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.
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, a living room, bathroom and kitchen. I walked up the steps, no elevator. I was told that if a building has six floors, they didn’t put elevators in. It was an old building. There was a water heater on the wall in the bathroom for the shower, the kitchen just had cold water for the sink. The one bedroom was more for storage, no bed in it.
The bathroom was also the shower. The door had to be shut so the water wouldn’t spray out into the living room, also to keep it warmer in there during the winter. There was a drain in the floor for the water to go down but I had to use a squeegee to push the water toward the drain because the floor wasn’t slanted much. That’s how it was in all apartments. I learned to use the towel to wipe the floor after I was done with it and then use the fan to blow air over the floor and it would dry within a few minutes.
In the kitchen was the wash machine, refrigerator/freezer, a microwave and a sink and mirror. There were dishes and utensils-mostly chopsticks, a little silverware, toaster, hotplate and table. In the apartments, there was the stand where you put a five gallon water bottle. This is the same as what is used in our buildings in the US where people work. All apartments have them. The school furnished the bottles. When I was out of water, I would let the man at the school know and he would bring another. On the top of the stand, you would turn the bottle over and put the neck in first to let the water down into the stand. There were two levers below to let out either hot or cold water. There was a heater on the one side to heat water. There wasn’t actually cold water on the other side, it would be room temperature.
The living room was good sized, a big window to look out of, couch, TV and a small table in front of the couch. It was just like any place that my Chinese friends lived in. Mine was actually bigger than some of the apartments that my Chinese friends had. The heater was in the bedroom. It was the only heater in the apartment. It was a heater/AC combination. It wasn’t big enough to heat the whole apartment. The first winter there was colder than normal. I would shut the doors to the bathroom, kitchen and spare room. When I would go out or to classes, I shut the heater off in the bedroom. There were three or four little space heaters that I used in the living room. Without any heater on in the living room, it got down to 50 degrees. With the space heaters going, I could get it 62-65 degrees. It would take some time to warm it up. I would sit there watching TV or movies wearing long underwear, pants, a winter coat and a stocking cap. The buildings are made of cement and didn't have insulation in them. I bought a DVD player during the winter. DVD’s were very cheap; they could be anywhere from fifty cents to one dollar. Many of them were pirated. I would sit in the living room and watch movies so I needed some heat in there. That’s just the way things were, I didn’t think anything of it. I just adapted. I was told that people would wear long underwear from October to April.
Spring comes sooner there than here. It can be in the 70’s and 80’s in April. The further north you went, like in Beijing, they had insulation and heaters in their places like we do in the US.
I thought someone said that the winter of 2002-2003 was one of the coldest winters in 100 years. We didn’t have much snow. Where Luoyang is located, some winters have snow and some don't. When there is snow, it isn't much and it can melt the same day. The apartments in Luoyang aren’t built like they are here in the US because usually it is not as cold there. The windows are thin and not tight like here.
I had to dust my apartment often being the windows weren’t tight. In the kitchen, there was ice on both sides of the windows. Pretty designs, I have pictures of it. The buildings are made of cement so when they get cold, along with the floors, the apartment is really cold until March and April when it gets warmer. Even with opening the windows when it gets warmer, it takes maybe three weeks for the cement to warm up. I always wore heavy socks and shoes and I always had something to put my feet on to keep them off of the floor. There was tile but underneath is cement and that was very cold. If I had a pop to drink, I could just sit it on the floor and it would stay cold. It was comfortable in the bedroom because of the heater in there. If I would turn the heater on and close the door, I could get it up to 70 degrees. The second winter was much nicer, more like normal. If what I described doesn't sound good, it was fine. I just adapted. It was no big deal.
