Freshmen Return From Their Journey

The ninth grade China Trip was by far one of the most exhilarating trips this year’s freshmen had experienced. The freshmen, at the beginning of the trip, were not as eager to travel to Qingyuan due to some of the disdainful rumors spread about the trip, but all of these rumors were later dissolved once the ninth graders actually got to experience the trip for themselves. As the trip progressed, you could see the excitement building up by the hour.

One aspect of the trip that the freshmen seemed happiest about was spending time with friends and collaborating with others during activities. This greatly added to the energetic atmosphere of China Trips. For instance, during the Dragonfly Challenge this year, the freshmen could charge through the activity area chanting their team name together and socializing with one another. Sadly, most of the groups doing this had a lot of challenge points deducted from them. The dragonfly challenge pushed the students to work with teammates in order to complete the challenges.

No challenge could be solved individually which required everyone to participate and give equal input into the completion of the activity. In addition to the Dragonfly Challenge, other activities required some degree of teamwork, which involved giving support to your group members, doing a fair share of work, and solving problems together. During rock climbing, students had to support those who were not as comfortable with climbing; during caving, students had to work together to find the way through the cave and during camping, each person had to do his or her part to help build the tent, whether it be collecting materials, planning the structure of the tent, or helping tie the structure of the tent together. Teamwork is an essential skill for students to learn as it is needed in school for projects and will be a useful skill in the future. China Trips pointed out the importance of this skill to the freshmen.

While some students believe that there were some unfavorable conditions during the trip, they still managed to retain their enthusiasm. Several of the freshmen were not very pleased with the fact that they had to build their own tents and sleep in open air without tents. Once the students actually started building the tents, the excitement from building their first makeshift tent cleared any worries they had for sleeping in a makeshift tent. Although the students were partially displeased with their tents being blown by the wind, they quickly forgot their grief when they got to experience sleeping under the stars. The camping experience, which most of the freshmen originally dreaded turned out to be the most eventful activity of the year. Sometimes gifts come in soiled wrappers.

Moreover, the freshmen were also able to experience the everyday life of the locals in Qingyuan and give back to the people who provided for the students’ stay in Qingyuan through community service. The freshmen aided farmers in weeding their garden. The amount of work the freshmen did was equivalent to the amount of work the farmers would take two weeks to complete; therefore, the work the students did for the farmers helped them substantially to cope with their work and speed up the production of their crops. As a reward, the freshmen were given some of the crops and a thank you letter written by the farmers. This was a great reminder that small acts of kindness can sometimes help people significantly, and that hard work is always rewarded.

Another community service activity was painting murals at a retirement home. The students brightened the retired locals’ surroundings and persuaded visiting government officials to provide funding for the retirement home if they deem that it has a true motive of helping senior people in the society. This funding could perhaps be used to improve the retirement home’s facilities. “This year’s grade 9’s exceeded the standards of last year.

The work was really appreciated by the elderly folk because the elders this year actually came out of their homes to thank the students for their work on the murals,” commented Mrs.Hawkins. As students being schooled in China, the freshmen should interact with the society, just as they did with the elderly in Qingyuan. Community service activities should teach students to do whatever they can to help the society they are in, especially at AISG.

China Trips is not only about having fun and activities, but it is also about discovering new life skills that can be used in the future. This is why Dragonfly asked students to do activities like farming and camping. While some conditions of the trip may have been uncomfortable, students may encounter such challenges in the future and should perhaps learn to adapt and grow from such challenges.