Well I think I've found out what the snake was that scared us a few days ago. It took a few minutes but when I saw this pic of the Red-necked Keelback I reckon this was the fellow that we'd annoyed. Apparently only the back teeth are venemous, meaning of relatively little risk to humans, but at the time you just react. Luckily we had no time to react and the little chap just disappeared into the grass.
Apparently it was a Red-Necked Keelbaaack
Otherwise today was mostly work. Getting to test integration with REST Web Services was rather more interesting than it should have been for someone who is meant to be not that technical.
After a good day's work I took the kids out on a long dian dong che ride. We'd seen what looked like a ferris wheel some distance away so decided to head in that direction as part of a magical mystery tour. Unfortunately just as we arrived there the big wheel (yes it was that) illuminations were turned off. But we'd found a Pingguo funfair. That meant we could come back here for an afternoon or something. The rollercoasters were kid-sized so I might even have a go.
The dian in the dian dong che was running out but we managed to get nearly home before I called Tan to find she and A Xia were enjoying bbq at Tian Yang Po's. Finally we would get the chance to see her new place and indeed it was nice; a proper indoor eating area and plenty of pink outdoor chairs if you fancy eating outside, as only Tan and A Xia appeared to be doing.
They ordered far more than was necessary, and althought the kids ate a half decent amount it was way past even their Pingguo bedtime given they'd been up since quite early and Leilei would be up soon after seven. So I took them back at 11.30 to be showered and although the kids went to sleep for some reason I couldn't till 3am.
I first woke up at 8ish after last night's slight excesses. I was thinking about my waking algorithm from the other day in order to help me decide whether to get up. I input the relevant values into the formula: tiredness 60%, needing to get up 30%, value of getting up and doing exercise 70%, chance of siesta 30% etc. But before I could actually determine whether I should actually get up or not the mere task of using the algorithm tipped me over to going back to sleep. At the time it didn't matter, but only when I re-arose at 10am did it occur to me that the effort of calculating the algorithm was actually an input to the algorithm itself!
So I had now to deal with what was effectively a self-referential algorithm, as if the original wasn't hard enough. In fact I am wondering if this could be the world's first self-referential algorithm. Surely most algorithms calculate something entirely outside the space they reside, except perhaps for quantum algorithms. It's a bit like my algorithm is aware of itself, and therefore incurs its own uncertainty. It almost deserves a name - the Quantum Uncertainty Algorithm for Sleep - QUAS - just the acronym is soporific.
But it was a working day so no more time for algorithmic daliances. But it was also Chinese Valentine's day so after tea at Waipo's I found a local flower-monger and spent a ridiculous 130 kuai on a bunch of roses that were actually quite tastefully set up. I did ask a few times regarding various bunches how many roses there were and the modal answer was "11". I didn't hear a "12" so can only assume that's not a lucky number or something. I also asked where the roses came from and was told Vietnam, which may explain their cost, or not.
Tasteful roses for Valentine's day
Ling Ming had invited us to tea at his wife Xiao Nong's parents' place. I'd been there before last year and was quite looking forward to this family affair. Their house is actually a house, with a garden, and like others, if you have a garden you often have chickens too. Except they also had a pig.
We had a great meal but there were a fair few blokes who brought beer so I had to go more gan bei's than I was expecting. But I was quite good and ensured not every peng bei was a gan bei. Even Tan noticed, I think. But Tan and the kids went back eventually and I had to play mopai, which is a card game the last time I tried to play was also with Ling Ming. I sort of get the rules - you get five random cards each (from a double deck) - then throw out a card you don't want to count. The cool thing is that if your card is the lowest ranked of the chucked out cards you have to drink.
Xiao Nong's parents' garden and next door's for good measure
Then the actual game itself is based on two pairs, the strongest being actual pairs, then afterwards 9,8,7 etc, with 19=9, 18=8 etc. I still don't know the rules properly but it seems if one person beats all other with both hands then all have to drink twice, but if he wins once and loses once the losers only have to drink once. But for such a simple game there are other nuances that I still have to learn. It still seems like something exportable to the UK.
A decent hand in mopai as I understand it
Xiao Nong gave me a lift back at gone 11pm, and thought it fit to comment that I didn't smell of alcohol, which meant I'd somewhat succeeded.
I forced myself to get a little more sleep after a 7am arising by doing my German trick, but for some reason I had a 6' long hollow metal pole about half an inch in diameter where one end was sort of cut to a scoop shape, and that end had what looked like the flesh of mango in it, and for some reason that was preventing me going to sleep. Except that the pole itself was a figment of my imagination due to the German counting. I had finally got myself into a vicious circle of German counting causing me to be in a dreamful state that was preventing me from sleeping. This went on for some time until I thought about it and wondered if I was actually sleeping, and just dreaming I wasn't. This reasonably logical thought caused me to snap out of the circle but I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. After having a brief chat with Andge on WhatsApp though I nodded off as I was suddenly getting out of Heathrow Airport and was at an underground terminus, except it was overground, and I saw what looked like an underground employee run towards an incoming train that had nearly stopped and throw himself at the front of the now nearly stationary vehicle. He didn't get run over as the train had stopped, but he was injured and I ran over to him where there were a few other workers and I shouted at them for some angry reason but I'm not sure how they could have stopped some stupid suicidal colleague. Then the train had mysteriously disappeared and I was looking in vain for a bin at the end of the platform.
When I woke up properly I read one of the headlines of the day about a bloke who died in the Gatwick express by sticking his head out too far and getting hit by another train. A lesser mind might have seen a link between the two but not I.
One of the highlights was a cute kitten I passed on the way to Waipo's - a sign things are getting normal here
Today was mostly work, punctured by lunch and tea at Waipo's, but a bloke who tried to invite me out last night got in contact to invite me to drink tea at his new place tonight and he would pick me up when I called him soon after 7.30. He called me Jiefu, meaning elder sister's husband. I don't think Tan has a younger brother, so guess she was his figurative sister rather than blood one. I checked with Tan and she knew his wife so he should be safe. Soon after 7.30 he called me to say he hadn't eaten yet and would call me when he had. Soon after 8pm he called me to pick me up but I still had the kids with me. I took them downstairs but didn't want to take them as there would inevitably be smoke. Not that I think passive smoking as bad as it's made out - I've heard it said that a non-smoker in the same room as a smoker who smokes 20 fags smokes the equivalent of 17. That must be total bullshit - it's nothing like the same intensity as dragging from the cigarette itself. Still, it's not nice to come home stinking of fags.