There was a wash machine for my clothes. No dryer. No one had dryers. It would cost too much to run them. People just hung their clothes up in their apartment or out on the balcony to dry depending what time of the year it was. Even though I was taught how to use the washer, it still took time to get it all figured out. It was a front loader. I had never used one of those before. As for drying, I had an open balcony, it was not enclosed with windows. There was a door in the bedroom that I could go out onto the balcony. There was a rope across the balcony to hang the clothes on. Even though the clothes would dry faster if there was a wind, that was not the time to hang clothes out because there would be dust in the air from construction. During the winter, I would hang the clothes and towels in the bedroom on different things like chairs, the doors on the closet and whatever else there was and then turn the heater on and used the fan to blow the air around and they would dry. Again, I just adapted and made things work. Here in the US, we are very spoiled with all of our conveniences. They are nice but we pay dearly to use them. If we hung our clothes outside to dry instead of using a dryer, it would cost less and our clothes would smell nicer but we want them done now.
Justin was on the sixth floor, the top floor. There wasn’t another apartment above him and he had three sides open to the outside. He was on the end of the building. I had an apartment above me and one on two sides - big difference. I thought my apartment was cold, but his was really cold. He had three bedrooms and two heaters. The heaters were in two of the bedrooms and weren’t big enough to warm the whole apartment. It would have been nice for both of us to have a heater in the living rooms.
During the winter, I know that his apartment was at least ten degrees colder than mine. In the summer, it was hotter with the sun beating down on that top floor. The floor in his shower was flat, it didn’t slant toward the drain at all so he had to push all of the water to the drain. It was so cold in his kitchen that his water pipes would freeze sometimes. He could put groceries on the kitchen floor and they would stay frozen. He didn’t have to use the refrigerator. That’s cold.
But like I said before, we adapted and made it work. No big deal. How many Americans could do that and adapt to the conditions? Could they leave their comfortable homes and life and adapt to living there and the culture? The Chinese people had the same exact apartments and lived in the same conditions as Justin and I did. That's how life was. No problem, just adapt. I never gave it a second thought and never ever regretted being there. We had the most wonderful friends anyone could want and that made life very good there.
We had internet, not as fast as now of course. It was through the phone line. It was really nice to be able to have it to look up things and stay in touch with the outside world. I could read the news from back home. Not many people that I knew back home had internet at that time so now and then I would write letters to them to let them know what it was like. It was difficult to call back to the US. I couldn’t get phone cards like here, they didn’t have many minutes, maybe thirty minutes or less.
At that time, YouTube and Facebook were blocked by the government. It is known as the Great Firewall. The government really watches the internet and what is allowed out to the public.
I had a nice apartment. It had two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. There was also an open balcony that I went out to from the bedroom. By open balcony, I mean that it was not enclosed.
My living room. There is a TV to the left of the Christmas tree. That is bamboo on the table.
When it was cold outside, I would hang clothes in the bedroom and turn the heater on and I had the fan on high and oscillating so that would dry the clothes.
The pictures below are beautiful ice designs on the windows in my kitchen. Aren’t they pretty? The winter of 2002-2003 was really cold for the area where Luoyang is. The windows in the apartments were thin and not real tight. In summer and when the weather was nice, I would have to dust my apartment quite often because of the dust that could get in when I left the windows open. By the way, the ice on the windows-it is on both the inside and the outside. Look at the bright side, no one could look in.
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, a living room, bathroom and kitchen. I walked up the steps, no elevator. I was told that if a building has six floors, they didn’t put elevators in. It was an old building. There was a water heater on the wall in the bathroom for the shower, the kitchen just had cold water for the sink. The one bedroom was more for storage, no bed in it.
The bathroom was also the shower. The door had to be shut so the water wouldn’t spray out into the living room, also to keep it warmer in there during the winter. There was a drain in the floor for the water to go down but I had to use a squeegee to push the water toward the drain because the floor wasn’t slanted much. That’s how it was in all apartments. I learned to use the towel to wipe the floor after I was done with it and then use the fan to blow air over the floor and it would dry within a few minutes.
In the kitchen was the wash machine, refrigerator/freezer, a microwave and a sink and mirror. There were dishes and utensils-mostly chopsticks, a little silverware, toaster, hotplate and table. In the apartments, there was the stand where you put a five gallon water bottle. This is the same as what is used in our buildings in the US where people work. All apartments have them. The school furnished the bottles. When I was out of water, I would let the man at the school know and he would bring another. On the top of the stand, you would turn the bottle over and put the neck in first to let the water down into the stand. There were two levers below to let out either hot or cold water. There was a heater on the one side to heat water. There wasn’t actually cold water on the other side, it would be room temperature.
