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"YOU'LL BE IN MY HEART" sung by Johnson's at China University annual SINGING CONTEST @ LiaoGongDa University

11/22/2014

There was a Singing Contest at Liao Gong Da University...
I don't know how our family got invited to this big university event, to participate not as a contestant, but as a guest... maybe somebody knew we sang together as a family, and said something to somebody, I just don't know, but we got this invitation to do this.

Maybe it was the music studio in our living room at home and so they knew we were really "into" music, etc., but we had the news that we were on the program if we would accept and so we had less than two weeks to get something ready.

Probably not OK to sing a church hymn, of which we had MANY that were ready to go... this just wasn't the type of event for that, and at this government institution, probably not appropriate as well. We had to do something SECULAR. Problem? Yes. We did not have ANY secular songs outside of maybe "jingle bells" learned, and so we had to come up with something.

We ended up looking through websites that had top 10 lists of favorite "American" songs that were loved by the Chinese. Problem was, we didn't like many of those songs. They just didn't fit the kind of image that we wanted to sing AS A FAMILY up there on a stage. It couldn't be some romantic love song, some heartbreak song, some angst song, or some radical rock and roll song... we had to find something that would work.

We finally thought of the Disney animation TARZAN and the Phil Collins songs in it. Surely, many Chinese would be familiar with these and the songs, and one of them was a song called "YOU'LL BE IN MY HEART" and the lyrics and theme fit perfectly well into the family concept, and in being there for each other. It was a winner, had a great beat, and so we set out to learn it.

The Masters of Ceremony introducing every singer and song
I downloaded the karaoke version of the song from iTunes and loaded that into our library which already had the original song of it with Phil singing. So we sang along with this. We also loaded up our cell phones with the APP for QQ Streaming music which also had this song but with floating lyrics so we could sing along with the lyrics on our phones privately in our own time.

We also spent many evenings together singing the song together in our living room with the big speakers playing the song in the background. We practiced a lot, but for me, it was not enough. I still did not know the lyrics. The others were having trouble with the harmonies. How were we going to learn the various harmonies for this song and to make it work well for our 7 singers?

We ended up seeking some help from Stephanie our music singing and harmonizing genius from America, and we used a cell phone APP called WECHAT to exchange musical audio file recordings of her singing various parts of the song. I sent her an MP3 and she would play that on her computer, and record on her cell phone WECHAT audio a 60 second clip of her singing a harmony part. She sounded awesome and gave us some ideas that we could run with for these other parts for Christa and the other kids.

So Christa would listen to these and get some practice on her harder to hear part. We eventually go to the point where we were ready to sing together and practice harmonizing together, facing each other in the "circle of fear" and hear how we really sound to each other. We also practiced getting the lyrics and the words right on the beat, together, making it a tight performance. We got really good at it and felt ready. Ready enough. We remembered that this was just a guest performance and a family one, so the most important thing was going to be smiling, being a family, and doing something special that showed that we do love each other and work together on things.

When we began to sing we had found that they only had 3 microphones for us all to use. Well, that's not enough, because how can we MIX that sound with only three mics, and how will our vocal volume be high enough to compete with the loud karaoke track that will be playing on the main speakers? I knew we were going to have a problem being heard. But we rolled with it...

We had to roll with it. So we gave a mic to Audrey, one to Kevan and one to Jaylene. The rest of us were probably not going to be heard as well, and so our harmonies would not sound the same way that we had practiced them.

Also, some of us were going to have a hard time hearing our own voices and have the possibility that we would go sharp or flat with the lack of immediate feedback you get in a large auditorium. But we were practiced.

Adam has a fan, lol
Despite the challenges of this, we did sing pretty close to on key and that if we had ear pieces we would have eliminated that problem altogether. We do sing on key and that's what we like about singing together-- those harmonies in our living room are very rewarding and a spiritual experience many times especially as we sing the hymns of Zion... and feel the Spirit of the Lord in that kind of music. We just like doing it.

Tonight was a different spirit. It was the spirit of family unity, and a fun song! It went well. We got the claps, the audience tried to clap along and as usual, gets off beat, but we strived to stay on the beat of the song and prevailed through it. A good experience for all. My kids had their FIRST EVER public singing experience, and they got very positive feedback during the song, and on the stage afterwards when so many wanted to take pictures with them. It was a LOT of fun, that night.

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The MOTOR SCOOTER in China 今天我们电动车买了 We bought one today :)

9/7/2014

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The MOTOR SCOOTER is common in China, and we succumbed to the peter piper like call to get on this bandwagon of getting around, crazy as it may seem / is, we did it! I drove all over the city with my wife today. Looking around! #sightseeing in #china

Uh, that's not my wife on the back of that, little Audrey my daughter actually, but Christa did ride and took all the video and pics while riding, and I made the movie of our first adventure.

Let me tell you how it felt. CRAZY.

