Quince Rojas
Sophomore, Durham School of the Arts
Before embarking on this journey, I had a few ideas in my mind about what to expect– I ended up being proven completely wrong. I had visited China before; however, I had never travelled or lived there by myself, and I had never been to Hunan Province, despite my mom’s family being from there. I was expecting Zhuzhou to be relatively small and rural– compared to Durham, at least– and for the school(s) to be a lot less fortunate or big. I was sorely mistaken. Zhuzhou was a bustling city, and the schools were huge, filled with resources we did not have and students eager to learn. I was initially motivated to do this program because I thought it could be an interesting experience; something that I had never done before. Though I was admittedly pretty nervous about going– I was going to be in an unfamiliar place with people I barely knew– but I was also excited because I knew that no matter what, I was challenging myself and was sure to make it a good experience.
One part of the adventure that took some adjusting to was the huge culture shock that came with living at a Chinese high school. For one, sharing a dorm room smaller than my bedroom at home with four other girls seemed daunting– apart from some mosquito issues– we lived together well. I could not wrap my head around the Chinese high schoolers’ daily lives: having their first class at 7 am and not finishing the school day until 10 pm seemed like an impossible way to live. But on the contrary, the students at Zhuzhou No. 2 High School thrived academically and were also very interesting, well-rounded individuals. Our day-to-day routines while in Zhuzhou usually started with getting breakfast at the school canteen and then heading over to the administration building for our morning meeting. Then, we had some time to refine our lesson plans and prepare for class, or just spend time with one another. We played badminton and pickleball almost every day; sometimes with each other, sometimes with local students. Every day we had one or two classes to teach, and then we had dinner together. Before the trip, I was nervous about spending so much time with people I didn’t really know, but it was really easy to become close with everyone.
Teaching is something that, prior to this trip, I had basically no experience with. So, it’s safe to say I was pretty unsure of how teaching English every day to kids who had limited knowledge of the language would go. However, it ended up being one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of the experience. My teammate, Si, and I had prepared a couple of lessons before we left, but honestly, we had no idea how classes would really go. Over the course of two weeks, we taught elementary, middle, and high school students, all with vastly different levels of English skills and learning styles. This really required us to learn how to adapt quickly and improvise. We ended up having to create a whole new lesson plan while we were there and scrap one that we had made back in Durham. Also, depending on how students reacted to the lesson, we sometimes had to just create a new lesson in real time during class, like if students seemed like they were not really understanding or engaging with the material we had prepared. It was a lot of fun to teach these kids because they were all so eager to learn and talk to us. They were so curious about our lives back in Durham and who we were. I remember the first day of teaching, when Si and I sat in on Nathaniel, Andrea, and Jake’s first class while we waited for our time to teach, and as soon as the bell rang and class ended, kids everywhere started swarming all of us and asking for our autographs and WeChats.
Choosing to become a part of the Thousand Mile Initiative Team has brought me so much joy and has taught me so much about the world and about myself. Stepping out of my comfort zone to go to another country with mostly strangers and taking on the daunting task of teaching classes of 30 or 40 Chinese students of all ages has helped me grow as an individual– I feel more responsible, capable of adapting, and knowledgeable– as well as helped me make so many new friends, especially with people I would have never crossed paths with otherwise, and unforgettable memories that I will cherish for life. If you are considering doing this program, I definitely recommend it.
Leonardo Gao
Junior, East Chapel Hill High School
Hello, my name is Leonardo Gao and I am happy to say that The Thousand Miles Initiative group and our trip to ZhuZhou no.2 High School was a wonderful and very educational experience. Once again, a large group of American students with the program were able to create strong, long-lasting bonds with one another as well as with the Chinese students, revel in the beauty of Chinese culture, gain valuable teaching experience, and (perhaps most importantly) taste amazing food.
