bag in the car, but with the car parked very much in view outside the restaurant, where we enjoyed another fine goose, with more kong xin cai. I would have liked to have a nap afterwards, but needed to complete work.

But before then I remembered I needed to sort out a satellite dish. The set top box Waipo had lent us did not appear to work. This was apparently because we needed to pay to access the service, which would probably be a yearly contract, and didn't make any sense while we're not living here full time. So I rang Ling Ming, who has a satellite at his new place to ask if he could help me sort one out. Tan had said that the whole set up was only 150 kuai and I had my doubts, but I met Ling Ming at Waipo's house, and after waiting 20 minutes as it had just started raining, we set off to the centre of town to a small tv shop selling old style tvs from 350 kuai up to much more. Apparently the woman there was an ex-school colleague of Tan's in infant school, and called herself Pan Jie. Indeed, we picked up a smallish satellite dish, a smallish set top box, and a longish length of co-axial cable, then waited a couple of minutes for a bloke to come who would follow us back and install it all for 20 kuai.

Within 20 minutes we had satellite tv at home! About 46 channels too (though not the sport channel unfortunately). The bloke set the dish on its stand outside by the washing area and laid a few broken tiles on it to stop it moving. I intend to see if I can find any other satellites in the vicinity to maybe pick up some more interesting channels. I gave the bloke 25 kuai for his efforts, but couldn't take advantage of our new entertainment bundle as I needed to do more work...

Setting up our new satellite dish

Then at 5pm A Wu called to invite me for a meal at 6 with some friends at the seafood place. Tan had picked up the kids at 5 as I was in a meeting and said she would feed them. So I went alone and we chose what we would eat from the various tanks. I now understand better why this place moved from the previous bbq area place last year. They now have proper air-conditioned rooms and you can have a proper sit-down meal (at greater expense). I tried to call Tan to see if the kids were fed but she was in the shower so I came back to pick them up as the women who were present all wanted to see them.

Choosing what seafood delights to eat...juicy!

One of the women had brought three bottles of red wine. Unfortunately the place didn't have a corkscrew so eventually two of the blokes set upon the bottles with chopsticks. This clearly didn't work and after I'd offered to pick up my corkscrew at home (and was told not to bother) they just gave up and said they'd drink beer. How strange, I thought. Then as we were about to tuck in to our seafood delights one of the waitresses came in with a corkscrew. I guess she must have gone to the local supermarket. The wine was a lot more palatable than that in Tian Dong, but I limited myself to one glass due to work, and just had a couple of weak beers instead. The kids actually ate some seafood stuff. If only I knew what it was I'd order it again next time. They also had two sweet mantous each, which meant they must have been hungry.

I finally finished work at nearly midnight and went out to get a bit of bbq for Tan and myself. For what may be the first time ever, I wasn't dragged over to drink beer with strangers at another table, and rather spent the time waiting by chatting to Mat on skype.

Fixing the dian dong che and birthday beers at Number 5 Cafe

I'd meant to go to a garage to fix the bike yesterday but the party got in the way. So today, after taking the kids to school in a san lun che, I got the driver to take me to the place I went last year when the bike broke down and they fixed it and only charged 5 kuai. I explained the situation and one of the blokes took a couple of tools and me on his motorbike back to our building "Jun Lin Tian Xia". It's actually very difficult to translate what this means, but it's something along the lines of "The Emperor's kingdom under the sky", although Google has it as "Dominating". Anyway, the bloke got to work taking off the battery compartment and we had a look inside. Indeed, the batteries had become malformed over the last three years and now were trying to squeeze out of the compartment. It looked like we simply needed to change them, which was a relief, but I still wasn't 100% sure as they had been working ok before - I would have expected a more gradual decline in performance than a snuff-out.

There wasn't much we could do at our place, so he asked if I had a tow-rope. Of course I hadn't so he got out a sort of strong-looking rubber band from his bike and attached it to mine, then towed me the five minutes back to his work. Due to the nature of the tow-rope, I was constantly being slung to nearly crashing into the back of him, before being left behind several feet away. It was miraculous that the rubber band did not snap and leave him or me with a nasty scar. He'd mentioned about it being ready in the evening, but when we got to his garage he ordered a set of new batteries there and then. The whole process took a couple of hours, but when he'd finished the bike was like brand new and almost nippy. I had spoken to a number of the workers there during this time, and agreed to come back some day soon at 6pm to have a meal and drink some beer with them. I must remember to do that. The cost of the new batteries was 430 kuai. Only 30 more than when I last replaced them three years ago - so much for inflation.

I would have loved to take advantage of my newly re-found freedom on the bike, but Tan rang to ask if I wanted to go to her newly-found massage place, which is really good, and cheap, because it isn't in a great area. I said of course I'd go, and I took her on the bike to a perfectly acceptable building. I think they may be cheap as the bloke and his wife have just set up business in Pingguo, coming from 30km down the road in Long'an. I refuse to have a man massage me, so the boss's wife did me. I wasn't happy with the boss doing Tan but one thing had to give. Anyway, this is not a "for pleasure" massage as the head wash ones are, but more the professional kind. The woman said I spend too much time sitting down at a computer, which I could hardly deny, and indeed after it was over (and it was rather good I admit), I spent the rest of the day doing just that as I had work to do...

