Photos and Haiwei and foot massage

I spent the best or worst part of the day and early afternoon in bed feeling sorry for myself then realised it was wasted time, though grateful for a few snoozes. I hadn't forgotten the photo woman said they'd be ready after midday so still not having eaten I rode down to her shop to pick them up. Well 95 kuai for six (not five) 12" photos doesn't seem so bad when they've been laminated. I was going to buy a frame for at least one of them but I thought I'd have to cut the excess laminate, plus frames are quite personal and sometimes it's best to let others choose them.

I proudly took the prints to Waipo's house and showed them to Tan. "Why is there no frame?" was the response. Duh. I didn't know where Waipo would want to put them so the lack of a frame gave her more girth. The problem is, and I should have known, if you give a woman, or a person, a choice, then suddenly they inherit some responsibility and therefore have a chance of making things wrong. It's like when I ask if Tan wants something from the supermarket and I feel the negative vibes; she didn't want to be asked as it would be somewhat her fault if she forgot something. Men around the world should understand this, or at least accept it: don't give certain people choices. We might like it (like options on a new vehicle) but for others it's a threat - they want decisions made for them and if they're wrong they have someone to blame other than themselves.

Waipo wanted us to stay for tea as normal and as we don't have much time here, but Yang Haiwei had invited me to tea at his mum's as his elder son was back for the weekend. By "the weekend" he meant his son was back for a couple of hours and would be going back for three lessons this Saturday evening and more tomorrow. I don't think Waipo had any food prepared anyway so I drove most of the way to where I went the other week and only needed the WeChat Location info for the last bit to check where I was. It wasn't quite the large family affair of last week, but not far off. I did my requisite talking in English with elder son, then his natural mum came to pick him up at 6.20 to go to school. The mate who lives on the 23rd floor that we visited the other day also came, along with his favourite Yanjing beer. In a way I didn't mind as it was 2.8% rather than 3.1% of the Li Quans, so nearly 10% weaker.

But the problem was this mate wanted to drink 50% faster. I tried stalling tactics but he was well aware this would likely be our last time having a beer together, so fair enough wanted to make the most out of it. Haiwei's elder brother's wife and Haiwei's wife spent a good half an hour cutting up bamboo into tiny slices to put in the freezer, then set upone a huge honeymelon. Then big brother's wife used a great battery-powered mixer to make honeymelon smoothies for the whole family. It only made about a glass and a half at a time but as it only took about 30 seconds it didn't matter. Of course I instantly wanted one and she said she'd got it at a supermarket for 68 kuai. My next shopping list had already started.

One of the blokes' sons really didn't want to go and let him know in no uncertain terms

I managed to get away from the meal at a reasonable hour and made an appointment to meet the advertising people "in about an hour". Great, I had 60 minutes free time so decided to go for a foot massage as one does when one has this time. I went to the place I'd been to before when looking for an excuse of an hour's free boozing. This time though, the bloke rather than the woman took me. It's not that the woman is in any way pretty, I just don't like blokes massaging me. Looking back I clearly could have asked for the woman to do it but being British I just accepted it was him. To be fair instead of starting on the feet he did the top half first while my feet soaked, before moving, err, down.

But even half way through this massage I got a message to say that the advertising people were already at the bbq place waiting for me and it was I who had invited them. So I embarrassedly told the massage bloke I had to go rather quickly and although he nodded in some sort of agreement he continued as normal. I knew A Wu wanted me to go to the bosses' office but I'd clearly not turned up. When he called I made the mistake of telling him where I was. A few minutes later a red-faced boss turned up in the massage place and held his hand up and said "no no no!". I knew he wanted me to go upstairs and drink beer but I said quite firmly I was staying here and would be there "later".

But when it had finished I went to the advertising place. Nothing felt less enticing than 11 bosses drinking except for 12 singers singing. It was only the boss and her "little sister", yes that was what she was introduced as but I had my doubts and enquired further. It transpired she was six years younger than the boss and not blood-related. I asked how they had played with each other for 30 years when the younger was clearly 26 years old, and they mumbled some sort of answer. But this time I wasn't having any of it - I mentioned a few examples of when A meant B etc in Pingguo and they just had to accept that sometimes they said things that weren't officially true. So I got them to confirm this and then made some statements like Pingguo is two hours from England and asked them if that was ok. I'd like to think they got the point but they probably thought I was pissed. Then the annoyingly good-looking boss/partner came and at least gave me an excuse to drink more than half a thimbleful of beer.