So I called Tan and as luck would have it she was walking back from Waipo's so we waited a couple of minutes and I dumped them off with her and let her be sure she knew who I was going to drink tea with. I didn't know what to call this bloke so put him down as "bu zhidao" in my phone book, literally "don't know", and mean to rectify that soon. We drove a little bit around the guangchang and I realised he could have just told me to walk there and it would have taken less time that it did to fetch me but it just doesn't work like that. We parked and entered a rather nice teahouse, called a chaguan, and it genuinely did have rooms on different floors that served tea. Apparently he owned, or was the boss of, or both this place, and we found a nice room on the first floor where he put himself in the master tea pourer place.
Of course tea is a euphamism after 9pm. It wasn't a lie as we did drink tea - the supposedly really expensive flower tea that I discovered with Ma Si last year. But after 15 minutes Don't know ordered six small cans of 2.5% Snowflake beer. I could deal with this. Then a couple of ladies entered and of course we had to gan bei with them. It transpired they worked for him and for one of them it was her first day. Then another, rather pretty, lady arrived but I can't remember who she was introduced as. She asked for water rather than beer, and that alone struck me as being rather sensible. But she was served tea rather than water, then went and opened a beer and poured herself one and did a gan bei with me. So much for sensible.
As the evening wore on a couple of blokes arrived before apparently two of the most high officials of Pingguo made an entrance. I think this was meant to be the highlight of the evening but these two were as pissed as tadpoles. They sat themselves one to my left and one to my right so I was a little trapped. The one to my left gan bei'd me but the one to my right, although looking just as far gone as left man, seemed to acknowledge his state, and stick to tea. Then it was time for a group stand up gan bei and no sooner had I stood up as the bloke on my left dropped his glass on the floor. The glasses were unfortunately not the thimble-sized glasses, or even the bbq sized glasses one normally gan beis from, but rather beaker-sized, holding, I estimate, 175ml of liquid. Well sadly for me, the trajectory of the escaped liquid from the newly dropped glass was a curve that soaked the left side of my teashirt from armpit to hip. The perpetrator was blissfully unaware as the ladies quickly tidied the broken glass away and poured him a new one, which was successfully gan bei'd.
My right side boss/government official declared himself as the other party at Baksec Zhai's yesterday evening and I then recognised him. If he'd been less comatosed I might have recognised him before. He then stood up, tea in hand, to do a group gan bei and befell the same fate as his mate but luckily the scalding contents of his broken glass did not hit me. I suspect both of them knew it was time for bed as they left soon after. And indeed I made signs to say I should get back. I'd already had phone calls from A Wu and Yang Haiwei asking me to go out with them and I would have preferred it quite frankly. So after a bit of cai ma with the pretty girl, Don't know gave me a lift home some time after 11pm.
Drinking tea with Don't know, pretty woman opposite
I probably shouldn't have, but when he was out of sight I gave A Wu quick call and he said to come to the KTV on the opposite side of the guangchang from where I'd just been. Well why not? Rather than take the dian dong che, I just walked the couple of minutes and by the time I got to the second floor there were already people ushering me into the room. Yes there was some party in full swing and I had to do a few more gan bei's, but it was slightly more comfortable in the company of someone I knew. I ended up singing Ni shi wo de meigui hua for the first time this year. And then A Wu put on Pengyou - one I should know off by heart after nearly 10 years but I always fall back to reading the pin yin Cantonese on my phone. But horror, I didn't have it on my Note 4! Well I would have, if Google Drive worked, or if I'd marked it as available offline before I'd got to China, but I hadn't. So I had to get A Wu to help most of the time, and made a mental note to learn this one properly so it will always be offline in my head.
I made my excuses and left just before midnight, like a manly Cinderella without a prince/ss, or glass shoes, and A Wu left as well. As we were leaving the building we saw A Ni entering. Apparently she had to go for someone's birthday and I guess she had to close down her cafe before leaving. She didn't have too much to say to A Wu and I wished her a good time. I refused a lift from A Wu because a) he was drunk, and b) it was only two minutes walk away. But I thought to myself, "in for a penny, in for a pound", and I gave Yang Haiwei a quick ring in case he was still about.
Yang Haiwei was still about, in a KTV somewhere. And he sent me a "location" in WeChat. Again, the map showed nothing so I had to guess where he was and the map showed me "warm" or "cold" but it became clear it was the same KTV I've been to eat behind a couple of times recently. I didn't need to call when I arrived; the girls at the reception magically knew who I was, or at least where I was going, and we went to the fifth floor to see Haiwei and some friends. Yes I had to do Ni shi wo de meigui hua once again, and a few gan beis too. It was the birthday of his younger son's teacher apparently, which in the UK wouldn't justify such revelry but who was I to argue? I left with Haiwei at well gone 1am and when home decided to sleep in the office until a bit later where the lure of the bedroom and its more comfotable bed brought me around 4am.
Up at reasonable 9ish, I went by myself to the dou jiang place to get breakfast for 9.5 kuai as the kids were still getting dressed. As I arrived at the dou jiang place I heard a loud "oi!" and saw Jiefu (A Wu's older sister's husband) calling me from a black 4x4. We shook hands and he reminded me that we were eating at Baksec Zhai's today at 5.30. At home I managed a 7 minute exercise stint before shower then it was off to Waip's for lunch where we brought more mangoes.
I asked Tan when Da Jie was leaving, and she said straight after lunch, because if she stays in Pingguo for too long she gets ill. Before I enquired into the nature of the condition Tan herself said she thought it was all in her head too. So after lunch Da Jie's husband and stepson got the car ready then simply drove away. I mentioned the bleeding obvious that Da Jie wasn't in the car and Tan said she was going to stay longer. Back in the house this time it was Da Jie's turn to give the kids a hong bao each, but this time "only" 200 kuai each. It seems a slightly odd, if practical, way of giving a gift as it is immediately clear who gave the most as the value is explicit. I'm sure she doesn't have as much money as Er Jie but it seems a little mean to have this exposed in such a way.