That evening I popped out to Ma Laoban's shop with the kids after school to let them play on his computers. They really enjoy playing some of the flash games on the Chinese sites. I noticed that next door at Number 5 Cafe they were setting up a gazebo outside, with what looked like a bbq underneath. I realised that I hadn't yet been to this place, which I had frequented last year to watch the World Cup and England's demise. The owner recognised me immediately and invited me to come back a tad later as it was his birthday. Of course, I had come to his birthday last year and had a good time although rather too many beers.

Back home I did some more work and some chores until I heard some loud fireworks from outside around 8.30pm. I went to look and they seemed to be emanating from Number 5 Cafe so a few minutes later I got on the bike and whipped round to say hello and Happy Birthday. The owner had already had a fair few, as had others inside. I was just about to sit down outside with the folk eating the bbq but was dragged inside and made to sit at a table with a couple of blokes and a couple of women, one of whom was smoking (a rarish site here, becoming less so, unfortunately).

As per usual I made comments about the wife and kids so as to get their disappointment over and done with early, and I gan bei'd with them a couple of times. But the gan bei'ing didn't stop there, and the owner insisted on me gan bei'ing with others until I myself insisted on playing cai ma in order to slow down the beer intake. Although it's only 3% the fizz can really fill you up and make it uncomfortable if drunken too quickly. Yang Haiwei was there with his wife and son. In fact there were quite a few dads with their wives and kids, all too frequently with a fag in one hand, the same hand that was holding their kid. By 11.30pm I was actually feeling more drunk than I have done in China for longer than I can remember, so made my excuses very insistently and left to the obvious disappointment of my friends there.

I remembered that Tan wanted some bbq chicken feet so I called her to confirm and then went to the normal "big sister" place by the guang chang. Strangely, she was not there...already shut up shop it seemed, so I got the wares from next door instead and got home around midnight. Leilei was not yet asleep so I took him to bed and ended up falling asleep with him until around 3am.

Inspecting the workers at the quarry and kids' birthday meal

The first half of today was a fairly normal affair with my doing the kids' breakfast before taking them to eat lunch with A Wu and a couple of bosses. It sometimes feels like living in Mario World here... Actually I knew one of the bosses from a few years back when him and A Wu were running an iron ore extracting factory that got closed down by...well, I never got to the bottom of that. But at the time when they'd asked me to invest 12k quid I had asked about the risks, e.g. what about if the government, or some mafia-like consortium decided that that patch of land was theirs? My concern was laughed off at the time, just a few months before his business was written off. I know there is a lot of money to be made here, as evidenced by A Wu's latest work - still going well after two years. But it comes at a risk. Anyway, A Ni was with us and took the kids to her mum's house to play with A Da, just after which Tan called to say they were going to Lin Hong's to play. I told her to call A Ni and sort it out, but I'm not sure she did as they've been a little cold recently.

A Wu, his mate and I then drove off to A Wu's stone quarry again simply to check up on the workers. It seems that that is all he does some days. Inspection over, we came back to town where I heard that the kids had been invited to a birthday party of one of their school colleagues. A Wu had dropped me home, and the kids were there too. Just before 5pm, A Xia came to pick up the kids to go to the party, but they were not prepared to leave without me, so along I came. We were early but a few other mothers were also there with their kids, every one chasing their loved one around with a bowl of rice or zhou. It was difficult with all the sweets around, but I managed to get Leilei to eat some rice, and Xixi to eat some sweetcorn and rice to cries of "I'm full, I'm full!" before they gorged themselves on the sweets, which I must admit, were very tasty indeed.

In typical style, there was a table in the living room for mothers and children and a larger table in the kitchen for the men. Tan had arrived by that time and we all tucked in to some lovely home-cooked duck, and once again everyone was happy to see me eat the the cheaper breast meat. There were only two or three bottles of beer for us six blokes, but when they disappeared, new ones turned up as if by magic. As is typical here, some blokes left the table, to be replaced by others, and we ended up having a few games of cai ma. Then I realised it was 7.45 and I really wanted to see the grand prix at 8. I made my excuses and left for home leaving the kids happily eating cake.

The kids about to enjoy yet more sugar...

It was a bit of a chore to find a stream showing the grand prix. Again, CCTV5 was showing swimming as there is still an international competition in Shanghai. Still, when I eventually did find a stream it was another cracking race - well driven, Button. Just after the race I got a call to say the kids needed picking up from Lin Hong's house. So I did, and brought them back for Tan to get to bed for once, before going out to get her some bbq and then watching the second half of City v Inter Milan - which we won 3-0 thank you very much. Bring on the new season!

Man goes to mangoes

Sure enough, bang on 9am, after 6 hours' sleep my friend the seafood place manager called me to go to Tian Dong. I blearily told him I needed to get the kids their breakfast and take them to school first, which I did, and was only ready just before 11. But he turned up in a blue Chevrolet, adorned with blue and red upholstery. Although he'd been calling me all morning, as soon as I sat down in the multi-coloured passenger's seat he said we were not going to Tian Dong as it was raining (a fact not lost on me on the walk back from A Hua's place, who had kindly taken the kids in again while the bike was out of use). So of course, instead we would go to get our hair cut at Lu Hai's place.