The living room was good sized, a big window to look out of, couch, TV and a small table in front of the couch. It was just like any place that my Chinese friends lived in. Mine was actually bigger than some of the apartments that my Chinese friends had. The heater was in the bedroom. It was the only heater in the apartment. It was a heater/AC combination. It wasn’t big enough to heat the whole apartment. The first winter there was colder than normal. I would shut the doors to the bathroom, kitchen and spare room. When I would go out or to classes, I shut the heater off in the bedroom. There were three or four little space heaters that I used in the living room. Without any heater on in the living room, it got down to 50 degrees. With the space heaters going, I could get it 62-65 degrees. It would take some time to warm it up. I would sit there watching TV or movies wearing long underwear, pants, a winter coat and a stocking cap. The buildings are made of cement and didn't have insulation in them. I bought a DVD player during the winter. DVD’s were very cheap; they could be anywhere from fifty cents to one dollar. Many of them were pirated. I would sit in the living room and watch movies so I needed some heat in there. That’s just the way things were, I didn’t think anything of it. I just adapted. I was told that people would wear long underwear from October to April.
Spring comes sooner there than here. It can be in the 70’s and 80’s in April. The further north you went, like in Beijing, they had insulation and heaters in their places like we do in the US.
I thought someone said that the winter of 2002-2003 was one of the coldest winters in 100 years. We didn’t have much snow. Where Luoyang is located, some winters have snow and some don't. When there is snow, it isn't much and it can melt the same day. The apartments in Luoyang aren’t built like they are here in the US because usually it is not as cold there. The windows are thin and not tight like here.
I had to dust my apartment often being the windows weren’t tight. In the kitchen, there was ice on both sides of the windows. Pretty designs, I have pictures of it. The buildings are made of cement so when they get cold, along with the floors, the apartment is really cold until March and April when it gets warmer. Even with opening the windows when it gets warmer, it takes maybe three weeks for the cement to warm up. I always wore heavy socks and shoes and I always had something to put my feet on to keep them off of the floor. There was tile but underneath is cement and that was very cold. If I had a pop to drink, I could just sit it on the floor and it would stay cold. It was comfortable in the bedroom because of the heater in there. If I would turn the heater on and close the door, I could get it up to 70 degrees. The second winter was much nicer, more like normal. If what I described doesn't sound good, it was fine. I just adapted. It was no big deal.
There was a wash machine for my clothes. No dryer. No one had dryers. It would cost too much to run them. People just hung their clothes up in their apartment or out on the balcony to dry depending what time of the year it was. Even though I was taught how to use the washer, it still took time to get it all figured out. It was a front loader. I had never used one of those before. As for drying, I had an open balcony, it was not enclosed with windows. There was a door in the bedroom that I could go out onto the balcony. There was a rope across the balcony to hang the clothes on. Even though the clothes would dry faster if there was a wind, that was not the time to hang clothes out because there would be dust in the air from construction. During the winter, I would hang the clothes and towels in the bedroom on different things like chairs, the doors on the closet and whatever else there was and then turn the heater on and used the fan to blow the air around and they would dry. Again, I just adapted and made things work. Here in the US, we are very spoiled with all of our conveniences. They are nice but we pay dearly to use them. If we hung our clothes outside to dry instead of using a dryer, it would cost less and our clothes would smell nicer but we want them done now.
Justin was on the sixth floor, the top floor. There wasn’t another apartment above him and he had three sides open to the outside. He was on the end of the building. I had an apartment above me and one on two sides - big difference. I thought my apartment was cold, but his was really cold. He had three bedrooms and two heaters. The heaters were in two of the bedrooms and weren’t big enough to warm the whole apartment. It would have been nice for both of us to have a heater in the living rooms.
