I think he may have had some other dialect because I was having trouble hearing/understanding most everything he said and the way he said it. One thing interesting about China is that it used to be a lot of different little countries and they all spoke quite differently and they have tried to standardize the language on what we call Mandarin, But there are many of the people from the country who never got the modern education and so they're speaking their original language. They are usually from the country side, and have recently come into the city for employment. I have even had Chinese friends tell me that they don't understand some of these other Chinese people were speaking a different dialect. Then I don't feel so bad.  So I sat down and tried to talk to him. I tried really hard. But I could tell by the way he looked at me with these longing friendly eyes that some of the times I didn't really answer the question that he had asked although I was saying things and he probably understood me. Oh how I want to communicate with everyone! But sometimes I just have to smile and be happy. So I did. After a while I excused myself and began to walk down the path along the river looking for more adventure when to my surprise this guy was calling out to me again and asked me to come back so we could take some pictures. I think he had a little camera but we also used my camera. Hence these pictures. He was dressed in a military uniform under that big thick green military coat that he took off and so he saluted at me. What I found especially special was how friendly he was, and how respectful and genuinely interested. When I got up to leave again, he called out to me again, I came back, and he asked me when I would be coming back. He wanted to see me again. And so I told him I would probably come back tomorrow. I am just touched by the childlike friendliness of some people and I feel the love of God is there for all people. Here are some of the other people and activities that I saw mainly where they were skating on the ice of the river which is still frozen over about a foot thick.
  Many people just walking around, skating around, and scooting around on sled chairs...
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What if the ice breaks?That's a good question! Something to think about… two weeks ago when I first went to visit the river to see how it looked being frozen, I saw some people down on the ice walking on it even ice skating on it, and I thought about how they were brave enough to do that or stupid enough… I happen to be with my wife at the time. She wanted to go down on the ice and of course I was thinking what happens if this ice breaks and I fall in the river in the current sweeps me away under the ice? I don't remember exactly what we said but I do know that she didn't think anything would happen. I reminded her that I probably weighed almost 100 pounds more than her and maybe the ice would break for me, so when I first stepped onto the edge of the ice from the bank of the river I was very nervous.
But soon my nervousness turned to fascination as I looked down and studied the bubbles and cracks and layers in the ice that was somewhat cloudy to transparent below me. I could see it seemed to be at least 4 to 6 inches thick at that time, and I thought about how rigid a piece of ice that thick would actually be… rock hard actually. The kids want to go ice-skatingwe had some friends come to town yesterday, the Fraziers who are friends from church in a faraway city called ShenYang (3 hours by car). They have four young kids and so we all had our ice skates from Christmas gifts and we're ready to go. A nice pair of ice skates here costs 15 bucks is all...They had a car so we jammed everybody in from our apartment and went down to the river. Here's some more photos from that experience: |
Grant JohnsonHad two engineering jobs in China that gave us the opportunity to be there, stay there, for 2.5 years (2013-2015), and have a myriad of experiences that we would not trade for anything. 
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Hi I'm Grant Johnson and I was an engineer in China from 2013-2015. 你好！我叫 Grant Johnson。 初年我是工程师在中国的 2013-2015。
I lived with my family there (wife and 5 of our 12 children) in a small city of only 2 million 我 跟我的家人一起住过了在中国（我的太太和五个孩子）里面的小城市200万 (and growing rapidly 成长速度非常快). Half of them went to the local LiaoGongDA university and learning Chinese 三个人上辽工大学了汉语.
A bullet train is coming to town 高铁要来阜新. I was helping on that process 我的工作就是在这个过程中帮助. Check me out on Linkedin.com where I have a profile with links to a variety of work I have done.
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