What we were able to witness once again this year was a plethora of outstanding moments of connection between cultures that are on opposite sides of the globe, as students were able to converse and share their motivations, interests, and ideas. For example, Chinese students often came to our dorms to speak openly with us. Through these conversations we were able to learn so much about one another, and I found that it was incredibly meaningful. We saw how Chinese students stressed about school work, joked around, spent their leisure time, and were genuinely curious about our group. In turn, we shared how we stressed about work, joked around, spent our free time, and dove into and educated ourselves on Chinese culture. This small two weeks of cultural exchange allowed our group to create amazing connections between these two cultures.
A notable experience that I got to experience during our time in China was our trip to Zhang Jia Jie national park. I was surprised with just how beautiful the scenery was. On the first day, we were able to visit the famous 1000 step “Stairway to heaven” on Tianmen mountain, which was incredible. With the mountains of Zhangjiajie being so tall, and the area being moist and rainy, there was a lot of mist in the area, which made everything look magical. The second day, we visited a different mountain which was also incredible. This mountain also had monkeys, which were fun to look at and take pictures of. It was truly just an amazing experience that I would recommend to anyone who wishes to visit China.
Teaching the students this year presented an unique challenge as there were three different groups that required different lesson plans to be made. With us teaching middle schoolers with only 2 years of English practiced, each group had to adapt to make sure that the lessons went fluidly. This situation also allowed us to interact with different age groups of Chinese students which was pretty meaningful. I noticed how the younger students were more openly curious while older students often were more shy.
I am incredibly glad to have gone on this trip to ZhuZhou. I greatly appreciate the time I spent with both the Chinese students and my teammates. I have once again learnt so much through my time here, and have formed amazing friendships between my American peers and Chinese students. This is an incredibly once in a lifetime experience that I would very much recommend.
Kieran Rooney
Sophomore, Durham School of the Arts
Hello my name is Kieran Rooney and I have many positive things to say about both the Thousand Mile Initiative and the China trip in general. To say this is a great experience to meet native chinese students (many of which being the same age as students on the trip) is an understatement. I am still in contact with many friends from China (and I made MANY friends on my trip to China) and message them daily. The experience from teaching is incredibly beneficial as well, I know I (as well as many others) have much more appreciation for the teachers at our schools. Teaching is surprisingly challenging and trying to keep students entertained is often a losing battle, however the students are incredibly kind and try their hardest to understand what we are saying. Many of the students did not understand English very well, adding a new layer of challenge to the teaching experience.Yet the students still filled all the time that we allotted to questions.
The trip to Zhangjiajie was beautiful and insightful. China is very different from America however you can still draw parallels to America when looking at stores and people and I think no place represents this better than Zhangjiajie. In America we have our own Canyons, however none like Zhangjiajie. The pillars of rock are covered in grass leave remnants of the old ocean that used to flow through Zhangjiajie. The monkeys inside the canyon are reminiscent of us people and are incredibly cute. The mountain and canyon as a whole make the mountain one of the most incredible landmarks I’ve ever seen and I’m very happy I was able to take part on this journey.
The trip to Kunshan was awesome as we got to see the “industrial factories” of China. Kunshan is a large exporter of electronics (as well as baked coffee beans oddly enough) which China is most notably known for. The people we met in Kunshan were very accommodating and gave us free meals and housing every night. Kunshan was also the first place we saw China’s gigantic malls with the mall connected to our hotel being 9 floors tall. The food, tea, coffee, and ice cream we had there was very good and had unique flavors we don’t see much in America (such as grapefruit coffee or Lychee ice cream). The architecture in Kunshan was also very notable with many buildings towering over others and an underground mall in the town square. From there we left China and took the flight back to the States. I want to re-iterate that this was an incredible trip with beautiful scenery and incredibly nice people we met across China. Thank you to Sister Cities of China, Mark, Tracy, and Wink Wang (he’s the best) for allowing us to take this trip and for chaperoning.
* Kieran is the producer of our 2026 team recap video.
