Trip to China with National Geographic

Student Name	Yasmyn Ntege
Activity Name / Description	China Expedition with National Geographic
Location	China
Was it C, A, S or a combination?	CAS
Hours of CAS	21 days (500 hours)

Over the summer, I was able to venture on a 3-week trip to China with National Geographic, student expeditions. It was really a tremendous experience as over the 21 days, there was always an adventure of sorts. Whether it was spending a whole day travelling to get to one place, or discovering the ancient rich history of China and it’s people, there was always something going on.

In preparation for the trip, I begun a crowd fund account with the help of Mr. Gulam as the fee to attend the trip was, in total, just less than $10000. I was able to raise around $3000 which was quite a lot and was luck to have my parents pay the rest of the amount. Since we were going to do a lot of travelling, we were advised on the best bags to bring and so searching and shopping for these bags and items was also part of the preparation for the 3-week trip.

Landing in Shanghai, I already felt so far from home with people who looked nothing like me pouring from everywhere. It was overwhelming as usually when I travel alone, I am going to Kenya or the UK where I know I will find people of at least a similar culture to mine. I met with the supervisor, Colleen who was American but fluent in Mandarin. I learnt so much from our taxi ride to the hotel and became even more excited for the trip. When we got to the hotel, I met with people who were from the US, Switzerland and Columbia, all of whom had distinct characteristics thus enriching the whole expedition experience. I made plenty of new friends and lots of memories.

Part of why I ventured on this trip was for the photography aspect of it all. As National Geographic is known worldwide for it’s photography, I thought there would be no better way to learn tips from the experts themselves. We were lucky to have Ricky Qi, an official NatGeo photographer as one of our supervisors that took us around China. He was Chinese-American and so was very useful to have around. I learnt a lot of new things about photography and was able to gain a lot of insight about what the audience feels when they see my pictures through the various workshops we had.

One of the challenges I had was being able to adjust to the food. Food is a huge aspect of any country’s culture and I was personally not accustomed to the food eaten in China. I did learn to overcome my hesitance with this regard and actually begun to love Chinese cuisine. On that note, I also learnt that there is not just “Chinese” food but there are so many different sub-cultures within China that there are dozens of specific cuisines. Another challenge I faced was getting used to all the attention that tourists get in China. A lot of the Chinese have never seen black people in real life and so seeing me, they were quick to pull out their cameras to try and get a snap of me to share with their friends and family. At first it was funny and I felt like a celebrity but after a while, it got pretty annoying and I felt like it was such an invasion of privacy. I felt this way especially when it was old Chinese men doing it and staring at not only me but the whole group as well. It was kind of hard being away from home and it was even harder when the means of communication was limited due to China’s strict censorship laws. Getting a VPN was one of the solutions however, it did still have problems working, especially on my phone. But this was not so bad as I was able to fully immerse myself in the trip rather than being distracted by constant communication with family at home.

Throughout the trip we were also able to do a lot of service work. The panda reserve specifically was one of the highlights of my trip as we were able to volunteer with the cleaning of the Panda places which involved scrubbing floors and shoveling poop. We also got a chance to make the food for the panda and feed it to them as well. We also were able to do some tree planting in the forests where the pandas were intended to be released into the wild.

Hiking was a huge part of our trip and I feel that I was able to greatly improve my physical fitness. Whether it were up large hills or getting around the various cities that we visited.

All in all, the trip was an amazing experience that I am so privileged to have embarked on. I learnt a lot about myself and was able to make new friends who could be of use in the future. I also perfected on a skill and hobby I am passionate about (photography) under the mentorship of professionals in the industry. I hope to be able to embark on more trips like this as it really improves self-awareness and maturity.

A FEW PICTURES I TOOK ON THE TRIP:

SUPERVISORS: Ricky Qi & Colleen