Got another early message from Xiao Nong to say she was hungry and fancied eating jiaozi. I wasn't really in the mood to get up but social intercourse is better than no intercourse, and I'd be able to sleep in the afternoon. So a few minutes later I drove to the place I like near my flat, and met her there after picking up some gorgeous sweetcorn jiaozi. Of course I'd missed her message to get the boss to give me some vinegar and soy sauce and only saw it as I dismounted from the dian dong che outside my xiao qu (area of block of flats I need to scan my face to get in). So I popped into the local 24h store and picked up a bottle of each as it's unlikely to be the only time we'll breakfast together.
Sweetcorn jiaozi for breakfast as you do
We ate at my flat and as is quite normal among Chinese friends, we proceeded to peruse our phones without talking to each other for a while. While this is massively frowned upon in Europe (as far as I know), it's considered to be completely normal here. And I have come to like it. Why not be comfortable browsing Douyin or Reddit if you feel like it, whether or not in the company of others? As long as it's not considered rude by any party.
In fact I ended up doing a character test on Pleco. Chinese characters, not a test of my own character. She noticed and then started helping me out as I'd chosen categories HSK 3/4/5 and I probably only know half of them. It was great as she would give examples or example situations of where you would want to know the word, and I'd often be able to work out how to say the characters so then I was starting to put them together with what they look like. This went on for the best part of an hour before my poor little brain started to get tired so I'd need to get some rest.
I don't recall what time I roused/rose/arose, but it wasn't early. I finished off the uneaten sweetcorn jiaozi and went back to Waipo's for a bit before deciding I'd pop to Li Kun's for a bit. I wanted to turn up unannounced but thought I'd pick up some roast duck first of all. But as it had gone 10pm that place was closed and the closest place I could find was selling chicken and duck feet, both boned (40 kuai/jin) and unboned (50 kuai/jin). I got a jin of both, a mix of spicy and unspicy.
And it was a good thing I did as when I got there his kids were there too as well as a few others, and his daughter loves chicken and duck feet. Within a few minutes Li laoshi put a guitar into my arms and asked me to sing an English song, so (as I have had a beer or two at Waipo's) I obliged with a couple of Simon and Garfunkel numbers as per usual. It turned into another memorable and fun evening and I got back home (to Waipo's) by 1am for an early change.
Li Kun's wife and second daughter tucking in to chicken and duck feet as you do
I awoke to the sound of a young voice and women's voices. I realised that the younger voice was my "grand daughter" Tan Shiyun. I knew she'd open my door so I quickly clothed and not a second later indeed she was trying to get in. I'm not sure why they'd come back but it's their house too so fair enough.
I said I'd take her out shopping but she said "no" (or "bu"). But a few minutes later she'd warmed to me again so we agreed to go out to the supermarket together. She's super-cute, especially when she holds my hand and all the grannies coo over her.
Tan Shiyun is super-cute...
...and a great companion at the supermarket
So I got her a toy fruit juice maker and some pistachios which I now know are pronounced pist-A-chios, and not pist-AH-chios...jeez they had fun correcting me on that (English family, not Chinese). Not long after, Haiwei pinged me to go for an evening meal at his girlfriend, Li Baoli's house. Why not?
So around 7pm I turned up and Baoli was outside to find me. It was yet another lovely family meal with three generations but I felt genuinely welcome. Living here is so nice.
Another cracking meal at Baoli's with her boyfriend Haiwei
A bit later Lu zong called me to go to his bar for a bite to eat so when it was appropriate a bit later, I told Baoli I would go elsewhere but not before we'd finished there. I guess I got to Lu zong's around 10pm or so but really don't remember...all I know is I also had a cracking time at his bar and didn't leave till around midnight.
Moving on to Lu zong's
Of course that's when it should have been it for the night. But Li Kun was pinging me to come over. I said I'd see...and indeed around midnight I made it around for a third evening meal as you do. But it was really cool...his younger kids were there and they dote upon me...it's like an early chance at being a grandparent to see if it would fit you...so far I think it certainly would...though I'd not want it any time soon. Not sure what time I got back home but I managed to find a place to charge up the dian dong che at least.