It was actually a rather sobre and nice evening and I'm glad I chose it above the bosses' office, though it was nearly 2am by the time I got home.

My new football kit

The other day I went to find somewhere to print a couple of the photos of Waipo and her daughters. I didn't want something really posh, just a decent 12" sized print that she could look back on. I found a suitable looking place, rather than going to the wedding photo place that would have cost 400 kuai and taken a week, but found that the boss wasn't in as s/he was eating. So I came back in the evening and indeed she was there and said she could do some nice photos but it would take 14 days. Well I barely had four, so instead of telling her what I wanted I told her how much time I had and she understood and said we could print some 12" photos. I had chosen three of the nice ones from when Da Jie was here, and ordered five prints, with a couple of copies, that would be ready for tomorrow. She asked me if I'd already beautified them and I sheepishly said I had, well I'd let Picasa do a little work on them as I knew Tan or her sisters would have done the same.

Later, despite still feeling quite ill with this cough, I decided to pay a visit to Zhang Hua. He was on his own watching the shop but still invited me in for a beer. The football kit had arrived! It even had the matching shorts, both with the number 27 adorned on them. I really hope he hadn't paid the 118 kuai that was on the price tag for the top, but didn't question. There was certainly no question of my paying for it anyway, at least not with money. Eventually his wife and other family-in-law came around so we had a couple more beers, but nothing excessive.

Zhang Hua is on the right, and second from the left is "Lao da" - I think he's the father-in-law and he certainly likes a drink - Zhang Hua's son is in my arms

Zhuang Hua and wife

I'm sure more happened today but quite possibly I spent the rest of the time in bed feeling a little ill.

Cough and cold and a Boss Huang meal

Despite the lack of sleep yesterday for some inexplicable, although probably explicable, reason I got up at 9.30am. I suppose it was related to the fact I've come down with a cough and a cold. At about 10am I found myself in the top of a big wheel. For some reason I was part of a small party allowed to have the first chance to look inside one of the capsules. But then a few more people came inside and it started moving, and I realised I was now part of the first time this big wheel would go. It was ok until we got near the bottom and then we were plunged into the sea/lake for the last quarter. Luckily the capsule didn't leak and I worked out it was waterproof for this reason, but on coming out of the water we suddenly went up very quickly, and it made me feel sick. This went on for at least another revolution before I woke up. This was quite close to another Chinese hallucination I'd had a few years ago, and I hope to consolidate the ideas of graffiti and underwater exploration for my first big wheel - maybe I should crowdfund it.

Due to the weirdness of lack of sleep I remained in bed for more time that would be acceptable if I was working or had to look after kids. It's at these times when having a reasonably large phone really pays for itself; it wasn't much - mainly reading some Guardian articles with comments and theregister.co.uk - but it helped wile the time away as I coughed up phlegm.

Then Lu Wen called me to check about the boss meal. Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that - I'd told him that yesterday would be ok but had rearranged Baksec Zhai only to be told he couldn't make it. So really it should have happened yesterday, but what the heck? Could I make it tonight? I wasn't feeling particularly up for it but of course I said yes. Tan was invited too but wasn't that interested, so I took the kids to Li Jia He Xiang where I thought the English teacher's husband had invited us. But despite my WeChat conversation with Lu Wen, who said it was "the bloke who spoke a little English" I had got it totally wrong.

The bloke who had invited us was one of those from the other night where we'd got particularly drunk at A Ni's, and I didn't massively recognise him. But he recognised me for some reason. As we were about to sit down he made a rearrangement and suddenly we were put in a different room as the current one would be too small. I was fine with that and the kids didn't care as they had wifi (with an "88888888" password). We waited quite a long time for others to come, but they did eventually.

