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Hong Kong harbour and skyline, seen from Victoria Peak on a rainy night of June 2019.

In June, the Friends Select Upper School is providing students with an opportunity to travel to China. FSS is partnering with ACIS, a company that does educational travel trips, with which they worked last year for the Spain trip. Yan Huang, the US Mandarin teacher and organizer of this trip, introduced the itinerary in a Devotions announcement. The schedule is packed with amazing experiences such as city tours, temple visits, a Peking Duck dinner, and even a Kung Fu show.

During the 12 days in China, students will travel to five major cities via airplane and high-speed trains. They will indulge in cultural foods and experience other aspects of Chinese culture, such as bamboo rafting, fan making, and ink brush painting. One of the highlights is the Panda Care program in Chengdu, where students will be able to get hands-on experience volunteering at the Panda Breeding Base. In China’s capital, Beijing, there will be a cultural exchange with local students at a village school to learn about the evolution and modernization of the Chinese education system. In addition, students will visit the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and the Terracotta Warriors.

When asked about the process of organizing this trip, Yan said, “My wish is for the students to better understand the Chinese culture and the diverse regions. So, I planned for the group to go to two new cities: Hong Kong and Guilin.” Hong Kong is the first destination, where students will get a morning tour of the floating community at Aberdeen, take a ferry to stroll along the waterfront of Kowloon, and visit the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Next, the group will take the high-speed train to Guilin, a city known for its unique scenery, to view its beautiful sights like Reed Flute Cave and Elephant Trunk Hill. Yan, apart from the Panda Care program, is most excited about going to Hong Kong. She explains, “Although I have been there myself, I haven’t taken students there yet.”

Finally, Yan expressed complications with the cost when planning this trip. She “really wanted to go to a lot of places,” but the cost limited the schedule. Yan said, “I sent a lot of emails to the travel agency to try and lower the cost of the trip so more students will be able to go. However, everything is very expensive, even the plane tickets. It’s very conflicting. When going to China, you can’t just go to one or two places, so I spent a lot of time on this.”

Chris Singler, the Upper School Director, explains, “The school sets aside ample [financial] resources to enable as many students to travel as possible.” He said that Friends Select believes that “having experiences in another country, especially tied to the study of languages, is essential for being a citizen of the world.”