My Trip to China Summer 2024
China was never on my bucket list. So when my friend Chesley Hemysfield reached out and said she was going on a free trip to China, my ears perked up because of my love for international travel. Aaron and I love to take a trip every summer to get out of town and to find new inspiration from other cultures. We too decided to apply to go on this all-expenses paid adventure called “Exploring the Wonders of China”. We were asked by leadership to document the trip as filmmakers and photographers. I rallied a few friends that I knew might be interested in joining us— one of which is my dear friend and filmmaker Virginia Tucker; Aaron’s best friend from high school (and also filmmaker) Robert Casiello; two students from Love Acting, Jordan Mathers and Marisa Miranda. We all set off across many oceans to explore the wonders of China together.
Before we left, I asked writer/director Virginia Tucker to write us a short film that we could make on our journey with two characters, something basic that we could easily make and shoot. We ended up shooting it throughout the trip and it was so much fun.
When I left, I was looking forward to trying all the foods, meeting all the people, and learning about Chinese culture, and I was thoroughly impressed with the Chinese people and their generosity and kindness. Even though most of them could not speak English, we found a way to communicate through WeChat (a translation app) and also through non-verbal communication.
One of my highlights was getting to go to an orphanage located near Jinan, and I got to teach the kids an acting class using non-verbal exercises and dance to have some fun. We also explored the Daming Lake in Jinan with its beautiful weeping willows that blew in the wind despite the blanket of immense humidity that rested on the city of Jinan while we were there.
We met lots of students at one of Jinan’s most popular international schools where they got to practice their English with us and show us their many talents through a talent show. I quickly fell in love with the sweet students that we met in every location that we went to. They constantly asked for pictures with us as if we were celebrities.
We learned about the spiritual importance of Mount Tai in Chinese culture in the Shandong province. We also took a gondola up to the top of Mount Tai and then got to hike to see the epic views from the top of the mountain. Also in Jinan they brought us to an acupuncture and herb Chinese medicine school and farm where we were able to smell the herbs and buy healing teas.
During my time in China I went to three or four formal dinners where there were many courses and lots of Chinese beer called Tsingtoa beer. We ate lots of pecking duck and were spoiled with amazing soups and donkey meat. The generosity of these fancy meals has marked my palette forever. Aaron and I gained ten pounds each while we were there, not wanting to miss out on the amazing cuisine we were offered and we’d look at each other and laugh and say, “We’ll cut back when we get home!”. I’ve actually been gluten-free for seven years but while I was in China, i was able to eat the gluten without any problems.
The finale of the trip was climbing the Great Wall of China in Beijing, where we had to climb up hundreds of steps to get to the tenth level in order to look out over the whole wall. Aaron and I both would have trained for this if we’d known how hard it was going to be but the climb was rite of passage and made us feel like heroes. The guides told us that if we make it to the tenth level then we can consider ourselves heroes and we certainly did.
China, even though you weren’t on my bucket list, you were full of beauty, friendly faces, a rich culture, and amazing cuisine that I will never forget.