Xixi and Leilei with their hong bao and Da Jie
A less-posed photo of the ladies and A Heng at lunch
Although it was another scorcher, I wanted to sort out the train tickets so Leilei and I got our passports and drove to the station where we waited a few minutes in a queue until it was our turn. I explained the problem of the duplicate names on the tickets to Guangzhou and the lady asked for the passports and typed in the numbers to retrieve the booking. It was hard to see the problem on the screen as there was only enough space to see our surnames, which of course are the same. But the passport numbers were clearly different. So I explained in detail what the problem was and she called over another member of staff. I was aware that the queue was growing behind me and didn't want to be responsible for anyone missing their train so asked if she really thought it was a problem if both tickets had my name on. The answer was probably not, as the surnames were the same. Then she started saying something about paying 10kuai. I had no idea what she was talking about and, aware of the queue, just said ok I'd pay. Finally I had the tickets in my hand and noticed they didn't even print the first names on them anyway....
Back home I showed the receipts for the two 5kuai charges and innocently asked Tan what they were for. She didn't know so I told her to forget it but for some reason she really wanted to find out so started chatting with a friend who worked in the railway to find out. Apparently if you get the booked tickets printed from the machine there is no charge, but if you get them from a person, and the station you're picking them up from is NOT the originating station, you have to pay a 5 kuai surcharge on the ticket. She looked quite satisfied with the answer until I asked her why I wasn't charged for the Guangzhou to Zhuhai tickets. I told her I didn't need to know - it was 10 kuai after all. But I secretly did want to know.
We had a relatively chilled afternoon in the air-con of the house, until A Wu rang at 5.20 for our 5.30 meal with Baksec Zhai. I don't know his real name, I've known him since 2006 as "Bloke from Baise" even though he now resides in Pingguo. Apparently he is now the fourth most important person in Pingguo. Well I took the kids to A Ni's where we waited a good 20 minutes in A Wu's car, engine running for the air-con, and didn't get to Baksec Zhai's till gone 6pm. We entered to find his wife and another woman cooking, and no sign of Baksec Zhai himself. But Jiefu was there trying to sort out the Internet connection. I watched him for a bit and saw he didn't really know what he was doing. I asked to have a look and it transpired he was basically trying to do the same setup as at ours; connect one router to another and use it as an access point.
So of course I said I'd help out. I noticed the ethernet cable coming from the source router was going into the WAN socket of the access point router, so he was off to a no starter. I couldn't get into the source router settings deep enough to restrict the DHCP server address range, so couldn't be sure it wouldn't hand out 192.168.0.254 to another device, but took the gamble of manually configuring 192.168.0.254 on router 2 anyway. It didn't like this as it conficted with its WAN settings, but as it was going to be a dumb access point I turned of WAN anyway after which it accepted it. Then I turned off the DHCP server in router 2. I tested by connecting my phone and although it got an IP address from router 1 there was no internet connection even though a computer connected to router 2 could connect fine.
By this time the food was on the table and the kids were complaining they were hungry, so I said I'd try to fix it a little later. A Ni had come with Tuborg 3.6% beer from her cafe and another boss who looked important came and sat on Baksec Zhai's right (I was on his left). Needless to say, beer was poured, great food was eaten, and a good time was had by all, until I noticed the kids were getting restless. As Tan was at a reunion meal I asked if I could drop them off there but A Wu said he'd take them. Then I realised I'd probably have to go there anyway later so told them just to wait a little longer. Then it dawned on me I still hadn't fixed the Internet.
A boss, Baksec Zhai, and me about to do an umpteenth gan bei
and us 10 years ago in September 2006 when I first met him in Baise
It was a good excuse to have a break from the beer, but when I got back I still couldn't configure router 2 to share the wifi properly. Then I noticed a newer looking router, the same model as our second one, sitting atop the table and asked Jiefu if it worked. It transpired it worked fine and I had no idea why he had been trying to configure an older one. So after a factory I set up router 3 with the same settings as the now turned off router 2, and lo and behold we had wireless Internet in the house! Baksec Zhai and I high-fived but in all honesty I was probably more excited than him. Then Tan rang to tell me that her teacher at the reunion meal had to leave in 10 or 20 minutes and I was to bring the kids around to see her. This provided a timely excuse to warn Baksec Zhai I'd need to leave in 15 minutes (it was already 9pm) and he accepted this but not before a few more gan beis.
A Wu took us to where the restaurant should have been, if you listen to what you're told. Tan had said it was opposite A Xia's shop but what she should have said was that you turn right outside A Xia's shop, go to the end of the pedestrian area then cross over the road to near where the new cinema is. No matter, we walked there and found the nice restaurant with a good 20 or so primary school ex-colleagues come from all around Guangxi and one that had just arrived from Beijing by train. They were all in good spirits, that became better when they saw the kids and they posed for more photos - they are very good at that now.
Tan's ex-colleagues from primary school and two little half-bloods
The fried crickets were simply scrumtious
We ended up staying till 11pm and I particularly liked the fried crickets, as did most. I played quite a lot of cai ma to everyone's entertainment but stuck to the weak beer as opposed to many of the others who were on red wine with a slice of lemon. I noted that the teacher was still there as I left them all to walk the kids home to shower and have a relatively early night.
Well at least I wasn't up too early and treated myself to another two mangoes before going to the basement to pick up dian dong che I'd left to charge last night. As I entered I heard the typical suite of alarms going off that never seem to stop for more than a couple of minutes and no-one pays any attention. Typically you have to move someone else's bike to get yours out, which triggers the alarm. But this time I saw it was our bike that had its light on and I realised it was our bike only that was eminating sound. I pushed the button to stop it and put the charger away but noticed a notice stuck to the front of the bike. I didn't understand it but guessed it was to do with the alarm and feared it could have been going on for a long time. As I rode to leave, the security bloke stopped me and had a right go at me. Of course I claimed ignorance but it transpired I hadn't closed the seat lock properly, where the charger is normally kept, and the alarm had been going all night. I guess that the security people normally have a bit of a sleep, or at least enjoy some tranquility in the early hours, but I had prevented that.
The stern notice that was attached to the dian dong che - I intend to translate it one day
A Wu called in the morning to say that we were going to Baksec Zhai's for tea, but I said Da Jie should be coming and he understood that family comes first so agreed t arrange for tomorrow instead. This is one yet again why it is quite annoying not knowing if someone is really coming when they say they are. There's half a chance that Da Jie won't come today and that it will be tomorrow so all will have to be rearranged again.