Woke up at Waipo's for the first time in a while and as it was not yet 10am decided to pick up what I could of Tan's stuff from Lin Hong's flat, which meant her hand-luggage suitcase and violin, so there'd definitely be at least one more journey there for my stuff. After checking with Tan I've decided I'll probably spend most of my nights at Waipo's now so went to my flat to pick up most of my clothes there and hang up with ones I'd washed yesterday morning. Hmm...they were already starting to smell a bit...may have to re-wash them. So by lunchtime I was back at Waipo's with my suitcase and guitar in hand but my next stop planned was for jiaozi, which I ate in with a bowl of soup after a chat with Awl on the way there.
Ling Ming's wife's house for future reference
I hadn't really had as much sleep as I wanted so treated myself to a couple of beers and a siesta and before I knew it Huang Lei had sent a message at 5.30pm to go and eat with him at 8pm. Hmm...8pm seems a bit late for an evening meal, but too early for an evening snack. Anyway, before I could respond he called me to confirm 8pm so that meant despite being hungry I only allowed myself a couple of biscuits as didn't want to do in my appetite for later.
I didn't even have any more beers as I'd had an email from the solicitors and needed to sort out a lot of dad's utilities. Luckily so much of this stuff can be done online now, almost all in fact now that I have access to his email. The only really annoying thing is that they want wet signatures for a couple of the documents so I'll have to print them out and send them back to the UK. Boo.
Soon after 8pm I got to the music shop north of the guangchang I've been to a couple of times before. Huang Lei was there with his younger son but few other people were. I ended up playing a sort of flicking draughts football type game with him for about half an hour until others turned up, and eventually a trolley of sumptuous food, and we finally sat down to eat at 9pm. I know Huang Lei could have told me to come at 9pm but it's not like that here...they generally want you early for a chat and to make sure you don't end up elsewhere.
Rat and other goodies for an evening feast
Anyway the main dish was rat. They have the same word for rat as for mouse here, as normally the context is close enough, but in order to make sure I asked if it was "big mouse" (rat) or actual "small mouse" (mouse) and it was confirmed it was the former. I breathed a sigh of relief but I don't know why really...would it have been that different...yeah...less meat and more annoying bones I suppose. Hardly worth skinning a mouse anyway for the amount you get. In fact it's hardly worth skinning a rat but they did and it was delicious. A fairly fair way of dealing with unwanted vermin.
Soon after 10pm Feng ge turned up looking a bit the worse for the wear, and invited me to go to his place at Yang Ming park so after a couple more beers it was the 10 minute journey over the bridge to his place. Except with him on the back of the bike nearly falling asleep it was over 15 mins. This time there was no Li Kun to accompany me unlike 10 days ago, as he's away for four days. I was invited to go but turned it down as I rather like being in Pingguo. Having said that I should branch out a bit more...one day. Anyway, other than Feng ge I didn't know the other people, but there were two blokes playing the guitar, one on the drums, and a rather pretty woman to watch and listen.
Music at Feng ge's place in Yang Ming park
It was a nice evening but at midnight Feng ge wisely decided to stop drinking alcohol. I didn't, but I was flaking by 1am and for once a guitar wasn't thrust into my arms, and I didn't request it. So we all spent 10 minutes tidying up and I guess I was home at 2ish.
Well I got up in time to manage some of yesterday's delivered food for a brief lunch and managed to chill for a little while until A Wu pinged me to ask me to come over to play caima as he was losing. But it was now only 5pm which I thought was a bit early to be drinking. However, it's the New Year period and anything goes. So after a dingwei was sent I was on the longish route to wherever it was and was just glad I had a full charge in the dian dong che.
Another sausagefest, but a bit more fun than many
It turned out to be yet another sausagefest, but hey-ho it meant my evening meal was sorted. It took a while but I managed to get over that time where you just don't want any more beer, until it's ok again, and I table-hopped until I got a call to go to A Hoc's place for a late bite. This gave me the excuse to leave after a few more ganbei's, and it was definitely a quieter environment than the raucous one I'd just been to.
Eating dog with A Guang (middle) and a couple of mates at A Hoc's
And of course since I thought I'd had my last taste of dog nearly two years ago, that was what was on the table, and to be fair it tasted great - only A Hoc can make me a doggivore anymore. Even though I'd got up at lunchtime, it had only been 6 hours' sleep, so I started to flag at midnight, and anyway wanted to watch the Arsenal - City match at 12.30am so decided to kip at Waipo's tonight for the wifi. What an awful watch... a 5-1 with a bitterly disappointing second half. It's curtains for us this season. Well at least it wasn't a 4am start....
