Rick Mundt's China

Chapter 7 English or Lack Of I had always been told that there were a lot of people in China learning English. Parents want their children to take extra classes. There are places like the JOY and Kids Castle schools in Luoyang so they could learn English in case they would end up going to an English speaking country in the future.  During the five years that I was in Luoyang, I maybe ran into a handful of young people in stores or restaurants that could speak English. These were people that worked in those places. It wasn’t necessary for people in Luoyang to learn English because there were so few foreigners. The young kids, high school and university students could speak some English and some adults that I met but not people that worked in stores. Chapter 8 Apartments at the Number One Foreign Language School (August 2002-July 2004) Justin and I stayed in apartments on the school grounds where many of the Chinese teachers lived. My apartment was on the 5th floor, it had two bedrooms,

Note to Readers: Now that Rick has made his introductions to China,   we will be posting two-three of Rick's chapters in each weekly post. Rick's chapters were on a disc in alphabetical order by title. They vary in length from quite short to longer essays. There is no index to help us know what order he had in mind overall. So we will be including a chapter with photos and two other informational chapters each week. We hope you enjoy. Chapter 4 - Changes in Luoyang from 2004 to 2010 I couldn’t believe how Luoyang had changed during the six years that I was gone. There were more shopping areas. There was one shopping center called WANDA. It took about fifty minutes to walk there from where I lived at the Number 19 High School or twenty minutes by bus. It was really beautiful inside. There were a lot of stores and one floor had many restaurants. In the basement, was the grocery area. There was also a movie theater and a place to go roller skating on the top floor. They was a big

Aug. 22, 2002-July 5, 2004 Aug. 20, 2010-June 29, 2013 After I had gone to China with the delegation in April of 2002, I spent the summer in La Crosse and then went back to Luoyang on August 20th. It really helped to adjust by being there in April. I should also add that Luoyang is kind of like our Midwest region. It is more conservative. It takes a while for new things to get there and things don’t change as fast as in other areas. As time went on during that first year, I made many wonderful friends. I learned how to teach. I’m sure that some would question my teaching methods being I am not a teacher. I had been told by teachers, both American and Chinese, that what worked for teaching in the US didn’t work in China and what worked in China didn’t work in the US. I had no idea what to do but I learned as time went on.  I tried many things. It was difficult for the students to understand me. It was the same for many others also. For some, I was the first foreign person they had met.

I am going to explain some things. When you think of China, you have to think of  people, numbers of people. I got so tired of people saying that China is so big. If I would  have told them that the U.S. is bigger, I’m sure they wouldn’t have liked it. This is how  it is, if you consider the land area of both countries, then the US is bigger. If you add the  water, then China is bigger. The U.S. has 3.79 million sq. miles of land area. China has  3.7. That’s all the difference there is.  The reason that everyone thinks China is so big is  because there are so many people. China has four times as many people as the U.S.  China has as many children as the U.S. has people. In Luoyang and the districts, there  were 6.5 million people in 2010. The city itself was around 1.5 million people and the  rest were in the districts.    Luoyang is in Henan Province, the most populated province in  China. It is in east central China. Henan and the state of Wisconsin are almost the same  size. Wiscons

For some time, I have thought about writing something about my time in China. I took  9,000 pictures during the five years that I was there and wrote two journals totaling 900  pages. I also have a lot of video. They are all memories of my time there, things that I  did, places that I saw, people that I met and became friends with.  I have many wonderful  friends there. I will always remember them, miss them and also miss the wonderful  Chinese food. The only place that I could find Chinese food here like in China would be  in a Chinatown. The closest one to La Crosse is in Chicago.  I should also say that when I  write a Chinese name here it will be how the Chinese write their names. In the US, we  say our given name first and our family name last. In China, it is the opposite. The  family name comes first, it takes a while to adjust to this for us when we go there and for  the Chinese when they come here. I will begin with what led me to my adventure in China.  I grew up in eastern S