The colourful Chevy interior

At Lu Hai's salon there were a couple of people waiting already and it was going to take a little time. So seafood manager popped out, while I texted Tan to say I wasn't going now, and that we could all go another time. We'd had a bit of a tiff as I hadn't told her I was going and she said she wanted to go, with the kids too. I find that hard to believe as she never wants to go out to the places I go to. Anyway, seafood manager got back and announced that we were going to Tian Dong straight away. "Hang on", I said - you just said it was raining so we couldn't go as the fields would be muddy etc. Ah, but it wasn't raining in Tian Dong, according to his contact there. I was suspicious, and had to call Tan to tell her Tian Dong was on again.

So the two of us drove on the new road to Tian Dong, accompanied by solid rain the whole way. Thankfully he is a careful driver and we got there in one piece, where the rain started to taper off. However, it was still raining enough for my suspicions earlier to be correct, and the numerous umbrellas that you normally see during the day to fend off the sun were there in the same numbers, but this time serving a different purpose. But it was certainly different to Pingguo, 50km away, and I explained that there must be many micro-climates here, to which seafood manager sort of nodded in way to say "I think I know what you mean, but that isn't really Chinese". Xiao qi hou is microclimate - I checked it with Google too - maybe they just don't use such terms here.

Once in the town, which gives the impression of being a bit larger than Pingguo, we found a san lun che and told the woman to lead us to a certain restaurant where we were to have lunch. 5 kuai and 5 minutes later we had driven to a rather plush restaurant in the centre of town. As we turned up, so did a couple of minibuses of well-dressed people, all sporting a red rose and an identification thing hanging around their necks. We joined these people entering the restaurant, up the carpeted stairs and into a large room with many round tables laid out with, among other things, wine glasses with half an inch of red wine in them. I was dressed in shorts and flip flops, and everyone else had long trousers and shoes, except for the women. One of the blokes with a rose and identification was evidentally a friend I had met a couple of years ago when I last came to Tian Dong. That time we went out to the fields and had a long lunch in extreme heat with about 20 others. I was expecting the same and had got the opposite.

Still, I had a short sleeved shirt on, so when sat down I looked reasonably inconspicuous. We were joined by some young people from Nanning and no sooner had we all sat down there was a short speech by a couple of the blokes, accompanied by rounds of applause, and then we had to stand up again to gan bei the red wine. Finally we sat down to eat and I got the chance to ask what sort of gathering this was and for what purpose. It transpired that this weekend was the official mango picking weekend, and thousands descend into Tian Dong, the capital of mango, to buy boxes and boxes of them. This meal was arranged by a consortium of mango field owners/workers as far as I could tell. Throughout the meal the higher-up men moved through all the tables having a drink with all in attendence. They seemed to really appreciate my being there, despite my attire.

As with many meals, the men got drunker and drunker and started downing full glasses of the red wine. I had been told that it was French but no self-respecting French person would have touched the stuff. It was foul, or corked, or fake. Seafood manager didn't touch it as he was driving and I had to force myself to do a few gan bei's. It was the first Chinese meal I've been to with no beer. And equally strange was that over the whole time I only saw one person smoke. When finally meeting one of the main blokes, whose face was already on a par with what was in his glass, he gave a huge smile when I told him my name; his surname was also Peng! We exchanged numbers and he said to be sure to call him when next in Nanning. I intend to do so, thank you Peng Feng big brother!

About to have a meal with the mango consortium at a posh restaurant

As we left the building an hour or so later I wondered why the trip was ever off, as rain wouldn't have affected that meal. Then I stopped wondering - it's a waste of time being too logical about things here...save that for work. We spent a bit of time waiting for some people in a hotel, where I noticed a load of cardboard boxes piled up by the security area. I asked seafood manager if they were all full of mangoes and he looked, then said "no". Later, while he was sorting some stuff out with the car I asked the security manager what was in all the boxes behind her. "Mangoes", was the reply. I left it there.

Tan had asked me to get a box of the greenest, hardest, least ripe mangoes possible so she could send them to her ex-boss in Shanghai. This I did, and of course the mango man wouldn't accept any payment. Then mango man's wife got into the blue Chevrolet with their son and said goodbye and drove away. It transpired that the colourfully-liveried Chevy was indeed her car. Seafood manager then got into the driver's seat of mango man's large black Toyota Camry, while I got in the passenger's seat, and mango man, who'd had a few glasses of red wine slumped in the back with some girl who had joined us at the meal. It took us nearly half an hour to drop the girl off at her house as she lived just beyond the mango market, and there was a huge traffic jam to get there as people were just parking on the side of the road and hopping out to buy their boxes. Then, finally we were on the road back to Pingguo, where mango man promptly fell asleep and I wanted to but felt a bit bad leaving seafood manager on his own, so struck up further conversation about the weather till we got back an hour later.