Well apparently Da Jie was coming today at 11am so we got to Waipo's well in advance where Er Jie already was. 11 came and went and then we were told they were stuck in a traffic jam. I'm guessing it's not convenient to take the train or something but I've taken the slow train to Pingxiang from Pingguo before and it was lovely and hardly longer than driving, and certainly not subject to traffic. By 12.30 we heard they'd missed the Pingguo exit at the motorway and would have to turn back later so we decided to eat. Finally, at 1.30 Da Jie turned up with her husband and stepson. Apparently they hadn't used the satnav.
So they ate their lunch and then photos were taken. Then Er Jie produced two hong bao (red envelopes) for the kids, each containing 500 kuai. That's going a bit far...she's already spoilt them rotten. Apparently she has ordered them a swegway each - rather silly as I've already told Tan the batteries won't be allowed on the flights back either as hand or hold luggage. I guess it will mean an expensive and long overland journey. Waipo didn't want to be in the pictures as she said it was bad luck for some reason. But when it was just the three daughters she decided it would be ok. It's just possible this will be the last such opportunity.
Da Jie's stepson, Leilei, Xixi, Da Jie, Da Jie's husband
Er Jie, Leilei, Tan, Xixi, Da Jie
The three daughters and Waipo
Da Jie brought some pomegranates
I had considered asking for help buying train tickets to Zhuhai but based on experience I thought it would be a whole lot less hassle doing this myself. I wouldn't have to deal with others' opionions then about the best train to get and why I shouldn't stay in Zhuhai more than two nights due to muggers or whatever. Worse, someone might even offer to drive the 12 hour journey. No, I was going to do it myself. I'd been told that with the new gao tie train the journey was a little over three hours. More like a little over five hours. I would have preferred to get the 16:23 but that would have arrived at Guangzhou at gone 21:30 and we'd still need to take another train for an hour, so I booked tickets for the 08:54. It seems you can't buy tickets all the way to your destination, or return tickets, at least not on ctrip, so I ordered separate tickets from Pingguo to Guangzhou, and Guangzhou to Zhuhai. Once I'd logged in to ctrip.com it remembered the passenger details and I was able to choose who was travelling. Unfortunately Leilei and my passport numbers had changed since we last used ctrip and I nearly booked with the wrong ones, so had to manually remove us and re-add.
I thought that was a job well done when I'd made the two separate transactions to pay for the single tickets, but my email notification showed that for the Pingguo to Guangzhou trip I'd put them both in my name. Oh dear, this would now require going to explain to someone in person when picking up the tickets instead of just going to a machine. And this probably wouldn't have happened if I'd asked someone to help. Well I'd sort it tomorrow.
As much of the family were together (only Tan's brother was not around - presumably out of town working as a driver) it was decided that we would go out to Li Jia He Xiang and this time we actually did eat there. It was a lovely family meal where I learned for the first time Ling Ming and Xiao Nong's son calls me "Yi gong" - grandpa! I suppose it makes sense as Ling Ming is Da Jie's son, so effectively a generation below me. Leilei and Xixi were also excited to be and uncle and aunt respectively. Relatively little beer was consumed and by the end of the meal as we Chuan Chuan received the receipt we noticed we hadn't even got through a box, and needed to be refunded a few bottles (I didn't offer to take them home in a doggy bag).
Family meal at Li Jia He Xiang
I took the kids back home to charge up their devices before popping back to Waipo's to pick up the tv that we usually borrow here and isn't used over there. It took a while but I got it set up with the satellite box only to find there was no signal. I had no idea what to do next after wiggling the dish about resulted in nothing, so set up the old Wii instead. This year I've brought a Wii Fit board so hope to use it.
Leilei said he wanted to get some presents for his mates but of course we want to get something local they can't easily get in the UK. So of course we went to the "shenme dou you" shop downstairs near our building. We call it that as it seems to have everything we (the kids and I) need. We ended up getting some of those character practising "parchments" that you use by dipping a brush in water and the writing comes out black for a few seconds until it dries up. Original, fun, and educational. And only 5 kuai each though the brushes were 3 kuai. I got some paper to make paper aeroplanes and for Xixi to do some art with the water colours she bought. Altogether it came to 62 kuai as the shopkeeper showed us on the calculator. But he said 55 kuai to show he was giving a discount. Then, who I can only assume was the boss, shouted out "50". It was like they were bartering with each other to give a lower price even though they were running the place! I didn't argue, and as I was fishing for cash the boss noticed Xixi looking at the pretty nail clippers and of course asked which one she wanted. She chose a pink one of course and I noticed Leilei getting jealous. He waved off any attempt at payment and as we were leaving noticed Xixi glancing at a Spongebob Squarepants padlock and immediately picked it up and gave it to her (it should have been 13 kuai). Leilei was a rage of envy by the time we got out of the shop and I had to insist Xixi give him the padlock, and explain that he'd just have to accept Xixi would get more attention than him. I explained how I was once the attention-getter, then he came along and stole it from me - now Xixi has taken some of his thunder which is sort of fitting as his name means "rolling thunder".
Leilei standing in front of one of our favourite shops in Pingguo, the "shenme dou you" shop close to our building
Leilei and Xixi's artwork on coming back from the shop with more than we bargained for
Back home I tried in vain to get the satellite working so I could watch some olympics so ended up hooking the laptop up and streaming some of the Pakistan Test where it looks like England could well fight back to win after being 103 runs down in the first innings.
Well...just once in a while get back to the old way of things
Up at a leisurely 8am in time for a less leisure 90 minute ping pong session to sweat out any of yesterday's excesses. I realised we still had loads of mangoes from Tian Yang so had the excellent and healthy idea of having a couple for breakfast - luxury! To avoid too many going bad I put the rest in the fridge and brought the other box to Waipo's when we went to lunch a bit later.
Healthy and delicious breakfast
We had been told that Da Jie would be coming today to see her son Ling Ming and younger sisters Er Jie and Tan. Except I suppose Er Jie should be called Er mei as she is younger. It's all rather confusing. Depending on who is calling me I have a different moniker. So if it's Chuan Chuan I'm Yi Zhang, but if it's someone else its Jiu Jiu or Bo Bo so I have to be aware what each means to know if it's me that's being beckoned. Needless to say I must fail quite frequently. So I was interested to hear Tan call Er Jie by her actual name, Tan Lihong, as I thought that within families one never used actual names. Tan said this was quite normal but I have my doubts. I didn't make her aware of my doubts though.
