So I’m staying at H’s parents house for Chinese New Year. Can’t remember the name of the village but it’s close to Danyang in Jiangsu province. It’s nice to get to the countryside but it’s bloody cold, I’ve not taken my coat off yet.

We arrived last night and went straight to dinner with her brothers, sister and their spouses. They wasted no time in trying to get me completely plastered and succeeded with ease. The last thing I remember was being sick on my shoes in a karaoke bar, right after singing screaming the “Wo Ai Ni” song. Apparently her brother followed me into the toilet and held me up as I was hurling to stop me falling into the toilet, thoroughly nice chap. Can’t believe H didn’t take a single photo of the event though, what was she thinking?? Oh, they reckon I drank three bottles of red wine by the way, and half a bottle of beer.

As we were leaving Shanghai I gave myself a good splash of aftershave so I’d smell good for the family meet. H frowned, ‘hmm you’d better not wear anything smelly while you’re in my hometown”, “why not, will they assume I’m some foppish city boy?” I replied, “errr no they’ll think you’ve got a disease and covering it up”, nice!

Apparently having smelly armpits in some parts of China is considered to be a disease (doesn’t everyone get this?) called Fox Stink. People suffering with this “disease” almost become outcasts, they find it difficult to get married etc because people worry about the children, so naturally they try to cover it up with perfume etc. Some people even resort to surgery to cut away the “diseased skin”, hideous stuff..