Chinese II students Benjamin Ren ’24 and Christopher Robertson ’24 and World Languages Teacher Bin He designed a field trip to 99 Ranch Market in San Gabriel to explore Chinese culture, collect auspicious symbols and Chinese radicals and interview the store staff about cultural diversity April 26.

He said the class visited the store during Chinese New Year, and during the trip, they tried to learn more about cultural symbols with the purpose of better understanding Chinese culture.

“The purpose of this trip was to help the kids better understand the cultural differences and to implement their Chinese reading and speaking skills,” He said.

He said they had a Q&A session with the store owner, after which the students presented their discoveries at school. He said he was happily surprised with the amount of information the students collected.

“[The students’ findings] exceeded my expectations,” He said. “They collected an extra amount of pictures than their requirement and I really enjoyed the trip.”

Robertson said the trip was a success and that the students could have stayed even longer than they did.

“I think everyone in the class enjoyed the trip, and we definitely learned a bit about Chinese food and culture,” Robertson. “To be honest, I was initially a little worried that the allotted two hours at the store would have been too long. However, it ended up all working out. The time we had at the store was just barely enough, and I think that the class could have stayed even longer at the store. The trip was great and I hope that future Chinese II classes might be able to repeat it in the future.”

Attendee Alexandra Kurz ’24 said she enjoyed learning more about Asian culture and the wide variety of Asian foods and delicacies.

“I learned more about Asian culture and the mass variety of their delicious foods and delicacies,” Kurz said. “Finally getting to see what I learn in class in an actual life scenario was enlightening.”