Disillusioned with practicing law, Patrick Nohrden quit his Las Vegas law practice and moved to China where he taught English at Bohai University.  Upon returning to Las Vegas two years later, he worked in law only long enough to earn his teaching license and eventual a Master’s Degree in Teaching.  His thesis focused on Chinese education.  After teaching American students he again went overseas, teaching British literature in Kuwait for a year before returning to China where he taught English literature to Chinese students in a Canadian program for another two years.

Disillusioned with practicing law, Patrick Nohrden quit his Las Vegas law practice and moved to China where he taught English at Bohai University.  Upon returning to Las Vegas two years later, he worked in law only long enough to earn his teaching license and eventual a Master’s Degree in Teaching.  His thesis focused on Chinese education.  After teaching American students he again went overseas, teaching British literature in Kuwait for a year before returning to China where he taught English literature to Chinese students in a Canadian program for another two years.

Pat Nohrden wrote The Crystal Monkey (2014: Cedar Fort Publications) and Min Li’s Perfect Place (2022: The Conrad Press) and has published approximately thirty articles on the culture and politics of China, several articles on the Middle East and Russia, as well as academic articles in Modern English Teacher Magazine.  Pat is currently working on his next book, a nonfiction, A Peek Through the Bamboo Curtain.

Pat is a passionate student of modern Chinese history, particularly during the period 1966-1976 known as the Cultural Revolution.  Both The Crystal Monkey and Min Li’s Perfect Place are partly based upon his wife whose early years were spent watching her mother working on an agricultural production team before becoming a subsistence farmer, a woman with boundless energy and spirit who personally experience the deprivations of the Cultural Revolution.

Pat Nohrden earned a B.A. in English Honors at San Jose State University, his J.D. degree at the University of Akron, and his M.A. Degree in Teaching Secondary English at Sierra Nevada University. 

His Books

Click either image above to learn more about The Crystal Monkey or Min Li’s Perfect Place