Almost a normal day today - at least for the most part. Lin Hong had pinged me to go for a meal at her house for 6.30pm, so I headed out to pick a box of cherries first as you should do, and I've been getting a lot better at, despite them costing more than in the UK. Tian Tian was there with four ex-colleagues and her boyfriend, and A Zhong was still cooking. So we played a bit with the cat until it was time to eat when Tian Tian was instructed to go downstairs to buy some beer. The boyfriend was apparently driving so wasn't to drink, except as soon as I poured myself a glass he did the same.
Great meal with Lin Hong, Tian Tian, and friends
The food and the company were as good as ever. None of the women were drinking. That was until Lin Hong said she had some home-made wine and poured each of them a glass. I said I'd have a wee taste but she poured a plastic glass to the brim of course. It was actually quite palatable if a little sweet, and somehow I did manage the whole glass before refusing a second and going back on the beer. I love the little huoguo pot that has a wide edge for effectively frying meat on, and if had the space would be tempted to bring one back.
A Wu pinged for me to go and eat with them but I told him a little later as I genuinely like these family meals. Tian Tian's boyfriend not only joined me in drinking beer but also had a whole glass of wine that was around 18% according to Lin Hong. Eventually around 8.30pm I made my excuses and left them as I was truly stuffed.
Another evening with A Wu and family and friends at A Zhou's place
But of course there was more to come when I got to A Zhou's place where A Wu and his family were cooking bbq and drinking beer and playing cards of course. I managed a little nibble when I got there but not that long after Xiao Nong pinged me to sing song. Could I really manage another venue? Yeah...it wasn't even midnight. But at not even 1am I managed to make my excuses and leave to get some rest.
Xiao Nong and friends at a KTV I'd not been to before...just wish I was awake enough to stay longer
That was until getting on for 3am when Xiao Nong announced she was seeing a sick friend at the hospital as I was about to sleep, but she needed a lift so of course I did. The dian dong che was on its last battery-legs when she then announced that her "sister" was involved in a bit of a fracas at a bar at bloody getting on for 5am. And of course there were no didi ches at that time so I did the noble thing and took her down to Jiangbin Lu. I only just managed it back home at snail's pace but I realised I'd squeezed 42 km out of it so now I understand why so many people drive so slowly...it simply gets them more kms out of a charge. Finally at getting on for 6am I bloody took a small beer and got some well-deserved shut-eye.
Well after last night's vomit session I decided to take it easy food-wise, and just made some pao mian to keep it carby and simple, before deciding to take A Wu's kids' hongbaos to them. Tan had said that you only give hongbaos on New Year's Day, but I'd seen for myself that that wasn't necessarily the case. I needed the exercise so decided to walk the 20 minutes or so north to his qu, and thought I remembered which block he lived in but when I got to the 25th floor and knocked on what I thought was his door, it was eventually opened by some bloke who looked rather nonplussed to see me standing there. I apologised profusely and he was then perfectly ok about it, probably more in shock of seeing a foreigner outside his front door. Finally A Wu had got back to me to say he was in block 2, not block 1, so a few minutes later I was in his place.
I hadn't given his kids their hongbaos the other day as there were other kids around and I didn't want them to feel bad, so I handed his younger son and daughter one each, to big thank yous, before A Wu's wife's sister's daughter entered the living room from one of the bedrooms. Oh no! The one thing I came here to avoid! I felt bad and told her I'd bring hers next time. She was fine and I gave her a little hug and kissed her on the forehead for some reason. She walked to the table to get herself a biscuit but instead of opening it (nearly everything's wrapped here), she just gave it to me. What a sweet thing to do when her two cousins had just received a red envelope. Then I realised I still had 300 kuai in my pocket so asked A Wu if he had a spare red envelope and after a couple of minutes searching he found one, as most Chinese houses have a few lying around, although like Sellotape (one of the few brand names I use instead of the proper term which as anyone who's ever seen Blue Peter will know, is "sticky tape"), they can be hard to find sometimes.
A Wu said to go to A Zhou's place again tonight for a bite to eat, and he'd ping me a bit later, so I made use of some spare time to go for a little walk. In fact I'd included the walk to A Wu's in my Strava recording and managed 7.4km in 1h26m of moving. And not that long after I was called to go to eat. I sort of knew most of the people there and once again I was nearly the only person not on the baijiu. We then started to play mo pai and I sort of did ok for someone who has not worked out 20% of the rules yet.