During the winter, I know that his apartment was at least ten degrees colder than mine. In the summer, it was hotter with the sun beating down on that top floor. The floor in his shower was flat, it didn’t slant toward the drain at all so he had to push all of the water to the drain. It was so cold in his kitchen that his water pipes would freeze sometimes. He could put groceries on the kitchen floor and they would stay frozen. He didn’t have to use the refrigerator. That’s cold.
But like I said before, we adapted and made it work. No big deal. How many Americans could do that and adapt to the conditions? Could they leave their comfortable homes and life and adapt to living there and the culture? The Chinese people had the same exact apartments and lived in the same conditions as Justin and I did. That's how life was. No problem, just adapt. I never gave it a second thought and never ever regretted being there. We had the most wonderful friends anyone could want and that made life very good there.
We had internet, not as fast as now of course. It was through the phone line. It was really nice to be able to have it to look up things and stay in touch with the outside world. I could read the news from back home. Not many people that I knew back home had internet at that time so now and then I would write letters to them to let them know what it was like. It was difficult to call back to the US. I couldn’t get phone cards like here, they didn’t have many minutes, maybe thirty minutes or less.
At that time, YouTube and Facebook were blocked by the government. It is known as the Great Firewall. The government really watches the internet and what is allowed out to the public.
Chapter 9
Rick’s Apartment at the Number One Foreign Language School
I had a nice apartment. It had two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. There was also an open balcony that I went out to from the bedroom. By open balcony, I mean that it was not enclosed.
This is looking the other way in the living room. The door to the left is the entrance door. The light colored door is the spare room. It was like a storage room. The dark colored door on the right is my bedroom.
Bedroom and computer desk
Looking out into the living room. To the left is the closet.
This is the kitchen. This was the first time that I had ever used a front loading wash machine. Next to the washer is the sink. It only has cold water. I would hook the one hose from the wash machine to the sink faucet to let water into the washer. The hose on the floor goes into the floor drain for draining the water out of the washer. People don’t have clothes dryers. The washer would spin extra to get as much water out of the clothes as possible. The top door on the refrigerator is where the food goes, the bottom door is the freezer.
This is looking the other way in the kitchen. You can see the frig to the left. That is the microwave under the cover on the counter top. To the left is a hotplate. There is bottle gas under it in the cupboard. There is a hood over the hotplate and the exhaust fan would blow out through the blue hose through the window. The two colorful lanterns hanging from the ceiling are the lights.
The bathroom and the shower are one. When I wanted to take a shower, I would just close the door so the water wouldn’t spray out into the living room floor. The floor had a little slant to it so the water would run to the drain. I had a squeegee to help the water go towards the drain. I would wipe the floor up with a towel and point the fan into the bathroom and the floor would be dry in minutes. That’s how it was done. I adapted. No problem. The toilet seat was being repaired, that is why it is gone. To the upper left is the hot water heater and you can see the shower head.
You can see the sink to the left. That has cold water. The only hot water was from the hot water heater for the shower. If I wanted hot water for the sinks, I would take water out of the hot water heater and put some in a pail and fill the sink. No problem.
The picture above is my balcony outside of my bedroom. This is how I would dry my clothes when the weather was good. Even if it was warm and windy outside, sometimes I would have to hang the clothes inside because with all of the construction that goes on in the city, the wind may blow dust and dirt in the air and get on the clothes so I would just dry them inside. I had a fan and I would use that. It was no problem at all. I was very happy to have a clothes washer to clean my clothes with.
When it was cold outside, I would hang clothes in the bedroom and turn the heater on and I had the fan on high and oscillating so that would dry the clothes.
The pictures below are beautiful ice designs on the windows in my kitchen. Aren’t they pretty? The winter of 2002-2003 was really cold for the area where Luoyang is. The windows in the apartments were thin and not real tight. In summer and when the weather was nice, I would have to dust my apartment quite often because of the dust that could get in when I left the windows open. By the way, the ice on the windows-it is on both the inside and the outside. Look at the bright side, no one could look in.
Really beautiful and detailed
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