After tea at Waipo's the kids and I went for a ride and we found ourselves near Li Kun's place where we've had tea before. We weren't on a mission so decided to give him a ring and he said he be around in a few minutes. Of course we weren't expecting him straightaway so popped into a small supermarket we hadn't seen before. This was the third or fourth place I've been to this year that sells fizzy soda water and it was one kuai cheaper than the other places at 4 kuai, so I bought a few and got the kids some sweet drinks too. After quite a few phone calls we finally met up with Li Kun a good half an hour later at A Ni's place as he was near there. After a wee chat with A Ni and son, we followed Li Kun, his wife, and daughter in their 4x4 to his place where I learned this place was his tea-drinking house only and he actually lived by the market. A house exclusively for tea-drinking? I had no evidence to oppose this as we spent the next 45 minutes or so doing exactly that.
The kids were wondering why there was so much phone number graffiti - I think I remember Tan saying it's places offering fake degrees but I've never tried calling one
But the kids were quite bored so as promised I took them to play at the guangchang where they got soaked again on the ben ben chuang jumpy castle before showers beckoned. In the end it transpired that Da Jie wasn't coming today but would be here tomorrow. Then for some reason I couldn't sleep till 3am - must have been the blasted tea.
Up at a leisurely 8am so no running but I did go for ping pong again till 10. After a shower we went to check the camera trap, and to our relief it was still there despite being rather more visible in the daylight than we had hoped. Back home though to our dismay there was nothing other than a few early morning strollers and a some joggers. We'll have to find a better place for next time - more out of the beaten path.
Disappointed with the camera trap so we took our own pretty picture of a pond in the guangchang
We're starting to get into the routing of going to Waipo's around 11-11.30 and this time after lunch Tan mentioned that there was to be a meal in memory of some person from Bangxu who died recently. The actual mourning part was already over and this was to be a happy event. My presence wasn't needed but I wanted to go.
After lunch I took the kids for a spin and to their old nursery and their old school that they attended not that many years ago. We found the train station and saw it had been massively modernised, presumably for the huge infrastructural changes that have been made to accommodate the new "gao tie" (tall steel) fast trains that have taken the country by storm in recent years. I'm slightly annoyed that many people refer to the new trains as "dong che" - moving car, as opposed to "gao tie", as I'm not sure if this is a different type of train or not. Tan recently took a dong che to Baise and said it was very nice. Well hopefully I'll find out soon - this reminded me I needed to book tickets to Zhuhai but looking at the queue I thought we'd do it online.
On the way back from the station we stopped off at the cool cave, a place I used to frequent with mates until a couple of years ago when the main bloke stopped using the place as a mini restaurant - presumably as it was too mini to make money. It looked deserted and Leilei didn't want to climb up the outside steps in the oppressive heat, but I made him and nearly regretted it when nearly at the top a snake, presumably roused from its slumbers on the steps, woke up and whizzed right past us causing a mild panic. All I remember was that it was nearly three feet in length and the front three to four inches was mostly red, and the rest quite brown - we'd better look it up to see how close we were to death. Up by the cool cave there was a solitary old bloke who didn't seem to want to have anything to do with us. I asked if anyone lived there and he said "no", then went for a look and saw clothes hanging out and wondered why people would do that if they didn't live there. I couldn't be bothered to ask him more.
I dropped off the kids at Waipo's then went home for half an hour before thinking I should be making more of my time off work, so set out again on the dian dong che looking for a new place that actually does nice massages as opposed to those that are supposed to cure something. I spent much more time than I should have done between 2-3 pm and ended up finding nothing that didn't look rather seedy, then realised I'd caught the sun.
This caused me to feel a little tired, and I managed to grab 1h15m of sleep till 4.30. I grabbed a shower as although the meal was to be at 5.30 at Li Jia He Xiang, the excellent restaurant we used to be invited to more than was good for us. Sure enough I got the call that she was leaving now and we needed to be there in five minutes, and sure enough as soon as I arrived five minutes later I got another call to be told the meal wasn't at Li Jia He Xiang but rather another place up the road by the corner of the guang chang.
As the kids and I were on the bike it didn't take a minute to get to the actual eating place and there were many oldish people standing outside in the heat chatting. This went on for 15 minutes or so until it was determined that we should enter. Inside were about 40 tables, each seating around eight people. We appeared to be in the first 20% or so and took a table quite near the entrance with Lin Hong, her daughter Tian Tian Jie Jie, and her parents. Of course this meant that as other entered they cooed over the kids, causing a bottleneck for the rest trying to get in. I thought about moving to a more practical table, but it would have meant moving more people, so just let the situation run its natural path.
Waiting outside in the heat with the Bangxu gang
Some people were well into the food when we entered, and by the time we started some had already finished and were busily depositing what they hadn't finished into doggy bags. I had a couple of glasses with Lin Hong's father, but nothing significant, but as is the custom here blokes from other tables walked over to ours and gan bei'd with me. Then I thought I didn't need to be passive here, so joined in and went and found my own bottle to take to other tables. Tan suggested a particular table and then warned they would try to get me drunk. If that was the case then why suggest that particular table??
The meal in full swing
Well I went there anyway and instead of accepting a standing gan bei they grabbed a fresh set of eating utensils and bade me sit down with them. The next 45 minutes or so did indeed involve plenty of gan bei'ing, so much that I needed to use my usual trick of moving to cai ma to put a slight slowdown on proceedings. In fact it must have been more than an hour as later when I looked around not only were Tan and the kids gone, there were only a couple of tables with people left. The blokes were all "family" from Bangxu and accepted my excuse to leave, but only after gan bei'ing each one a final time.
We were one of the last tables remaining
Outside I managed to do tipsily what I didn't manage in the afternoon - to find a lovely massage. Why hadn't I thought about it in the first place? I just needed to go for a "wash face". I went to a place opposite the KTV place that I used to go to quite a lot, and asked if indeed it was possible to "wash face". They looked at me as if I was a bear asking permission to poo in the forest before telling me to lie down on one of the beds. I excused myself and went for a wee first, but instantly realised I'd made the right choice. I'd even shaved earlier in the day was able to really enjoy a face massage complete with head and shoulders and arms too - such a decadent thing to do but it's only my first time this year. They did warn me that the price would be 130 kuai - a lot of money but they said it was mainly for the face soap, and that next time I came it would be 30 kuai. There will be a next time for sure.