Leilei with Lu Wen's cute and podgy daughter - she clings to me

I think the boss's name is Boss Yong, though when I found him on WeChat he was Huang something. Again, I felt the pang of logic go through me and felt the need to ask why Yong and Huang? Which was correct? Which did he prefer? But despite the absence of beer I managed to hold it back - something that only 13 years of coming here will allow you to do.

Of course the meal was great, and much more was ordered than was needed. Then the boss's elder sister's husband (Jiefu) arrived, followed a bit later by Jiejie herself. Well everyone had wine glasses, and this time with my cold I thought this might be slightly better than beer. Boss Huang was transfixed on the kids and I told him I thought it was really important for them to be here mainly for the cultural experience. I told him I thought living in a different country was a great education and he seemed to agree with me more than is necessary. Then Xixi made a remark that she could be considered quite rude if she were to drink her glass and stick her little finger in the air, as is considered quite posh by some English ladies (according to her).

I translated this to Boss Huang and he went into a tirade about how intelligent Leilei and Xixi were! I didn't milk it at all and was merely presenting it as a fact. But he seemed to think I'd revealed the tincture of life or something. His elder sister then brought things back down to earth by proposing a toast and by this time I reached for ice cubes for my wine. I'd mentioned to them that the French would hate the way the Chinese drank wine, but after having tasted the room temperature way I realised they had probably been sent a dodgy box from Australia. I managed wine for a while, but protested about downing it due to my cold/cough, which I was really was milking. I'd done a pretty good job by the time A Wu ordered beer and the two of us continued with that for the remainder of the meal.

A Wu, Boss Huang's elder sister, and Peng

Chuan Chuan came to pick up the kids at 7.22 in her big Mazda, and off they went to see Ice Age 5, while I went back to nurse my beer. I had half a mind to add lemonade to it but at 1.25% that would almost literally have been taking the piss. I was quite impressed at how Huang's big sister was knocking the red wine back, though was is a bit larger than many women here. She overtook her husband in the drinking stakes, which I understand is akin to losing your face here. Then she insisted on inviting us to come to hers to eat. I couldn't do the next evening, or the next, but eventually settled on the 29th - oh great her birthday. But it's also the last night before we leave, which could be tricky if there's a family meal planned. But booking something four days in advance here? Something must go wrong.

I must have been quite ill as I don't recall going out later, though I quite possibly did. The advice here is typical: oh you have a cough - you should drink alcohol...oh you have a cough - you should not drink alcohol. Who to believe?

Headwash and another late City match

Yesterday I invited Baksec Zhai for a meal today, but at 8.20am he sent a message apologising, but he had to be elsewhere this evening. I appreciated his prompt response and texted him back saying no problem we'd sort something when we had time.

As Chuan Chuan is on holiday for a few days the kids have mostly been staying with her. To Tan's annoyance she drove them to Baise, and then Lin Yun yesterday, where they stayed the night. The main annoying thing is that she's only recently passed her test and shouldn't be driving on motorways until she's had more experience or is with someone who has had three years at least. So yes, on hearing that I was a little annoyed too, however she seems one of the more sensible 26 year olds here, it's just that she looks literally half her age.

I didn't eat more than a couple of rice crispy cakes, which I always have in as part of a default backup breakfast here. They're not particularly healthy but can fill a gap. Although I could have found useful stuff to do, I decided to have one last (or second-to-last) head wash. Maybe because I'd had a pre-heady tipple, or because I'm just weak, when she asked if I wanted a facewash too I barely prevaricated before ascenting into the obvious, knowing it would be three times the price. But yes it was worth it.

I hadn't expected the mask

I had plans of staying up to watch the second leg of City - Steaua but didn't manage to get the chance for a late afternoon kip. Then A Wu called to say we were going to the KTV place later. At least that might wake me up. Well what he actually meant was Boss Zhou's place behind the KTV place. I took the kids but as I'd already eaten couldn't face the mountain of duck breast kindly put in my bowl. I also insisted on mostly sipping my beer, rather than gan bei'ing, and refused their 30 degree honey liqueur. I took the kids back when they were bored, but came back to the meal as promised. Luckily I only stayed another 15 minutes or so as A Wu and I were to take his son to have his shower. I had to hold his son in the car so left the dian dong che at Boss Zhou's which meant I'd have to be back.

