La Vida has continued their partnership this year with The Hutong and Concordia International School of Shanghai by offering the second La Vida trip as part of Concordia’s educational travel component. This year the trip was led by Joel Cox ’16 who has served the La Vida Center in various capacities. He has led our summer Adirondack Expeditions, facilitated at the Challenge Course, taught Discovery, and given rock climbing lessons in our rock gym. We were very excited when he accepted the offer to lead this trip in China! He led alongside Simon and Jun who are trip guides with The Hutong.
Joel sent us a few quick thoughts as he wrapped up the trip. Here’s what he had to say:
“I’m back in Beijing after a week in the woods. There’s a ton to cover with the trip, but I’ll keep it to a few specific ideas.
The haphazardness of China: The first morning here I explored the city with Jun and Simon. Almost everything I saw was so different than anything I’ve seen in Europe or the US. I would try to point it all out to Jun and Simon but they were used to it and didn’t seem that phased. I saw a guy with a spear and a cow bell walking down the road. The driving here makes Massachusetts look like a peaceful suburb. People pass you with just inches to spare. We rented bikes and cruised around, dodging huge buses, people, motobikes, rickshaw contraptions, and policemen. It felt like Frogger in real life. People in the park were playing a Chinese stringed instrument. One young girl wore a shirt that said, “Beneath this mustache lies a handsome man”. I loved just watching that somehow everything in the city works despite the seeming chaos. So cool!
This trip was challenging in that with typical La Vida trips, I’m able to have a good amount of control over the trip itinerary and the lessons as well. But this time, since I didn’t know the area, I had to defer to Simon and Jun’s judgment as to how best handle the actual trip logistics. I ended up settling in to a role of trying to have one-on-one interactions with all the students and also teach the La Vida curriculum lessons and devos as best I could. That was an awesome challenge and humbled me as well. I was pretty dependent on Simon and Jun’s knowledge and would have struggled without their guidance on the trail. There are no real trail maps of the mountains we were in, so I had to trust the other guides. With that being said, I loved being able to lead devo times with the students, especially with the beautiful backdrop of the Chinese mountains. The students were pretty responsive even though they came from a wide-range of religious backgrounds.
This trip really reinforced the idea that third culture kids are incredibly adaptable. All of these students were some type of TCK, and they seemed incredibly relaxed about anything that happened during the trip. Some wild donkeys visited while the kids were doing their solos, and they just would pet the donkeys and then move on. I never had to wake them up, they would just get up with the sun, start cooking breakfast and pack up camp without being told. They could push themselves on the hike, and I never heard any of them complain. Watching them, I was able to think more about being a missionary kid and how that has deeply shaped how I operate. I often want to ignore it and act as if I’m like any other American, but I think interacting with these students helped me accept more of how international experience is part of my identity.”
Joel is now off to Nepal to take part in a 40-day wilderness leader training. He will return to the North Shore after that, and we hope to see his continued involvement in the La Vida programs.