Yet another family meal
I left before it got too raucous saying I had a "matter" to attend to, which was true as I needed to transfer some money before the mortgage was taken out. That took longer than it ought to have and by 10.30pm A Wu was saying to meet up at the guangchang to go for a walk with the kids. Why not? So just before 11pm I met up with him and his wife and wife's sister and husband and the three kids but they told me to get in a car as we were driving to Yang Ming park on the south of the river. Fair enough. It ended up being an excuse for taking lots of photos and was pretty fun as it wasn't cold.
The dried up river isn't a patch on Valencia's but it actually does turn into a wet river when it gets warmer
And I heard "Peng Duoming!" being shouted out and I noticed some friends drinking by the side of the road. I would quite like to have joined them but it would have been rude so I said I'd ping them a bit later if it wasn't too late. Then around midnight we moved on to a place near A Xia's old shop and ordered deep-fried bananas and chips, with mango juice to wash them down with. A Wu said it wasn't good to eat meat all the time and he'd gone for the healthy option. I agreed with him about not eating so much meat but didn't tell him I didn't think he'd chosen the healthiest alternative.
Deep fried bananas and fries, with mango juice...no calories there then
Finally they dropped me back at the guangchang to pick up my bike around 1.30am as the kids were getting tired. I pinged the friends to see if they were there and indeed they were, so 10 minutes later I was catching up on the beers after a break of about 5 hours. Apparently one of the women was the daughter of the owner of the set of buildings we were eating outside of, including a discotheque that I was invited to attend another day, not that I think I can do that anymore, thanks all the same. But it was a good laugh and we managed to stay up till 3am before there were signs of flakiness. All in all another full day, and no being sick this time.
For the first time here this year (which isn't really that long) I managed to wake up at 8.30am and pinged Nong. Surprisingly for a Guangxi person she got back to me a bit later to confirm she'd pick me up at 10am. So I managed to get myself to my flat. At least that was my intention. I was waiting at the last red light and all of a sudden I found myself 10' further forwards. It took me a few seconds to realise some idiotic bloke had rammed right into the back of me. "Mei shi mei shi!" he shouted from the floor...one hand clutching a cigarette and another his mobile phone. He was literally saying "no problem" while writhing on the road next to his stricken bike and I wasn't in the mood to argue as he looked physically ok and so did my bike. It's very uncommon to say something rude to someone here but I told him to use his eyes in the future before getting on and riding the 200 or so yards to my place.
I grabbed a wash and indeed Nong pinged at 9.45am to say she'd be there in 10 minutes. I had my coat, my charger, my tissues, and my phone, and reckoned that was all I'd need till 7pm when she'd said we'd be back in Pingguo. so at 9.55am I was in her car and we went to pick up her mum and an aunt, and spent the next hour driving up to Bangxu. It was quite enjoyable as we had a sensible conversation about all the languages people speak here, as I'd heard three of them in the last few minutes. Finally I think I understand: putonghua is Mandarin, which just about everyone speaks; Guiliuhua is a relative of Mandarin, but with different tones and and some vastly different pronunciations, which people of my age tend to speak with locals, and Zhuang hua is the local lingo which seems barely related and is spoken by the elder/older. On top of this many people also speak Bai hua, or Yue yu, or Guangdong hua (all basically Cantonese). So now I can finally more-or-less compartmentalise which language someone is speaking.
We got to Bangxu and Nong thought about stopping off at "jie shang", which is Tan's part of Bangxu, but we reasoned that it might not look good if people took pics of me there if we weren't staying there...what would Tan think? So we drove on another 10 minutes to Nong's cun (village), and then on to her mum's tun (group of houses within a village).
Wow, it was pretty pretty, and I realised I'd been taking in these green landscapes for granted for too long. Nong had mentioned that all the trees were green and it was January and then I learnt the words for deciduous and evergreen that I will definitely forget very soon. As it was nearly midday, and neither Nong nor I had eaten, some aunties cooked some soup for us for "breakfast" which was actually really nice, and then we went to drink tea in front of the mountains. Yet again, I realised I shouldn't take this for granted...how many opportunities does a Londoner get to drink tea in front of mountains?
Then Nong suggested going to go for a walk in a cave. Well I was up for this; I've done it a couple of times and it can be fun, if scary. So we ended up driving 10 minutes away with a couple of aunties till we came upon a place which was clearly touristy. Oh, it reminded me of the Bangxu caves we once went to 21 years ago which were raw and lovely, and then a couple of years later when they'd been touristified and were ridden with colourful lights and denied their natural beauty. But anyway Nong paid 320 kuai for the four of us and we entered and took a couple of photos at the designated photo place as you have to do, before going for a walk as it would be 20 minutes before the next scheduled "walk" through the caves.