Woke up at 4.30am but after a bit of counting in German I managed to squeeze back in and out of dreamland till 6.30 - a bit more successful than recent mornings. After giving up on further shuteye I went to ping pong from 8.30 - 10 in the rain but still managed to sweat as much as if it was a sunburner.
I'm trying to work out the algorithm for whether to get up or not. There are various factors that need to be weighed such as:
- how much I need to sleep
- how much benefit I'd get by doing the exercise I otherwise wouldn't be doing
- what chance I'd have of having a siesta if I've had less than five hours sleep
- what chance I have of having a couple of beers for lunch
I'll have to sort this out later.
We went to Waipo's again at 11.30 and I picked up some dou jiang and breakfast stuff up on the way. I excused myself soon after and went to the kids' piano place by the river in the hope that I might get a tinkle. I'd forgotten that this place doesn't even have doors to close out even a small percentage of the music and my Scott Joplin was competing with various Bachs and Beethovens, and therefore probably lost. I tried to look on the bright side; if you can manage to play in such conditions, it should stand you in good stead for playing in many more. I still look forward to the time I have the balls and ability to play on one of those public pianos though.
I only lasted half an hour at the piano place before I left to pick up the kids and take Leilei to have a haircut at Lao Ma's. This was the first place that Leilei ever got his hair cut and he probably doesn't remember how he only allowed it after shaving my arm. I noticed that Lao Ma had actually taken some care over her wifi password. Literally half the time the passwords for wifi are 88888888 or 123456789 but hers was 88889999 - cunning. Xixi says she has an app on her phone for getting onto wifi without a password but now I'm guessing it just tries the most popular few passwords and generally works.
Lao Ma's nice BMW X1 - I still wonder how you can afford one at twice the price as a hairdresser earning much less than in the UK - I must be missing something
Leilei actually enjoying a haircut for the first time in his life
Haircut done - not bad
Leilei shaved my arm in 2008!
We went home after Leilei's haircut as I needed to work and Leilei wanted to chat with Momo. We're thinking of going to see him and his mum in Zhuhai in a few days. Then A Wu rang to ask me to go to the same boss as a couple of days ago to eat. Well he was obviously over his little tiff with me when I didn't go fishing with them the other day. I was fine with this and took the kids to the same place behind the KTV that I went to a few days back.
But there was no-one there. Fine, I spoke to A Wu and he said they'd be there "soon" which could mean anything. So I left them for a bit to pick up some stuff, but well after 6pm there was still no sign of life. I took them to get a bite to eat as by this time they were hungry and picked up a not massively healthy fried sausage wrap with a bit of lettuce that Xixi gave straight to me but otherwise they both ate fully. In the end the meal didn't start until gone 7.30, well more than two hours after A Wu rang, so I said I'd take the kids to Waipo's as it wasn't fair to leave them here in the smoke when they'd already eaten.
What the kids ended up eating for tea (I had Xixi's lettuce)
What grown men do while waiting for food to be served
It was a nice meal, and one of the women from the women's table came to the blokes' table to cai ma, and I guessed she was without husband and therefore "reaching out". I may be totally wrong and I usually am, but I boringly made a point of saying my wife was from Bangxu. I'm sure there is a term like that for women when they make it clear they are not available but in a not very subtle way.
The men's table but the woman is hidden on the left hand side
Later that evening I remembered I told the kids we'd put out the camera trap so we went to the mini mountain behind Deng Xiaoping hill and found what we hoped would be subtle place to capture any animals by the side of the path. I hope we get something though I'm not betting on it.
I was up reasonably early at 7 but the kids weren't. Luckily I had the wherewithall to check what time breakfast served till and found it was 9.30 so got them up at 9 and 10 minutes later we got downstairs to find almost nothing left. Grrr. I did sort of moan but I managed to salvage three boiled eggs, two fried eggs, three man tou, and a portion of noodles each for the kids so we weren't hungry but I'm not sure how healthy my five yolks were as the kids don't seem to like them.
Back at hotel room kids wanted to watch a film but I said there was no point and as if to confirm that Yang Haiwei called a minute later to say he'll be there immediately to pick us up. Did he not know about checking out? At check-out Leilei forgot his chong dian so we had to go back. Yang Haiwei had to wait a little while and wouldn't let me pay, saying the business would, so I said I'd say we were his clients as a sort of joke but I think he may have took my excuse seriously. It was 600 kuai after all - why not put on expenses?
Back at Haiwei's office there was lots of waiting around, drinking tea, and I really wondered what actual work was being done. To be fair, occasionally someone would walk in and talk to someone with some papers in their hand, but that seemed about it. I had hoped that Haiwei's one hour absence was due to work but found out he'd been cooking lunch, which we partook of before waiting around a little later. I was told we'd pick up some mangoes from a market then leave back for Pingguo at 3pm. This was a change from the original plan as we were expecting to take the train with Haiwei's wife and kids after lunch. But it transpired Haiwei would now be driving back today so we'd all go in the same car again.
Haiwei's car outside his new office in Tian Yang - there are few blue cars in China
Before we left we went to the market in the boiling mid-afternoon sun. The ladies cut out bits of mangoes for us and they were utterly gorgeous. As Haiwei and his wife discussed how many they wanted and at what price I went for a little walk in the sun which made the local stallholders look at me in a queer way as if to say "what's that bloke doing out in the...oh he's one of those...". Haiwei's wife spent about 360 kuai on three quite large boxes of mangoes, and they put something else in the car too.
Kids and Haiwei at the Tian Yang mango market
Eating straight out of the fruit as mother nature intended
Back in the office 3pm came and went as more and more tea was imbibed. Eventually it was time to go at 4.20 but first we drove a few minutes to some factory outside Tian Yang where we stopped for some reason. Someone brought me out some "liang cha" (cold tea) which was actually warm, and I recognised him as the bloke I conversed with yesterday. I wasn't really in the mood for another deep conversation but luckily I didn't have to as it was time to go.