But what a FUN ride. Nerve racking yes, but fun, and safer than most sports no matter what they tell you.

Now I am an experienced motorcycle rider, I have owned several, have crashed a few, dumped a few, and know the perils of all this. And how much it hurt once! Fortunately, these things don't go too fast (around 30 mph tops), but its fast enough. The scariest thing is that, there are NO RULES on the road (so it seems), so you have to pay attention, stay alert (that's not hard, ha), and be ready to stop at the blink of an eye. I am.

So, I am sitting at a RED LIGHT waiting for the green light. No cars are going through intersection on the side street, yet they have a green light (fixed time!), but these electric bikes are passing me and going through a red light. They are breaking the "law" and going through the red light, just buzzing past me like they have a green light.

Bicycles too. And peds too. No one not driving a car seems to care about that traffic light, probably because only the CARS will get a ticket if they go through on a red. So all the cars are waiting for the green.

sight seeing the city, perfect weather and breeze blowing through your hair. I like it

the "bike" lane is filled with conflicts like motor scooters going the wrong way, a cart, or even peds. Let alone a stopped taxi. You have to be on your toes and know what's behind you so you can pull around to keep moving. Or, you can just stop, and wait.

sharing the road with a wide variety of vehicles and carts too. it's dynamic. that's not a donkey pulled cart... it is coming towards me on the wrong side of the road and it is being pushed by an elderly man peeking over the top

And so am I.

But after a while, I look around, I see no cars, and well, I creep on through too, pull back the throttle and zip on through, on my way. I just ran a red light? I am not sure how it works around here. I am beginning to think that they (peds and bikes) can brave things on their own and there is no penalty for them? (I will have to check on that). But I always wanted to do that in America, but you see, in America there are cops that hang out sometimes at an intersection to NAB people for the slightest infraction, even a 1 mph "rolling stop" on a right turn at an intersection. And it costs you 300 bucks, and a mark on your insurance. Such nonsense. I always thought that was a bogus use of police or highway patrol authority.

They don't do that over here, they don't have that over here. The cops are busy catching real criminals I guess. I also never saw a donut shop so definitely things are run differently over here, and that's not to say one is better than the other. I seriously doubt my ability to judge that one way or another. I just don't know except what I see directly on the road here. I have YET to see ANYone get pulled over in a car to get a ticket. The red light cameras seem to be their only enforcement of traffic rules. So, pay attention when you drive.

UPDATE SEPT 13, 2014: Just took it out again, picked up my wife at the hair salon, went shopping, carried bags home on the thing. It was so fun, I dropped her off at the apartment to go and take a spin around a few more blocks just looking around at all the people out walking, ball room dancing, playing games, and having a good time.

sharing the road with all kinds of vehicles, and these guys can dive left or right at any moment. hopefully they see you in their blind spot. NOT!

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Church was Very Different for us in China

8/24/2014

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Different in that we never went to a church building...

...but we nevertheless got all dressed up in our Sunday clothing, and I even wore a tie. You could say that we got into the right frame of mind to worship the Lord on His holy day, and to partake of the sacred Sacrament bread and water blessed that day. A priesthood ordinance administered by myself, having permission from the Branch President. In this video, I got out the video camera and recorded pieces of this particular morning because so many special things were happening and I felt so CLOSE to my family.
A lightning and thunder storm was happening with rain coming down, and we were on the 15th floor in our apartment looking out over the city, and hearing the beautiful music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir men's voices on a song called "Secret Prayer". This was not our church two hour block, but this was just preparation time and we were getting ready for church and having some breakfast, etc. Watch and see how it was. Sunday's were GREAT for us. A chance to escape from the cares of the world and bring our attentions more fully to the Lord, to pray, sing, and worship together. And you will see a sacrament table that we set up for the most important priesthood ordinance where we take upon ourselves more fully by commitment, the name of Jesus Christ to always remember Him, keep His commandments, that His Spirit may always be with us...

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I Forgot My PIN Number on my Bankcard in China. This took weeks to work out and get access to my money.

5/24/2013

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Some things in China are very different from my experience in the United States of America. Like carelessness over financial things and passwords is not as severely punished in the USA. You can forget things, lose things, and get solutions fairly quickly. There are multiple options for getting things "fixed" and people you can "escalate" things to in order to get a solution.

But when I first arrived in China, I had trouble even cashing American Express Travelers Cheques at the most major bank here in ChongQing, a city of 32,000,000 people. They looked at me like I had some strange strange request and I even had a Chinese person from my office helping me to translate everything. We traveled to three banks who all said no they could not cash these checks so I could get some Chinese money (RMB) exchanged, and we finally ended up at a large bank that would do it, the bank the other banks referred us to. The problem was there were lines to wait for, it was approaching 5:00 pm, and when I got to a window at 4:00 pm, they took so long at the teller window to examine each check individually, while the clock was ticking, and over an hour had passed.