While on a walk I noticed rather heavily-laden lorry - you can get more on if you open the back doors and balance on them

We were back well in time for the meal that Xiao Pan had invited us to at 5pm so I went to pick up the kids from school. As it was fairly cool under the overcast skies I decided to walk what would be a 20 minute trek to pick up the kids from school. Something unthinkable to most natives. I got half way before Tan called to ask where I was as A Xia's husband had gone to pick them up in their new car (another Camry, this time white), as it was still wet. I told her to tell him to wait there so I could get a lift as I wasn't sure where the restaurant was. As soon as I got on a san lun che (I hadn't told Tan I was walking), I got a call from A Wu saying he was picking up the kids and he'd give me a lift.... As I got there I saw no A Wu's car, but A Xia's white Camry pulling away. I shoved my hands out to stop them and they picked me up. So much for waiting, A Wu had already taken the kids and I was in the car with the birthday girl.... We drove to a place I'd been to a couple of times before. There were a few kids and Leilei and Xixi actually ate some mantou and zhou, so I was happy to let them play with the other kids for the rest of the meal. They've become a bit easier to leave with others over the last few days, so I think it was worth the early difficulties in forcing them to do so.

Another sumptious meal, this time Xiao Pan invited us

The kids having fun: Nong Kaicheng, Leilei, A Da, Xiao Pan's son, Xixi and Xi Li's daughter

With the kids playing with their friends, A Wu and I set off after the meal to have a head and face wash (with the facemask). It was rather lovely but I didn't really need the face...I'd have rather spent the extra time being massaged, and indeed the facemask doubled the price to 65 kuai each. Still, for an hour I'm not complaining. I nearly fell asleep on the massage couch, indeed I was dropping off but I hadn't put my phone on silent so got calls from Tan. Anyway, I was happy to get an early night after another full day.

Embarrassing double date

I'd already said to work that I probably wouldn't be attending too many 11pm calls on a Friday and I was true to my word today, finishing work at around 8pm. I went to be humiliated at table tennis at the old folks' youth centre again and was pretty much caned. One bloke I'd been practising with for half an hour, and doing reasonably well I might add, then said we should have a game. This was when he turned from "reasonable standard player" to "oh shit he's much better than you". You could tell that by his serves as they were venemous and terribly hard to tame. But I managed the moral victory of losing 11-4. As I walked off, drenched in sweat, to allow the next victim he said "no, three!". Ah, best of three...that shouldn't take too long. I really didn't want to lose 11-0, that was all, and despite being 7-0 down I claimed back a couple of points with some nifty smashes to only lose 11-2. I went to shake my victor's hand but he just ran to the other side of the table saying "three! three!". Oh shit, it wasn't the best of three but the first to three. By now I was totally expecting to lose 11-0 as was my trend, and the fact I could barely see through my sweat. But I was elated to lose 11-3 though couldn't help thinking he may have given me a couple of those points.

Like an angel from heaven, Zhang Hongping called me and asked me to go out for a drink. So I made my excuses and left the youth centre for a well-deserved loser's shower. It was then that I felt a little guilty that teacher Lu had tried to call me several times today already and I had not returned his call. Not that I needed to; he called again and I answered, whereby he said he'd invited me to drink something at a nearby cafe. I then instantly got a call from Tan saying I needed to pick up the kids from Waipo's as Xixi had "la du" (diarrhoea). Zhang Hongping was then on the blower again so I explained I needed to pick up the kids first, which was no problem. That done, Zhang Hongping started driving us to the place he had invited us to - Old Tree Cafe. Then in the car I got another call from teacher Lu, telling me it was no problem to take the kids to meet him too. I felt a bit bad as although he's a bit tiresome with his crooked English and strange mannerisms, he's a good bloke. I needed time to sort out this quandary so I told him to please wait 40 minutes while I sort out my kids.

Five minutes later we arrived at Old Tree Cafe in Zhang Hongping's car and he lead us to our cubicle. I wasn't prepared for what happened next. As Leilei, Xixi, and I walked in, we saw teacher Lu in the neighbouring cubicle looking at once expecting, and then let down as we didn't go into his one. I had inadvertently made a double date, and the dates (both blokes) had booked the same place, and virtually the same space. This called for some level one diplomacy. I ran to teacher Lu's cubicle to shake his hand and explain that my friend Zhang Hongping had happened to call me as I was picking up my poorly daughter, and then when I'd discovered that she mightn't be that ill, I'd decided to see how things went and spend a few minutes with Zhang before calling him.

I think it sort of worked. I really hadn't expected teacher Lu to have booked anything, so explained the situation in a whispered, slightly more truthful manner to Zhang Hongping, who immediately understood, and had no qualms about sitting on his own in his cubicle until some other friends arrived. Luckily the kids were in good form, running between the cubicles in a way I actually wanted to. Teacher Lu asked me what I fancied to drink and this time I honestly felt like a beer. He was going to get a coffee but when he saw the prices I heard him speak Chinese for the first time as he asked the waitress if there were any cheaper options as the cheapest was 25 kuai! I got him to agree to have a couple of beers with me - one, because it was far cheaper, and two, I hoped he would forget about me sort of trying to avoid him. Well it seemed to work. A colleague of his turned up, rather demure and pretty teacher whose English was better than his, though she wasn't an English teacher. She provided good company as teacher Lu, who obviously wasn't used to drinking beer, insisted in speaking English to the extent that it became embarrassing. I asked him who his friend was (was she a colleague?) and he said "no, she's not my girlfriend!" even though I'd intimated nothing. Then he said "it's ok I am joking...I like to make jokes". I didn't get the joke, and he tried to explain further but just lost it.

