Earlier this month, Wei Chen of the Shanghai World Foreign Language Academy paid a two-week visit to Harker for this year’s teacher exchange with Harker. An English teacher at SWFLA, Chen visited the lower, middle and upper school campuses during his visit, viewing several English and Mandarin classes at each campus.

While at the lower school, Chen taught students about extracurricular activities at SWFLA, as well as other aspects of life in China, including food and holidays. He also brought letters and poems written by his students at SWFLA. The Harker students happily wrote responses to the letters from their friends overseas. “[My students] were super curious about everything – about my trip to Harker, about the United States and about peers of their own age,” Chen said. “I was really glad that the Harker students offered to share so many things about their school and their life and themselves.”

Chen spent the second week of his visit at the upper school, where he taught Mandarin in Xiuyu Gao’s and Shaun Jahshan’s classes, sat in on several English classes and cheered on the girls volleyball team. Not one to squander a trip to California, Chen made time on weekends to visit places including Napa and San Francisco, where he ventured to Chinatown and Coit Tower. “It was really amazing to see get a bird’s view of the whole city of San Francisco from the top of the tower,” he said.