Sure enough, we gave his son a shower, or rather let the ladies do it, then dumped him off at A Ni's and went back to Boss Zhou's. I managed to take it relatively easy though did have to do a fair few cai mas, before I finally said I needed to leave to sort the kids at 9.30. At home, Lu Wen called to say Boss Yong had invited us to eat tomorrow and could I make it? Yes, I suppose I could.

A had a coffee and then Tan got back from the bbq at some time after 11pm. She had a cup of sweet lime tea spare so I took it and drank as much as I could until I couldn't take any more sugar. The game wasn't to start till 2.45am so I had ages and put a wash on and had time to hang it up before I got in contact with Mat, and spent the best part of an hour playing World of Tanks with a crappy ping but it was better than nothing.

Rather than go home straightaway, A Wu took me to a place just around the corner to drink tea. In this case, the people we happened upon were drinking tea, and thought it really weird that we actually wanted to drink tea and not beer. But we persisted. Apparently one was a friend/cousin of A Wu. The tv was on and I noticed it was "Pingguo TV" - I hadn't realised we had our own tv channel so was more interested than I otherwise would be. I said that they should recognise some of the people and they nodded as if to say "of course", but then they said "Baksec Zhai!", and indeed there he was on tv, participating in some sort of opening of something. So when he texted me this morning he genuinely had something more important to do!

Baksec Zhai (on the right) on Pingguo tv!

I got back and had a coffee and then Tan got back from the bbq at some time after 11pm. She had a cup of sweet lime tea spare so I took it and drank as much as I could until I couldn't take any more sugar. The game wasn't to start till 2.45am so I had ages and put a wash on and had time to hang it up before I got in contact with Mat, and spent the best part of an hour playing World of Tanks with a crappy ping but it was better than nothing.

I'd heard that there were more football games available on Chinese tv/streaming now, and was glad to find http://www.livesoccertv.com/competitions/england/premier-league/ where it showed what you could expect to see on tv and online. I installed the bloated PPTV but couldn't find the match, and in the end just used their website to find it and watch it in Flash. It was not worth staying up for but we won 1-0 in an effective dead rubber. What was weird though was that I still couldn't sleep till 7am, two and a half hours later.

Ordering water and another boss meal

I wasn't in the best of moods for eating so skipped Waipo's for lunch and just ate some dried squid instead. After a couple of evenings of excess I decided I needed some exercise. I did a "Seven Minute" one and it really took it out of me. Then I decided to justify bringing the extra Wii Fit board I picked up cheaply in a charity all this way for the first time since 2008. As I fired up Wii Sports for the first time in a long time on this Wii it scolded me that it had been 2029 days since the last time it had seen me. Later I took the time to search how long that was, and surprisingly I found it was February 11th 2011. As I'd not been here at that time, and it was incredibly unlikely that anyone else had managed to fire up the Wii and play as me, I looked again and saw that if I only counted weekdays the last time I'd played would have been a much more likely November 12 2008. However, I couldn't understand why the Wii would only count weekdays, and also I'm pretty sure that I was in Nanning that day (as it was Xixi's first birthday) or returned to Pingguo but with the flu so unlikely to have exerted myself so much. I'll have to look into this further to see what is going on.

I need to sort out when this was

But I spent well over an hour on Wii Fit. Who cares if it isn't HD? It's a great console with some immensely fun games, and I sweated out buckets especially with a 10 minute rhythm boxing routine. I called A Wu and for some reason he was in Nanning, but coming back later and he said we'd play ping pong at 8pm.

I doubt there are many in Pingguo, but annoyingly we weren't the only ones in 2008

We were out of drinking water but annoyingly the phone number I've used for the last few years (and indeed a few weeks ago) to order it was powered off. How can you run a business if people can't call you? Maybe they have a WeChat account or something but if they have it isn't attached to their phone number. So after a tad to eat at Waipo's I went to the water place by the jiao zi place next to our building to see what was going on. Apparently this wasn't the place I normally used, but the place I did use had now closed. I wasn't sure I understood, or even trusted this, but I needed water so ordered a tong to be delivered soon. I even ordered the expensive 22 kuai bottle, but not because I actually understood the explanation for why it was the most expensive.