Near 11.30pm I managed to finally change cubicles to be with Zhang Hongping and his mates. By this time A Wu was around and thankfully took the kids out. I managed a few gan bei's with the people there; it was an instantly more comfortable place to be. I do feel for teacher Lu; he's a good bloke but painful to be with. We moved on from the cafe to the seafood place for a late bite to eat, and stayed till nearly 2am, at which time the manager asked me if I fancied going to Tian Dong tomorrow to get some mangoes. I said "ok" as you do, and then realised he meant at 9am. Doh.

Zhang Hongping and I enjoying a late bite to eat

Air con fan not cool

Well it was nice to have a wife back who had got some sleep, so I didn't mind starting work closer to midday as it was still 5am UK time. I'd taken the kids to school after getting their breakfast - Xixi is fond of a couple of boiled eggs although I have to eat the yolks. Leilei is a bit harder but will eat some sweet pancake and as it's breakfast I don't mind too much.

But in the heat of the day I realised I'd need to get something other than the 30 kuai fan I'd bought last year for my study. So I went to Tan's "big sister's" shop and bought what's called a "kong tiao shan", i.e. an "air conditioner fan" which is really a fan with a bucket underneath where you put water, which is drawn up into some material behind the fan so that tiny droplets of water are blown out thus being more effective than a normal fan. Well I was just about to buy the cheapest one when "jie jie" (big sister) told me I should put ice cubes in the water bucket to make it colder. That stood to reason but when I saw a slightly more expensive one I noticed it had two large freezer packs that came with it. I mean those sort of things you put in cool bags to keep the drinks and sandwiches cool for a picnic. So after they'd found the box for the cheap one I sheepishly asked if I could have the one with the freezer things. I didn't mention that I also preferred the colour as it was sort of like the Man City kit. No problem and it only took another 5 mins to find the box for the display model as they didn't have any new ones in stock. Whether it was for that, or that I was "related" they knocked the price down from 630 kuai to 500. I thought 50 quid was a bit steep for a fancy fan but was in no mood to argue as I didn't want to shell out over 100 quid on air-con that would have killed the electricity bill.

It took a bit of time to work out how to use the fan as there are a few settings. But I'm a bit disappointed that it wasn't as cool as I'd imagined. Still, it's better than the old one, just slightly noisier, which means I sometimes have to turn it off during conference calls (and close the window - making it rather stuffy).

Intercom issues

Although my darling baby came into my room at 2am to sleep with me I still woke up at 5am. Half an hour later I knew that was it so I got up and did a little housework. Tan had said that her work was nearly finished and instead of coming back on Friday she hoped to come back today. Not that that had anything to do with me doing the housework of course.

Xixi still not stirring at 8.30am, 3 and a half hours after I'd got up

I have found that the electric bike is dead. I charged it the day before yesterday and yesterday it was still charging, which was odd. So I left it another day and it barely moves. I'm hoping it's just the batteries as I understand they are the same ones I changed in 2008 at a cost of 400 kuai. So I rang A Hua and asked if it was possible for her to take Xixi to school with Nong Kaicheng and Leilei. She said no problem so we walked to her house where I found Leilei chomping on some "zhen zhu nai cha" which is cold sweet milky tea with sugary balls in it and a wide straw so you can suck them up. The four of them got on A Hua's electric bike and I said goodbye, got myself a bite to eat and went back home to work for the first time in two weeks. One of the best things about working from here is that during the day you are relatively free from emails and calls, so can concentrate on the tasks at hand; it only took me two hours to sort out the hundreds of emails that had amassed over the last 14 days. And then of course the more negative aspects arise such as 11pm meetings, but overall I'm lucky to be able to work like this sometimes and at least enjoy a late night nibble at the bbq and the weekends.

Going to school on A Hua's bike. Leilei was actually happy but I just caught him rubbing his eye - annoying as I somehow managed to delete a much better pic

At the base of our building are five entry doors. Ours is number 3 in the middle. The first week we were here I had to order a replacement water bottle for the dispenser as it had run out. Now normally doing that in Chinese is fairly straightforward but when you have to explain that you're on the 14th floor (as the deliverer has to take the lift) but that the number is 3-15A01 it gets a bit complicated; I simply did not know what number to tell him to press on the intercom thingy so I could let him in. Sure enough half an hour later I had a call from the water deliverers to say the poor bloke had been ringing without success. Now that I've looked at the intercom number dialler thing I understand...there is no number 4, but in place we have a "510" - what is that supposed to mean? Luckily, that day I literally bumped into the deliverer as I was coming back to the house so I was able to let him in but I still don't know what to tell people to dial to ring our bell from downstairs.

Our intercom at the base of the building - what do you dial to ring our house???