Isaiah Grigoni
Sophomore, Durham School of the Arts
My experience with the Thousand Mile Initiative is not one I’ll ever forget. Before joining the program, I had never traveled internationally. I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to travel outside of the U.S. at such an early age. This past June, I eagerly left the states for the first time and landed in Zhuozhou, China, with 15 other high school students. We were all complete strangers, but we quickly fell into a deep companionship, bonded through the excitement of new experiences. Every small thing about China, at least for me, was exhilarating. The atmosphere was unlike anywhere I could compare to back home. Every day was new and just as exciting as the first. It was really just an enjoyable and fun experience. Even days that were simple, just hanging out and being there, was great. I would definitely recommend the program to anybody who wants to travel and experience a new culture firsthand.
Xuanze Fan
Freshman, Green Level High School
The Thousand Mile Initiative was really fun and interesting for me. I had gone to China for the past 2 entire summers so the lifestyle in China wasn’t very shocking to me. What was new for me though was the little things in their day to day life, like the way they talk to what they eat, were all very foreign to me because I have always lived in the North of China, so experiencing what it was like in the south was very fresh for me. Interacting with the students was my favorite part of the experience. They were all so enthusiastic and eager to talk to us that after class they would often swarm us asking for autographs. They all asked similar questions such as, “How long do you spend on homework everyday?”, and they would all scream in unison when I told them that I usually didn’t have homework. In the end, I think this trip was extremely thrilling for me and I would definitely sign up again next year.
Nathaniel Ye
Junior, Cary Academy
The trip to Zhuzhou No. 2 High School was an extremely fulfilling one. Since this was my second time back, I felt that I was able to do more. Our teaching group was not only able to create new bonds with the students, but we were also able to strengthen old ones, creating even more connections between our two groups. I hope that in the future this program will not only continue this exchange of culture between students, but also the friendships that we have made that will last far beyond the trip.
Cheyou Liu
Freshman, Green Level High School
The Thousand Mile Initiative was a wonderful and eye opening experience that allowed me, as well as many others, to experience and learn about other cultures and meet new people. Although I’ve previously been to China before to visit relatives, I hadn’t been able to socialize and talk to people my own age in China, this program provided me with the opportunity to do so. Teaching in Zhuzhou was absolutely delightful! The kids were very heartwarming and welcoming, and showed great interest in us as a whole, and were especially curious about our lives in America, as well as trying their best to learn and understand what we were teaching them. However, we had overestimated their English skills- and had to spend a considerable amount of time tweaking our lesson plans and explaining our lessons in Chinese. It dawned on us that there might be some words that they just simply didn’t know, so we decided to explain in English and then switch to Chinese so anyone that didn’t understand could. Overall, this trip was very eye-opening, and was a wondrous way to spend my summer.
Andrea Ye
Sophomore, Cary Academy
Our team’s trip to ZhuZhou was a really amazing experience. Though we travelled to China to teach the students there, all of us from North Carolina learned even more from our stay and the Chinese students we met while there. We were able to experience the residential life of a Chinese high school, share the interests and hobbies of Chinese high school students, and make friends with our counterparts who live on the opposite side of the globe. Nowadays, I feel that everyone feels increasingly disconnected from people who live in a different country; we are quick to label them as others, preventing us from recognizing the humanity in those who really aren’t so different from ourselves. Our program allowed us to discover that, despite the multitudes of differences across our cultures and lifestyles, we are still undeniably similar.
Though I’m usually afraid of speaking in front of large crowds, I really enjoyed teaching our lessons about American culture to those classrooms, each filled with fifty excited students. Day after day, I learned to second-guess myself less, even if I did make errors in my explanations, and in doing so, I was able to connect with our students more; the more open and expressive we were, the more engaged the students were, and the more excited they would be to ask questions and learn about us.
Catherine Lund
Junior, Cary Academy
I had a wonderful time throughout this teaching experience and learned many new things. I am so grateful I got the opportunity to teach Chinese students, as well as learn from them what their life is like in China.
Henry Hubbell *
Junior, Durham School of the Arts
This trip presented me with an expirience like no other, allowing me to interact with students in china, and teach them about America and our culture at the same time. I am really thankful for all of the people I met on this trip, and for all the miles I traveled for this trip.
* Henry is the producer of our 2026 team recap video.