The water arrived nearly an hour later in the form of a phone call asking me to come downstairs as the buzzer wasn't working or something. Typically someone let the bloke in as I got to the ground floor so we shared the lift up. He gave a little more explanation about the other company - apparently the woman was getting too old to be doing such deliveries. Fair enough I suppose but I'd recently paid a 40 kuai deposit for a second bottle. I happened to mention the deposit to the bloke and said he could give it to the woman but straight away he ripped it up and insisted on giving me the difference between the water and the receipt (18 kuai) and I thought that was quite reasonable. I suppose he won't lose any money on having the big bottle back and he's now got a new customer too, though it's likely to be the last water we'll order here this year.

I had hardly expected A Wu to call me at 8pm to go to ping pong but thought I'd check with him at quarter past as I might have plans of my own. Oh he was simply at A Ni's place and that was that - no mention of ping pong. Almost as if he knew, I got a message from a different bloke to go and drink beer with him this evening. I sort of lied and replied that I'd have to play ping pong first, and he said ok. But I didn't know who he was. Even looking through his WeChat album there was no photo I recognised, but I saw that we'd registered as friends last night at 11.32pm, so I surmised it must be Zhang Hua's father-in-law who likes beer and speaking English.

At about nineish I popped round there - after all they were sorting out a footy shirt for me. Well I got there and Zhang Hua was alone in the back with his wife at the front and certainly not expecting me. Nevertheless he immediately invited me to eat the nearly finished food and join him in a Suntory beer. As his father-in-law wasn't there I realised my logic must have been wrong; it was not him who invited me over, which explained why they weren't expecting me. But somebody was expecting me somewhere. Strangely enough that same somebody then texted me to say he was on the road to Pingguo. Zhang Hua and I shared a couple of beers over a nice chat where I learnt a few more words exactly rather than roughly, like "jiaoliu" as a formal way of saying "communicate", and "zhengshi" for "formal".

Then A Wu called and asked me to come over to drink alcohol. I wasn't massively in the mood, but I reckoned wherever this would be had a better chance of containing the bloke that invited me than where I was. Zhang Hua invited me to play football Thursday evening and I said I should be able to, and we shared a last glass. I realised the place A Wu said he was was directly upstairs from where I was and he looked surprised that I'd got there within seconds, but the other bosses looked happy as spiders who had just coaxed a rather juicy English fly into their web. Every one without fail was drinking red wine, but I insisted on beer. They pointed out there wasn't any then I pointed to the obvious beer can in the centre of the table. Then one of the blokes calmly picked it up and removed it and said now there wasn't any. But to be fair to A Wu he did ensure beer arrived and I only had a tiny mouthful of the horrid Australian wine that was probably rejected in its mother country.

To be fair it was a bit of a laugh. There was some great food on the table but within minutes we got to the serious business of cai ma. It was dictated that I was to challenge each of the 12 other bosses on the table in turn, with best-of-threes with each. I calculated that the worst that could happen would be that I drink 12 small glasses of 3.8% beer and would probably still be the most sober.

So it was with not a little pride that I beat the first six in a row, to their and my delight. I'd just beaten the bloke who supposedly had studied in the US but wasn't really speaking much English to me when I came upon the tall bloke with glasses. I didn't mind losing the first round and having a drink, and wasn't too annoyed that I lost the second too. But on losing the third round, I found the rule was I had to move back anti-clockwise and play the English-speaker again that I'd beaten before. Well luck comes in clumps and my losing clump contined as I lost to him this time. Thankfully it only took one win to get back to tall bloke, but he bloody beat me thrice again and I was back to English-speaker. It took two goes but I beat him and then finally moved on from tall bloke with a nice "BET!" (eight) that he wasn't expecting.