Hopefully I will know soon as Tan rang to say she'd be coming back that evening, although the flight had been delayed and she mightn't make it before the last bus to Pingguo, in which case she'd stay at Chen Mei's. Luckily I found a handy website at https://www.flightstats.com/ where I was able to search for live Shanghai - Nanning flights in order to work out which she was on and how late it would be (54 minutes). Armed with this information it didn't really matter as the last time she went to Nanning both journeys (over an hour each way) were by taxi so she could blooming well do the same again after being away for five days.

And actually she did. I got a call when she was less than an hour away and it dawned on me that I hadn't washed the floor. I have been married long enough to know that invisible dust is actually visible to married women, so I set about a sweat-induced 45 minutes of dusting and washing before she arrived at 11pm announcing she was tired and needed to go to bed. After all that...she didn't even notice my efforts (I even washed the sofa). I now know why people evolved to believe in an afterlife; it's sometimes just not fair if you only have one.

Sleepovers

I must have been shattered last night as when I awoke I saw a missed call from Lin Hong, where Leilei and Xixi stayed last night. I called her to find out the problem only to be told it was fine; Xixi had told her that she wanted to go home at 12.45am when I was already asleep. So anyway I went round to pick up the kids around 9.30 but no-one would answer the door. Lin Hong had gone to work so I called her daughter Tian Tian and after a few minutes she came bleary-eyed to let me in. In her room I found Leilei and Xixi and another girl lying on Tian Tian's (double) bed, another girl sleeping on the floor, and yet another sleeping on the window sill. It looked like the remains of a pre-pubescent orgy, but my kids stirred as I called their names, still fully-clothed, and I took them home to be re-clothed, fed and taken to school for around 10.30. I spoke to the teacher about paying her for the kids but she just told me "bu yao jin" - don't worry. She was happy that Leilei was finally starting to do some reading with the other kids. Mostly they read extracts from Confuscious. I'm going to have to do so myself so I understand what they are being taught. When I left Leilei told me not to come to pick him up later...hmm

It's my last day before work again. Normally I would say that the two weeks have flown by but because of the amount of time doing stuff it actually feels like longer...that trip from the airport a far memory and a grain of sand in the beach that is Pingguo and its inhabitants.

I noticed a rather beautiful car outside our local supermarket. It looked like a Porsche but had four doors...another fake or lookalike? No, indeed it was a Porsche Panamera - I'd seen one similar at Nanning airport so now know what that was too. There is a lot of money here as these cars range from 60-120k quid in the UK so here you are looking at double that after all the import taxes etc.

While I was admiring the car I got a call from A Da. Well it was Leilei using A Da's phone to call me to tell me not to pick him up after school again! I smelled a rat but I think it was simply that he wanted to go to Nong Kaicheng's house again. Not that it made much difference to me as I still had to go and pick up Xixi. I didn't see Leilei for the rest of the day as he stayed and slept at Nong Kaicheng's house. I dropped Xixi off at Waipo's then went to see Yang Haiwei, who had invited me for a meal with some bosses. Deja vu. But yeah why not? I might not be able to do that so much when working and in meetings. We had a nice meal and the three gentlemen from the bank (maybe they were managers rather than bosses) got rather tipsy after a few glasses of Li Quan 3.1% beer, and that broke down barriers with a couple of teacher women who were there, as they started gan bei'ing with them at a faster rate. I went to get Xixi and brought her back for a bit, but by the time I was back they were all red-faced from the beer and had started playing "mo pai", a gambling card game, and it was getting smokey. So after a short while, during which the women did their usual cooing over Xixi, we made our excuses and left to go back to Waipo and Jiuma. At Waipo's, Xixi said she wanted to stay there. But when I left she wanted to go with me...so shoes on again and walk home for 5 minutes before she decided she wanted to go back with Waipo and Jiuma. And as soon as we were back she wouldn't let me go so she went back with me again...

A Wu's stonery and another head wash

In a change from the normal schedule I picked up the kids from Waipo at Er Jie's house and took them to school with A Wu at 10am. We then moved on to A Wu's office before driving the 15 minutes to his work to see how things were progressing there. Things were indeed progressing nicely, and he is making a tidy sum on a regular basis. While I was there I saw a few small blue lorries turn up and pay 160 kuai for a load of coarse stones, then some red lorries, ten times the size, pull up and get filled too. The finer the stone, the more expensive apparently. Anyway, most of it goes into the building of new apartments, which are sprouting up at a seemingly relentless rate here.


A Wu's stonery still going well


Loading up a small lorry with stones worth about 160 kuai

So much for the inspection, we went back an hour later at midday and had a meal of pork, beef and egg fried greens with one of his boss friends before heading off for the highlight of the day - a "foot wash".

Much like going to "drink tea", or "sing song" a foot wash is much more than you might expect. We went to the Ming Dian hotel and took the lift to the top floor, before taking the stairs another flight up to the massage area. After some chatting with the ladies at the reception we got our own private room with two beds and I changed my trousers to a pair of the massage place ones so I didn't need to roll mine up. What ensued was 100 minutes of mostly pleasure, interrupted during the first half an hour by some foot massaging that was rather rough and tickly at the same time. My feet were plunged into near-boiling brown water (I'm told it was medicine) while the lovely girl rubbed and massaged all areas before attempting to take off a layer of old skin.