Not destroying the rabbits while waiting...
Well it took a couple of hours and we were with about 20 other people. It was "fun" in the sense that it was different but I argued with Nong that I saw other animals in the forms of the stalactites and stalagmites than the tour operator was telling us to see. At least I thought that meant I had imagination but she had a bit of a go at me for not agreeing...at least she saw the humour about it. The last hour comprised a boat trip going back during which I nearly capsized the thing as I was the last of nine to get on and thought it was stable. It was anything but. But I gingerly stepped into the only free seat which thankfully was in the middle and sat there the whole time just hoping not to drop into the freezing water with my phone and clothes in that order.
The hour took two in my mind, and wasn't so relaxing as it could have been had we not nearly capsized...but it was a great new experience in the end. Once back at Nong's hometown I insisted on paying the 320 kuai but she refused, saying it wasn't that often she could invite me anywhere...well that's not true but I appreciated the sentiment.
During the boat ride back through the caves...would have been cool if I wasn't worried about tipping over
By now many people were preparing food. I wanted to help but knew I'd just get in the way, so found a couple of young boys lighting bangers. Oh, this is something dear to my heart...it reminds me of France in the 80s when that was a thing. They were dangerously lighting them and putting them in tin cans and the like and no parent was scolding them as though it wasn't dangerous. That meant it couldn't be dangerous for me right? Of course not! As soon as I walked over to them to join in one of them leapt into the house and brought back a few packs of bangers and mini Catherine wheels. I do declare for the next hour I had one of my favourite experiences (non-sexual) in China letting off scores of bangers and other fireworks until we were told to be quiet as some kids were sleeping. No worries, we just walked 50 yards down the lane and dropped the big bangers into the ditch that had water and watched them fire up. I was literally in my element (not in the classic sense of "literal" which I'm still angry about).
This has to be up with one of my top experiences...how can you go wrong with bangers?
And mentally probably the youngest kid chucking one into the water
Finally we were called to eat at gone 5pm, and there was a massive spread. I'd already met many of the people in the tun, and I knew some were pissed. But I wasn't ready for how much drinking was to come in the next hour or so. I had to explain to many people that I was a Bangxu guye, and that Nong wasn't my wife, but it was pretty cool and I managed to eat for a good hour until I was really full. Unfortunately it looked like we wouldn't be leaving at 6pm, or 7pm, but I finally agreed with Nong to leave around 7.30pm as I'd arranged to meet up with Xiao Nong. However, it proved difficult to leave, having to ganbei with literally everyone there for the umpteenth time. Not that I was unhappy about it!
Cracking meal at Nong's hometown
Well I was a bit, as Xiao Nong had had to go to pick up her kids, so I instead I got in contact with A Wu, who told me to meet up at the place I'd been to a couple of times in the past. A Zhu's? Anyway I got there and there were quite a few people, so I sat down and joined in as you do. This is the way life should be. So I said goodnight to her and drove the 6 minutes to where A Wu and his family were and ended up playing mo pai for a while even though I still don't really understand the rules.
Playing mo pai with A Wu and family/friends
Li Kun pinged me a bit later to say he was going for a drink at 3000° and I said I'd meet him in a bit. A "bit" for once met like an English "bit"; he was there by himself when I got there a few minutes later. This is almost unheard of here; I've never turned up to find only the host by themselves. But we had a couple of bottles and I mentioned I'd been to Nong's hometown so we contacted her and a few minutes later she turned up, along with a load of oysters that hadn't been eaten earlier in the day. No problem, she gave the bag to the pretty boss (I've known her for years) and asked her to cook them). 15 minutes later we had a stack of oysters on our table. The boss joined us for a couple of drinks, and I told her I was sorry if I was a bit drunk in August 2023 (which I was) to which she just waved it off and made me ganbei as you do.
Late bite with Li Kun and Nong...to be regurgitated later
All in all it was a very pleasant evening and we left around 2am. But once home, despite not opening a beer, I had a weird feeling in my stomach. Two minutes later I was retching in the toilet and all of those oysters came up. I'd like to think it was just the oysters but quite honestly it could be a combination of that plus beers for the last x weeks.