But instead of going to Pingguo we stopped at Tian Dong, the next region down from Tian Yang. Haiwei was on the blower to some woman trying to find a place to eat. Ah, so we were to eat here before heading to Pingguo. But the place was closed, and looked like it wouldn't open till the evening, so we did end up going back to Pingguo where we found a nice place to eat and Xixi found a tiny kitten on the stairs that wasn't scared. There were a couple of other blokes there, one from Tian Yang, and a tacit agreement between Haiwei and me to only have a couple of beers as the other guys weren't partaking. In the meantime Uncle Yellow had called me to go to a bar tonight so I said yes that would be great, and he'd call me at 8.30.
Cute
I got a lift home with the the kids as Tan was going out to eat at A Xia's as she'd not had any tea yet. Haiwei then forced not one but two boxes of mangoes on us. So unnecessary but appreciated. We'll have to give most of them away though. A few minutes later Uncle Yellow called to say he was downstairs so the kids and I went to see him in his nice new white MG (which he was quite proud to tell me was a Chinese brand now). I called Tan to see if I could drop off the kids at A Xia's but she told me she was about to go home as she was full, which isn't normal, so I asked Uncle Yellow to go to A Xia's and pick her up and drop the lot of them off home.
Uncle Yellow and his new white MG
So I had a couple of hours free and we had a relaxing time just talking about stuff with another bloke I'd eaten with back in 2008, and his wife and eight year old son. We were on 2.5%ers but the boss came over and after a couple of gan beis took a selection of three other beers from the same brand and opened them up and we had a bit of a tasting session. I said I preferred the 2.5%er in the hope that that's what we'd continue with, but paid compliments to the 3.6%, 3.7%, and 4.0% too. I got everyone to line up the cans in order of their preference and it seemed we all agreed we weren't massively keen on the black lager - phew - it was the strongest.
My order of favourites for some reason from right to left
What I wasn't particularly happy about was seeing the kid with a bottle of blue alcopops. Ok it was 4% and he nurtured it the whole two hours or so and didn't even finish it, but it seemed wrong. Then I thought of the French parents who supposedly bring their kids up on watered down red wine and everything seems ok and it results in the kids not interested in drinking when they grow up. Except that it doesn't. I didn't overdo it at all and got a lift to A Xia's 11.30 where I picked up the dian dong che and took it back to chong dian and got an early night at 12.30.
Yet another 4am wake after a relatively early 1am sleep. Nothing for it, by 6.30 I was in the guangchang. Alhough I really wasn't in the mood for another long run I did make a slow start but as I got around to Deng Xiaoping hill I decided I'd go for more of a strength test and run up the steps there. Well my heart was in the right place but I barely made it a third of the way before my strength was sapped away under deluges of sweat and I had to walk the rest. It should be a good personal goal though, to actually jog up the entire west face of the hill one day. At the top I took one of the new walkways down after having done some stretches where I was clearly the least flexible, and least old, of anyone else.
The tiring steps up Deng Xiaoping hill
My co-walker
I plucked up the courage to attempt a quickish walk/jog up to the pagoda on the hill behind Deng Xiaoping but the bloke I'd been following became aware of my presence when some mates of his walking in the opposite direction pointed this out to him. So of course he started talking to me and we ended up walking a circuit of pagoda hill rather than jogging up it. He met a lady he knew and of course there were then photographs to be taken. He said he would do another circuit but I said I'd go to the top. No problem, he'd show me the path. Well actually we walked past two perfectly good looking branches of our circuit that looked like they'd go to the top but my friend said no...they were not good, for a reason I'll have to work out later - "tai di". By the time we got to a path that he deemed suitable we'd pretty much completed a second circuit anyway. I did get to the top in the end, and as I was enjoying the view a man came with a flute and a loudspeaker. He turned on some, I suppose, classic Chinese music, and then accompanied it in a rather pleasant manner. I wasn't sure what to do or say when I passed him on the way down from the top of the pagoda but he didn't give any expression when I caught his eye and I wondered if somehow I'd trespassed on his temporary property and I'd been hexed or something.
I decided I still didn't want to run but, as I'd not done it for a while, went to play ping pong at the old people's leisure centre. This provided over 90 minutes of further sweating but not before I'd gone home to change out of my first stinky top. By the time I got back surprisingly all were awake. The kids had had some crappy sweet stuff that I didn't want, so I cut a luscious dragonfire fruit and had that instead. Still insanely sweet but proably better for you.
Xixi said she could see something on my back and I saw the fruits of yesterday's horrid "massage"
Tan said she was about to go to Waipo's at 10.30, so I said I could take the kids to eat lunch in a bit - we still had to pick up the dian dong che from Ma Laoban's. But as I went to fill a bottle of water I noticed there was none left. So I called the water woman and said this time I wanted two large bottles instead of just replacing the one we have. Unfortunately I didn't realise the word for the large bottle was "tong" and I thought she said "dong", i.e, cold. As the bottle would be situated in the living room it made no sense for it to be cold, but I guessed the woman knew this so I cheated and handed the phone to Tan. That's when I realised my mistake, and really she was confirming the second bottle as it required a 40 kuai deposit. Of course Tan questioned why I wanted a second bottle. Because what happens if we run out of one and it's midnight? It took little over a week to run out of this one and we're not even in the house that much. Then she saw the point.
It was now 11.30 so we all went to Waipo's to find out there was not enough food, so I took yi ma's dian dong che out and the kids decided they wanted to get stuff from the dou jiang place to eat. I didn't really care as long as they ate. As the dou jiang place is mainly a breakfast place they were happy to see us as I guess what the don't sell goes to waste (they close for the day in the afternoon). The total for three of us came to 10 kuai - under 40p each for lunch.
We were due to go to Tian Yang later but I didn't know what time to messaged Yang Haiwei to ask. He called a little later to tell me he'd pick us up at 4pm. Great, the early lunch meant time for a kip while the kids stayed at Waipo's. I probably got to sleep at 1.30 and up again to my alarm at 3.30, then up again to a reset alarm at 3.45. I realised I needed to pack so set about it for the one night stay. Of course with various chargers this is a bit more than a five minute job and at 3.57pm Yang Haiwei called to say he was waiting for us downstairs. I asked him to give us five minutes and 10 more later we all boarded his blue car with the red seats that I remember from years ago.