The tall drinking bloke is where I first got stuck

But now that I knew that you could move backwards in this game I knew my supposed maximum of 12 beers became effectively infinite, and therefore my confidence took a turn for the worse. I tried to logic-up some confidence and argued to myself that the fact I had lost and drunk a few beers now ought to counter the confidence-drop that occurred to my recent understanding of the rules. This helped, and I managed to finally get to the end, smashing A Wu, but taking a few goes to beat the main boss sitting with me who seemed to be the main guy. There was also a rather pretty girl sitting at the table (a wife of one rather than something else) and she was the only one I didn't have to cai ma.

Well, apparently I'd made a good entrance with that stint of cai ma, and it used up a good 20 minutes or more. As the bosses got drunker, one by one they moved on to beer - I presumed I must have been somewhat of a sober figurehead that they appreciated, but it could just be because they ran out of wine. Towards the end the bloke who had studied in the US suddenly remembered a lot of his English - funny how alcohol does that - and insisted on talking to me at some length. It would have been easier in Mandarin but I was not going to language-bully him and I think he appreciated that. However, after five years in the States I would have expected just a little bit more vocabulary.

We left at well gone 1am, and downstairs outside I saw the father-in-law of Zhang Hua, who hadn't been there earlier. I left the drunken bosses talking on the broken pavement and stepped inside the shop for a couple of less-hurried beers and a wee chat. By the time I made my excuse 15 minutes later A Wu was still outside talking to a couple of bosses and it was decided that we'd go for Won Tun. Well I had the dian dong che outside and wasn't going to leave it so one of the bosses, who'd joined after me and was from Bangxu, and was now quite pissed on red wine, decided to go with me. It's not normally a problem with Leilei and Xixi but he was quite heavy and didn't make any effort to stabilize the bike with his feet as he got on and I nearly let it fall over.

We followed A Wu's car down to the river and found the Won Tun place that I recognised I'd been to before. Annoyingly, as it was served, drunken Bangxu boss poured half of his Won Tun into my bowl, even though I had no intention of finishing it. Of course he finished a couple of minutes later, so I repaid the compliment by giving him 3/4 of mine, in an exchange that had proved to be pretty pointless, especially as he finished mine.

Then a bloke and his young daughter came to talk to me. I recognised them as I'd met them the other day when going for a ride around here. He had stopped on his dian dong che and we'd got chatting. I had noticed that a few yards away there was a policeman and he was in one of the few parts of the road that actually had a gate separating the two halves. He suddenly stopped the driver of a motorcycle that was coming in the wrong direction, and I guessed that was one of the few traffic violations they may take seriously here. Well I wasn't going to go the wrong way, and after making sure that nearly all the other dian dong ches were driven by helmetless drivers (and I don't mean women), bade farewell and went that way too. Then I noticed that 20 yards past the single hidden policeman were about five policemen quite well lit up. Then a motorbike in front of me, on seeing them, made a 180° turn, presumably guilty of something, and I realised the hiding policeman was probably stopping all the 180°ers as they must be hiding something. Pretty sneaky, and I was concerned I might be stopped for some reason but my light was one and I was on the correct side of the road and I got through without incident. But yes that was the other day.

After we'd eaten we left, but drunken Bangxu boss insisted on me giving him a lift home, so we drove quite a considerable distance to his place, and when he got off he pointed in the direction I needed to go to get home. Bloody drunks. I drove a fair few minutes to the less and less populated suburbs of Pingguo before I came to a dead-end in the road. I felt a bit like I was in the Truman Show. I wondered if I tried to go beyond the concrete bollard, I'd hear a loudspeaker from the sky telling me to go back. Had it not been gone 2am I probably would have tried. Plus the fact that I didn't have great range on the dian dong che spurred me to think of a better course of action.

I could either go left or return, so decided to return as at least I should get to somewhere I knew. I found the bbq place I'd first seen last year and entered just to see what it was like, but apart from a handful of places open it was dead. I didn't go back the exact way I'd came but took a right trusting in my general sense of direction. Thankfully it ended up being a good decision and a few minutes later I could see traffic lights, meaning I must be getting closer to home. I was ever-so-slightly tempted to get invited to some of the late-night tables still eating and drinking but decided enough was enough for one night.