From June 28th to July 13th, Yan Huang, the Upper School Mandarin Teacher, led Avery Rosen ‘25 and two former students to China to explore everything from schooling to traditional Chinese culture, hosted by the businessmen and government officials of China.
In November of 2023, President Xi Jinping approved the exchange of 50,000 US students to China in hopes of strengthening relations with the USA. The trip was made possible with connections made by Yan and others while on a separate trip to the Chinese Embassy in New York City. “We learned this information from the new year’s consulate,” Yan said. “We brought students to attend and they passed out this information to us. We were lucky and because our students were strong and had my recommendation, they all got into the program.”
Students visited five different cities, going as far west as the Great Wall and as far east as Shanghai. “We went to five different cities, Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai… Climbing the Great Wall was pretty cool.” Avery said. Learning came in many different ways, which is demonstrated by the mix of in-person learning and cultural immersion. “Especially going to the schools, where they would partner us up with a Chinese kid who obviously had a bunch of different interests than us.”
This trip enhances Friends Select’s current exchange and travel programs, adding an entirely new region to its offerings, and with a new country comes entirely new experiences.“We would make some traditional fan art,” Avery said, “One day we learned about and tested different ancient Chinese teas or another day we would go to their gym and play traditional Chinese games, so we kind of just learned about everything.”
While Avery and Yan certainly enjoyed their trip, certain moments and activities stood out the most, both good and bad. “My favorite part was definitely Hangzhou, the city, because of the light show there on the famous west Hangzhou lake,” Avery stated. “The food was really good overall. I did get food poisoning once… It was one bad lunch, but other than that, everything was pretty great. I definitely missed places like Chipotle though.”
Yan mentions that she hopes to participate in this program again in the future and is currently seeking active Mandarin students who would like to learn more about China.