I had signed all of these checks in front of them (you can only sign them once), and then when they were done counting/examining each check, taking no less than 20 or 30 seconds for EACH check to look at the front and back, carefully, they wrote down the tally and finally went to go get the money. This was all done behind the glass where I could just watch what they were doing… problem was now... a manager came and told them that it was too late to get any money.

Never mind that they had kept me there for over an hour carefully pouring over each check and closely examining it, One by one, and then when they were finally satisfied that these were not forgeries (because apparently they had never seen this before), then they moved to the next task which was to actually get me the money…
Never mind that I was already IN the bank, already at the window, and we were just finishing a transaction. Never mind all that and that they took 10 more minutes arguing about it, the answer was: "come back tomorrow" and I did my best to control my anxiety over what was happening. Even the Chinese translator knew that this was not copacetic. Here I was being handed back checks that were already signed, and yet the rule is that you must sign these in the presence of the teller. Well, what if that same teller was not there the next day? (she wasn't either, and so yes I was worried about all these unknowns: would they honor these checks??).

So I made them write a note stating what had happened, seal all of the signed checks in an envelope, stamp the envelope with their seal, and then I took the envelope. I made sure my translator told them to do all that. I wanted to make sure that my ONLY access to some real money before my payday which was a month away, was possible. Who would have known these things were possible??

Things like forgetting a pin number on a bankcard. A week after this experience, that's exactly what I did. Oops! What do you do? Well, in America, It's simple. You just go into your bank, show your ID, and get things fixed pretty much immediately. Here I have to go home and find my passport, come back with a Chinese person who has time to help you, fill out forms in Chinese that I have no idea what it says, nor what the tellers are telling me or asking me, so it is imperative that I bring a Chinese friend who can do this for me, interpret, and then in the end you don't get helped right away by the bank, no simple walk to the ATM machine to enter a new PIN code, no, you have to wait a week or two before things are straightened out by an internal review committee, and come back much later, a week later. So if you make a little mistake like forget your pin number (or worse! lose your card), you are out of luck as far as getting your money is concerned. You can't even share a bank account with your wife here. They don't do that. Bank accounts are for individuals. So my wife could not get access to this money either. And she had no money in her account.

My company had to loan me some money in the meantime by paying me back in RMB cash for my expenditures on moving expenses, and I couldn't put it in a bank, so I had to hide it at home in a big cash pile in a suitcase in a closet. That way I could get things, like a phone, buy groceries, pay bills, etc. etc. all in cash. And it was very awkward to get all of this fixed. There are no shortcuts and there is no other way. There is no convenient method that I could find or any Chinese person could offer me. That's because there was no convenient solution, for anyone no matter who you are.

There are no credit cards I could go get. I've got ONE card and if I lose it or if it gets stolen I am in trouble for a while. I got cut off from my cash this way in my first month being here because I did make that mistake, until the company paid me my reimbursement cash "early."

I could not use my ID a week later at the bank when they told me to return with ID, because my passport ID was tied up at the ChongQing Police Department getting reviewed with all of the rest of the family's passports in order to get our residence permit, and they needed it for a whole week, and so I had NO ID and no way to fix this. I had to wait, a long time (3 weeks total wait). Because I forgot my pin number and used the wrong pin number five times trying to make a withdrawal, my bank ATM locked me out of my money. It now considered it a stolen card. I would have thought that I could've just talked to a teller and fixed it right that very minute. But no, I had to wait weeks, and I needed a passport, something that the ChongQing Police were hanging on to. It was horrible. Just one of those little (yet BIG) unexpected things that I could never have predicted nor known how careful I needed to be with a pin number. Just the first of many such experiences where it is nearly impossible for a foreigner to figure it out.

There will always be opposition in all things. Its just life.

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SELECTIONS FROM
Johnson Family CHINA BLOG

"YOU'LL BE IN MY HEART" sung by Johnson's at China University annual SINGING CONTEST @ LiaoGongDa University

The MOTOR SCOOTER in China 今天我们电动车买了 We bought one today :)

Let me tell you how it felt. CRAZY.

Church was Very Different for us in China

Different in that we never went to a church building...

I Forgot My PIN Number on my Bankcard in China. This took weeks to work out and get access to my money.

Grant Johnson

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SELECTIONS FROM Johnson Family CHINA BLOG

"YOU'LL BE IN MY HEART" sung by Johnson's at China University annual SINGING CONTEST @ LiaoGongDa University

The MOTOR SCOOTER in China 今天我们电动车买了 We bought one today :)

Let me tell you how it felt. CRAZY. ​

Church was Very Different for us in China

Different in that we never went to a church building...

I Forgot My PIN Number on my Bankcard in China. This took weeks to work out and get access to my money.

Grant Johnson

Archives

Categories

SELECTIONS FROM
Johnson Family CHINA BLOG

Let me tell you how it felt. CRAZY.