I could have done with 100 minutes of massage without the feet as after that she proceeded to the rest of my body for the next hour or so. So good was it that I managed to get a bit of kip afterwards on the couch. This is pure decadent luxury that I hope to repeat a few more times during my stay here. 100 minutes for 58 kuai - I will return!

We left the place at 5pm and Lin Hong rang to say the kids were with her and would stay the night there. Well, ok, I said, as long as they're fine with that. Then we went back to A Wu's office where I was told we were to have a meal in a bit. "A bit" can mean anything from 30 seconds to 3 hours so I set out to find a wifi adapter for A Wu's laptop so I could set up a wireless router and rid him of his ethernet cable. Well that proved to be a bit harder than I imagined but I finally happened upon a computer shop where they cut a 5 metre ethernet cord for 7 kuai so I could configure the router, then I also bought a 3.5mm to 3.5mm connector so we could have tv sound from the laptop at our home. I found that a USB wifi adapter would be 250 kuai so I said "bu yao" to that as you can get them back home for a fiver and I had a spare one with me anyway. As I was chatting to the girl in the shop I got a call from A Wu to hurry back to the office as they were ready to eat. Ten minutes later I was there and they were already eating, all of the workers from the carwash place behind the office, about 20 in total - men at one table, women at the other.

A Wu's office's 1st anniversary party - Mr Liang in the foreground. Note the ingenious way of opening a beer bottle by the bloke at the back

Apparently it was A Wu's office's first anniversary, and my friend Mr Liang, the bloke from Baise with halitosis came too. I haven't seen him for the last year or so, but he is one of the people I know from my early visits to Pingguo in 2003/2004. The food and company were good, and there was a fair amount of cai ma before I started feeling full. Someone went out in A Wu's car to pick up some more beer, and then again a bit later. I eventually made my excuses and left, walking the 15 minutes back to the house in an attempt to burn off some beer calories.

Day with the kids, evening watching the Test

Without the wife and kids I woke up at 8am and it felt like a veritable lie-in. No breakfast to go out and get, no clothes to get kids to wear, no tooth-brushing or washing of faces. I actually believe I'm on holiday. At 10am I decided to go to Waipo's to see the kids, as without them is nice for a bit, but I miss them a lot after a while.... We went to Ma Laoban's computer shop to get a cable from the laptop to the tv, and both the kids enjoyed themselves playing silly flash games on the computers on display. Before I knew it it was lunchtime so I took them to a local place where I managed to get them to eat some zhou. They just don't seem to have appetites during daylight hours and getting them to eat anything other than sweets is like getting blood from a stone. That's the fault of too many spoiling aunts really...they seem to think that the first set of teeth need to be extracted as soon as possible, with copious amounts of chewy sweets.

The kids wouldn't sleep, which meant I couldn't either, so I ended up making good use of Awl's broken laptop to let them watch some of their favourite Mr Bean. In the afternoon we stopped off at Ma Laoban's again where I swapped an incorrectly bought AV cable for a USB extension so that the laptop would have good connectivity under the tv. There's still no sound but we'll sort that out soon. We went back to Waipo's where I selfishly dumped the kids again in the evening as I wanted to watch the grand prix. It appeared that CCTV5 was only showing a swimming competition which annoyed me a lot as I had to find a stream to watch the race and missed the first couple of laps. Well, it was worth it as the race was thrilling from start to finish and I wasn't even able to go to the fridge to grab a beer until nearly halfway, such was the excitement and lack of adverts.

Kids pacified by watching Mr Bean

After the race I rang Waipo and she said the kids were fine, and that she had a Set Top Box she could lend us so we could watch real tv. I came round to take it after 10pm and the kids both said they were more than happy to stay the night there again! So armed with a STB I set off on the electric bike to find an AV cable so I could watch tv. As it was gone 10pm I set this as a goal for myself. I was confident that at this time I could find such a cable....but try as I might, every likely looking shop that I went to didn't have one. I must have tried 20 such outlets until the last failure pointed me at next-door, which appeared to be a stationery shop that was pulling down its shutters. I asked about the cable and after a little rummaging around, by which time for some reason a small crowd of kids had gathered outside, they found the cable I needed - and only wanted 2 kuai. I left after a great many "hellos" and "goodbyes" with the locals, secretly satisfied that I had Mission Successful yet again...

Back home, with no kids to worry about again, I was happy to stay awake for a while to watch us play very well against India in the test match on a decent stream through the tv with a weak beer, almost like being there (well watching from home, anyway).

Feet up, watching the Test against India with a cold beer - nice!

Clear clear skies + time away from kids

I am accustomed to haze here in China. Not just in Pingguo, but the only other places I've really been to; Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing. I thought it was just pollution until I lived in Pingguo, but I can't believe this place is polluted anything like the large cities. So it was a welcome surprise that after I woke up (before everyone else of course) it struck me that outside was particularly clear. It made the whole place feel overwhelmingly different. Despite the time I've spent here over the last eight years I've always been aware that I am abroad but today it just felt normal, like home. I'd never before considered that haziness would be such an important factor on how you feel about a place. It was lovely to clearly see all the details in the mountains, and I spent a few minutes on the balcony just contemplating nothing in particular in the relative quiet of 7am Pingguo.

