[This entry completes our cousin Rick's journal on his time in China and how deeply it changed his life and outlook. Thank you for reading his thoughts and journeys. We miss him tremendously.]
If I made a list of all of my friends and all of the things that they did for me, there would be so many pages for just this topic. Throughout this journal, I talk about people that I did things with and what we did. There are pictures that show them and what we did. To someone reading this, it wouldn’t mean anything, only to me and my friends. I know who my dear friends are and what they did for me. I will never forget.
Both times that I was in Luoyang, I had the most wonderful Chinese friends that anyone could want. All of the people that I met were so wonderful to me. Going out to eat, showing me where and how to shop. Teaching me about the culture. They taught me what buses to take, we would go out to eat at many different restaurants so I could eat different kinds of food. I went mountain climbing several times and traveling.
They tried to teach me how to make dumplings. I tried it many times but I am afraid that I failed. I had no problems with using chopsticks but I didn’t do well with making dumplings. I would put the ingredient’s, either meat or vegetables, into the little wrapper, which is made of dough. When I would squeeze the wrapper together so the ingredient’s wouldn’t come out, I didn’t squeeze it right and some of the ingredient’s would come out. My excuse was that my fingers were too big and when I would squeeze the wrapper it would stretch out and wouldn’t stay together. When they were cooked, the wrapper came apart, the insides came out and that would ruin the dumpling of course. Everyone could tell the dumplings that the foreigner had made.
My friends helped with so many things and it made my experience and life there better. It was very wonderful. Because of them, I see China as my second home.
When any of the teachers were chosen to come here to La Crosse to teach, I tried to do anything that I could for them and to be as nice to them as they had been to me.
To this day, I stay in touch with many of the people that I met there including a few of my students. I love my Chinese friends, I miss them.
To my dear Chinese friends. Thank you for everything that you did for me. I will never forget you. You taught me so many things. You took such good care of me from the beginning. You took me shopping, taught me what buses to take, gave me rides. We went out to eat at wonderful places and I came to love the Chinese food.
Went mountain climbing, showed me beautiful places, taught me about your culture and all kinds of things. I was invited to many weddings and learned how you do things in your culture compared to how we do things in ours. To this day, I don't know why anyone at a wedding would want to look at a foreigner when there are those beautiful Chinese brides there. I always thought they were much prettier than I was. I can never thank you enough for all of the things that you did for me.
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