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 South Dakota at Lake Poinsett half way between Watertown and Brookings and moved to La Crosse, WI in May, 1998. In January, 1999, I saw an article in the paper about a Chinese New Year celebration and it would be held in a church. I decided to go and see what it was. I was always kind of interested in China. The celebration was held in a small room in the church, a few samples of food, things to look at.
One year later, I went to that celebration again. I met some people from the sister city organization. La Crosse and Luoyang became sister cities in 1997. They told me a little about the organization andinvited me to their monthly meetings. I started going just to see what it was about. They called the organization LLFA, La Crosse/Luoyang Friendship Association.
There was an exchange program between the two cities for teachers. At first the exchange was between La Crosse and the Number One Foreign Language School in Luoyang. There was a branch school that was called the Number Two Foreign Language School and in March, 2002, that school went on its own. Later some of the teachers from the Number One School went to work at the Number Two Foreign Language School and teachers from that school were chosen to come here also.
The Chinese teachers that taught English in Luoyang came here and taught Chinese in Central and Logan High Schools. At first, two teachers came at a time and then later it was three teachers that would come. This would last for ten years. The funding for the exchange had stopped because of how the economy was in the US.
During those ten years, twenty-three teachers came here from Luoyang. Halfway through the school year 2000-2001, I met the two Chinese teachers that were here, Mr. Zhao and Ms. Qin. Both were from the No. 1 Foreign Language School in Luoyang. It was a middle school and high school. I think there were 1,500 students at that time.
Who would have ever known what would happen and where life would take me by just going to that first Chinese New Year celebration in that church.
I don’t feel as if I made any big accomplishments in my life like some people do. No special talent, didn’t have a family and children. I was a hard worker, which comes from my mom and dad. My big adventure in life was getting the opportunity to go to China to teach English and live there-twice.
By moving to La Crosse, that opportunity came about. Maybe it was meant to be. I could just up and leave, nothing keeping me here. Maybe God wanted me to go there, not sure. Why would He want me to go there? What was the reason or purpose? To this day, I still wonder about that. Maybe someday I will have an answer.
I always thought it would be nice to see the Great Wall, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. That one stood out and fascinated me the most. I got to go there twice and walk on the Great Wall.
Being in China, I don’t know that I accomplished anything there either. I don’t know if I actually helped anybody by trying to teach English or helping people that I met. I probably learned more from them than they did from me. I don’t think that I will ever know.
I learned to be really patient when helping them and trying to explain words and things that I was trying to tell them about. Maybe that was a good thing. I did make a lot of friends that way especially with the Chinese teachers and others that they introduced me to. I will be remembered by the people that I met, whether good or bad by all that I met, however people saw me. Because of being nice and patient, a lot of opportunities came my way. To this day, I stay in touch with a lot of people that I met there.
Going to China actually came about this way. I had talked about meeting Mr. Zhao and Ms. Qin during the spring of 2001 at the Chinese New Year celebration. When they were getting close to going back to China in June, I told Ms. Qin that when she goes back to find me a job and a girlfriend in China. I was joking when I said it, I was just making fun.
Well, she found me the job. She went back and told the Foreign Affairs man at the Number One Foreign Language School, Guan Jigang, and told him about me. He had been to La Crosse in 1999-2000 and taught Chinese in Central HS. He and I lived two blocks from each other when I stayed in Arrowhead Village, but we didn’t know each other because I wasn’t involved in the LLFA at that time.
In August, I get an email from Jigang telling me that they needed a foreign teacher to teach English, could I come in right now. School starts September 1st. I was really surprised. I wrote back, thanked him and told him that I could not leave at that time but maybe another time. He writes back and tells me “OK I’ll save a place for you for next year”.
Wow, really? He also told me that two teachers from his school were coming here at the end of August and one of them was his wife. I am not a teacher, never did any teaching. I trained people at Land O' Lakes when new people started, it was for the jobs that I was doing when we needed more people to work in that area. But that was it.
In August, 2001, I met his wife Huang Guoqin and Zhang Li. Throughout the year that they were here, they taught me how to use chopsticks and other things about China. I was just kind of jumping into this. I didn’t have anything tying me down. Their were plans for a delegation from the LLFA to go to China in April of 2002 to celebrate the five-year anniversary of La Crosse and Luoyang being sister cities. It was for two weeks. It would cost $2,000 for everything-flight, tour guides, food and hotels.
There were sixteen of us that went. April is the Peony Festival in Luoyang, it is a national festival. People from all over China and the world go to Luoyang to see the peonies and other tourist sites. There are hundreds of thousands of peonies in the city, mostly in parks and you have to pay to go into them.
We landed in Beijing and stayed there for three days. We saw some tourist sites like The Great Wall, The Forbidden City and The Summer Palace were the main ones. For two of the three days there were sand storms. That is common during that time of the year.
When we went to the mountains outside of Beijing, about forty miles, to see The Great Wall, it was windy and quite cool. There weren’t many people there that day.
Next, we went to Luoyang by the overnight train. It took twelve hours. We were there for six days. We saw the Number One Foreign Language School where Jigang worked. He was the Foreign Affairs Officer and where his wife Guoqin taught. Two men from the Luoyang Foreign Affairs Department, Mr. Xu and Mr. Lu, took us to see the White Horse Temple, Longmen Grottoes, Shaolin Temple, some of the peony gardens and other places.
This was also the time when Carmen DeYoe was living at the Number One Foreign Language School and teaching at the Number Two Foreign Language School in another part of the city. At this time, I met Emily (Li Xiao), Amiao (Guo Limiao), Lily (Han Lili) and Diana. They would become friends, along with many others, and still are to this day. Emily and Amiao are teachers. Lily and Diana were Senior English Majors at the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) University. They came along with the Foreign Affairs people to help translate.
After Luoyang, we went to Shanghai for a few days. We also went to Hangzhou one afternoon, stayed overnight and came back to Shanghai the next day. Then we went back to the US.
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