View of the guang chang from our balcony on a clear day

View west from our balcony on a clear day

I found out that the teacher's house is open seven days a week so I got the kids their breakfast at the normal dou jiang place and took it to Waipo's to eat. A few days ago we had a scare as apparently Waipo had had a stroke again (she had one a couple of months ago). Her right arm and leg lacked feeling and Tan had to go over there to help her out. I don't know how, but apparently Waipo got better quite quickly (I had been fearing the worst after hearing the symptoms). Well today I saw the medicine that had been bought for her. Each dose was kept in a plush wax-like round cover in a little gift box, at a cost of 300 kuai. I guessed this was traditional Chinese medicine and wondered how much the packing cost out of the 300. Anyway, she swears that it did the trick. I claim placebo, probably intensified by the packaging. I'd love to talk to some people here about scientific trials of medicine but I fear it would fall on deaf ears, like politics. It is an interesting point though, because as China becomes more mainstream in the world, it will have to be subjected to greater scrutiny in such markets as medicine, and I for one will be very interested in how it works out. Lin Hong rang me and asked me to take Xixi to her place so I did after she'd eaten, and left Leilei there for a bit. I told Lin Hong that Leilei and Xixi were going to school today with Nong Kaicheng and A Da, so she said she'd pick up Leilei from Waipo's and take them both there later.

Waipo's expensive stroke medicine (if you call 300 kuai expensive)

Back at home I wanted to relax for a bit and sort out our newly-borrowed tv. That nearly happened when I got a call from A Hua, Nong Kaicheng's mama, to say the teacher had rung her to ask where the kids were. Well I told her that Lin Hong had taken them there...at least to the best of my knowledge. So I called Lin Hong to find she'd taken the kids out to play, with no intention of going to school. I nearly argued but it dawned on me that the kids were on holiday too and it may be a little unfair to expect them to go to school every day. However, Lin Hong could at least have told me!

Well I had some time to myself as Tan was safely in Shanghai, helping her ex-boss try to do some business with an Australian company (and finding out their accent is very difficult at the same time). So what better use of my time than to wipe Vista off Awl's broken screen laptop and install a fresh XP? I'd found out that the tv had a detachable back that I hadn't seen before, and behind that was a VGA input along with HD and other stuff. So a nice geeky late morning ensued, during which I went out and bought some jiao zi and had a couple of beers. This meant I was able to sleep from 3-5pm, and though I should have felt refreshed, when I woke up I felt ill. Waipo called me to eat over there and although I didn't feel like it I went anyway as I probably needed the food. I picked at some duck and rice and then made my excuses and left.

I have committed a serious crime here in Pingguo. I have been here nearly ten days and not gone for a head wash. Given that I was feeling off-colour and that the wife was away and the kids were being taken care of, I thought that would be just the ticket so I gave A Wu a tinkle and he said he'd meet me by the old KTV place. The only interruption to this plan was Waipo calling me to ask me to bring some dry clothes for Xixi as she'd managed to wee herself at home, probably by being too excited to go to the loo. Thankfully I was able to get A Wu to take me to Waipo's to leave the clothes, and Xixi wasn't too insistent on coming out with me. So much the better as after we picked up a Sichuan friend from A Hua's shop, we found one of the places we went to last year and I had probably the best head wash I can remember at least in the last three years. Again, a teenage girl with stronger finger muscles than appearances would suggest, washed and wet-massaged my head and neck and face and upper back, before moving on to other places of the upper body. I cannot stress enough how much the difference is in comfort between a warm, wet massage, and a dry one. I don't care if the dry one is more professional and better for the body, the soapy wet one is far far more pleasurable. We'd used the expensive shampoo, apparently but I was more than happy to pay the 100 kuai for the three of us for the hour's experience.

I realised I no longer felt ill, and was happy to go back to A Wu's office for a couple of beers with some blokes. I called Waipo to say I'd go to pick up the kids around 10.30pm and she said "mei wenti" (no problem) so I had no guilt in not doing so. Then she called back a minute later saying the kids would sleep there tonight. Result! At A Wu's office we actually had a glass of his home made wine. This sounds dangerous. Non home made wine is barely palatable at the best of times so I was quite concerned. It wasn't wine in the strict sense of the word though, it was more like wine mixed with vodka and sugar. I guessed it was around 25% alcohol so supped slowly, until everyone decided it would be convenient to move on to beer.

Sichuan friend!

A Wu's office wall adorned with photos from yesteryear

This continued till gone midnight, when A Wu declared himself hungry, so we all went for a bbq at Tian Yang Po's place, which is the favourite of everyone I know around here. It was very nice, and we didn't eat or drink too much, and I went home totally exhausted by 2am and had no problem falling into the arms of Morpheus.

Our favourite bbq place, with Ai Yi and her duck fingers! (Well, tongues)