It took a little over an hour to get to Tian Yang with Haiwei's wife and younger son. It's only 25k from Baise but there was a hold up as a lorry had turned over presumably due to the bit of rain that had fallen. When we arrived we went straight to Haiwei's office to drink tea. There were a couple of blokes there and over the next hour or so I was involved in deep conversations about stuff. It was rather tiring concentrating so much but at least it was tea and not beer. I learnt a view new words too: "wu liu" (logistics), "kai fa" (develop, as in software), "wen hua shui ping" (education level), and "jie du" (detoxify). They may seem a bit random but we were talking about their work, my work, and some cultural stuff where I made sure to state that educational level does not necessary determine your ability to do certain work, and is not a direct corollary of intelligence. The main bloke I was talking to, Li Zhong, seemed to take what I said very seriously and actually said he appreciated hearing my perspective. Then he started talking about traditional Chinese medicine, and how it didn't require skin grafts as with the traditional stuff it would grow back in 14 days (something to do with detoxification of the skin). Immediately my woo radar was tickled but I held myself back and limited my questioning to general open questions like how did it work? etc., instead of how did they test? Of course I didn't get a detailed answer (fair enough, he wasn't a quack) but I wasn't very well going to rip some skin off to test it.
Passing a not-very-nice-looking lorry on its side - the driver was on a stretcher
The the subject turned, as it so often has this year, to Brexit. I have a slight suspicion that this topic is huge in China too not just because it might herald greater trade ties between the two countries, but because it shows what happens when you allow the general population to make a very important decision, which is something that wouldn't happen here. Of course it shouldn't have happened in the UK either I think, but hey. It's pretty likely strengthened the way it is politically here, but I've never got so far in a political conversation to know. But if a certain things happens in the States in November I wonder if some places will start questioning some aspects of the democratic way.
Haiwei's wife (I really should know her name by now) then came to take the kids away from computer screens and away to eat with their son, while I went with some blokes for a manly meal. There's a rather pretty area in Tian Yang where the buildings are all made in the old style with curvy bits at the end of gutters and the like. They are also building new houses in this style, which is rather more attractive than the standard new builds. Our restaurant was in such a building. We went upstairs and one thing that was slightly unusual was that the beer arrived before the food. Immediately Yang Haiwei declared the Li Quan 7du as fake, and ordered the Snowflake brand instead. I of course asked how he knew, and this is where my Chinese suddenly takes a turn for the worse, or, more likely, the explanation is unclear. I asked again but when I got a second woolly response to the tune of lots of Li Quan here is fake, I decided not to labour the point, very unsatisfactorily.
Nice style of buildings in Tian Yang
Obviously fake Li Quan in the foreground
At least the Snowflake beer was 2.5% instead of 3.1%. Yet again I found myself questioning why sometimes a 7 degree beer is 3.1% yet an 8 degree beer is 2.5%. Yet the blokes talk about beers in terms of degrees, not percentage. However, when talking about spirits degrees does equal percentage. Nobody seems to give two hoots about this, yet it's vexed me for 13 years.
Boss Huang and Yang Haiwei engaged in cai ma battle
The meal was of course great, and the Snowflake gradually deepened the hues of the imbibers' faces until the boss stage, where the boss of the restaurant first came and toasted with us. For some reason, when someone important comes to a table to do a couple of gan beis, it's quite normal for him to be given a cellophane-wrapped bowl/plate/glass/tea cup/spoon and have it unwrapped for him (it is nearly always a him), only for it not to be used. A few minutes after the boss had left we repaid the compliment by going to the room where he was eating and gan beiing everyone there. Had it been Kronenburg we'd have been paralytic by now.
I knew the plan was to go and have bbq at some point. In fact the main reason for coming here was to taste the famous bbq that puts Pingguo in the shade apparently. But Haiwei said we were now going to sing song. It was a short drive away and we arrived in a nice looking pedestrian area with what I think are mostly bars on either side for a couple of hundred yards. We stopped at the first one and I saw a couple of blokes, one of whom looked particularly drunk. Then I gradually started to understand what "sing song" meant here. We weren't going to a KTV - rather this was a place where you sang to live music. What a bloody good idea! The blokes were a guitarist and a keyboard player (he who looked drunk), and Haiwei rifled through some pages of songs before choosing one. Both the musicians of course knew the music by heart and started playing, and Haiwei rendered a really good version of this song I didn't know. Somehow being outside and having real (if amplified) music really added to the occasion in way KTV could never do. I realised the keyboard player couldn't have been very drunk as he played some quite complex riffs.
The music street
Haiwei on left getting ready to sing
Haiwei's wife turned up with the kids, who were looking very happy and apparently had eaten ok, and ordered bbq where we were. Ah so this was singing and bbq together, with the kids too - excellent. And the kids tucked into a lot of the bbq as did I. I don't want to say it was better than Pingguo's but for someone who was still full from the meal I did manage to eat more than was necessary. The blokes were asking me to sing of course. Now if this had been KTV I might have been able to find an English song I knew, but here it wasn't the case, and I hadn't drunk enough to consider singing "Ni shi wo de mei gui hua" even if they knew it.
One of the blokes singing to the accompaniment of keyboard and to some extent a drum
But seeing the guitar had given me a hankering to play it. And after a couple more beers I messaged Andge to ask for an idea for what to sing. He had the great idea of Hey Jude, but I didn't know the chords. His great solution was to send a screenshot of them over WhatsApp (thankfully not yet blocked) but I didn't think I could be looking down at my phone all the time and what would happen when the screen locked? So I decided I'd try The Boxer. When I said I'd sing a song they showed my to the hotseat but hadn't banked on me playing an instrument as well, so they fetched the guitar and set up two microphones for some reason (the guitar was accoustic but plugged into an amp). It was actually quite fun to sing, though inexplicably I forgot the fifth verse and went straight into "In the clearing stands a boxer" after the second "lie la lie" but I don't think anyone noticed. Annoyingly, the most drunk bloke played the drums to the song and was quite out of sync much of the time, but again, no-one really cared; they got me up to sing and apparently really enjoyed it. Haiwei was telling me he known me all these years and never knew I could play the guitar.
Really poor and short recording of me doing The Boxer accompanied by even worse drums
After a few more beers and bbq it was 11pm and I decided it was late enough to take the kids back, so said goodbye to my chums and got a lift to Tian Yang International Hotel, where one of the blokes helped us check-in to our pre-ordered room. Luckily I'd had the forethought to take our passports as these were necessary. We had a nice executive suite and I got the kids showered and into bed not long after midnight and followed soon after.
