The man in the street

Today I was walking home.  There was a team of four guys mixing cement and edging a pavement.  Wish I'd taken a photo!  Anyway, one of the guys was walking away pushing his wheelbarrow.  He looked up and saw me.  He broke into a big smile, with a puzzled look on his face, turned around and went back to his mates.  He spoke to them and the all had a good look at me, I smiled and greeted them and casually carried on working, slowly...everything is slow here..it's old China.  The first guy turned his wheelbarrow around and carried on slowly across the road.
A hundred meters or so further on, I saw this guy, cycling along on the other side of the road. 
The man in the street

From his clothes he was obviously some sort of 'municipal' worker.  You often see them here, standing at the side of the road randomly sweeping up leaves whilst missing the huge piles of fly tipped hardcore!  Well he spotted me.  He cycled across this big junction and parked his bike in muddle if the carriageway.  He looked at me, he didn't seem surprised, he just went right on and chatted to me .  Now my Chinese isn't much good yet, but I understood nothing.  Not a word.  I'm told there is a local dialect.  Maybe it was that.  I smoked and in my best Mandarin said "我不明白！“ （I don't understand!).  Made no difference, he just carried on talking.  From the tone of his voice, he obviously had a question, but no idea what it was!  I told him I was a teacher, I pointed at the school, I told him more forcefully and louder.  Something clicked, but I am not sure what, although I think I recognised the word for 'country'.  So as much fun as this was, I decide it was going nowhere, so I got out my phone and took a 'two-man selfie'.  I thanked him and walked off.  He shouted something to the workmen over the road, and they smiled.  He rode off to join them talking to them as he cycled.  An interesting experience for both of us I expect!  I met him again today and we had another 'chat'.  Could be a regular feature of the walk to work.
...and again on my way to work

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