What is your favorite travel memory?
A travel experience that I will never forget is when I trekked for eight days through the Himalayan foothills from Lugu Lake in Yunnan to the Yading Nature Reserve in Sichuan. We crossed several mountain ranges and traversed a variety of ecosystems that led us to the Tibetan Plateau, making the scenery beautifully rich and diverse. We camped in nomadic yak pastures, abandoned villages, and isolated Tibetan villages with the Milky Way sweeping across the sky above. The most difficult aspect was near the end of the trek when I encountered high altitude sickness for the first time at 5000m (16,404 feet). My favorite part was picking wild mushrooms along the way and eating them in a stew each evening over a campfire.
What do you believe to be the biggest factor in being a successful company?
The biggest factor in being a successful company is giving employees space and trust to be independent and creative. New, innovative ideas often come from fresh minds who are either new to the company, or have the agency to control their own work and time. Micromanaging stifles development and growth, something that WildChina Education does not need to worry about.
How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?
I've grown in a number of ways since working at WildChina. One area where I've grown is in the Asia knowledge. I've accumulated substantial amounts of information on China's travel hotspots and obscure destinations, which I find massively useful for both work and personal travel. Did you know that China once hosted a large population of Jewish refugees from Russia and Europe primarily beginning in the late 1800's? Check out the Jewish Heritage Tour (a program that I heavily researched and designed!) on our website.
Describe a time when you felt especially proud to be part of your current team.
The time where I felt especially proud to be a part of the WildChina Education team was when the entire staff flew down together to lead a sustainability-themed travel week in Zhejiang. It was a weeklong 100-person program with daily workshops, full-day hikes, and multiple outdoor activities. I worked together with a fellow tour leader to teach full-day sustainability workshops. Other staff who were leading other activities would bring along the next batch of students who had just come from hiking or rafting, ready for the next round of activities. It felt like we were all in-sync, a well-oiled machine, which stems from working closely with each other on countless numbers of trips. Can't forget that WildChina's 15 years of experience in educational travel is also a big proponent in our good work. I was proud of the team for putting their heart and soul not only in this trip, but every trip we lead for WildChina.
What is the best story you've heard from a return student?
A number of our students are megacity dwellers and rarely get the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. I remember clearly one student who detested bugs and did not like hiking. The trip she attended had a full-day nature trek which added up to over 10km where students had to scale two small mountains. It was a tough hike! She screamed at insects, as well as complained about her feet and how dirty everything along the way. She thought she couldn't make it, but kept trudging along. Her teacher shared with me her feedback post-trip, and it read along the lines of: "You know, bugs aren't all that scary" and "I didn't know I could walk that far! All you have to do is look down, keep walking, and believe in yourself." This is what I live for...teaching youth to love nature.