Walking the Great Wall of China, Ellie Durkin ’18 was at a loss for words. Walking on a historic piece of Chinese history that also happened to be in one of her favorite Disney movies, “Mulan”, was something she never thought she would be able to do.

“It’s almost surreal because you are in the mountains and everywhere you look is amazing scenery,” Durkin said. “When we got there, our tour guide was telling us some history it sunk in how amazing the wall really is.”

Over spring break, March 27- 31, Durkin, along with 14 other students, five parents and three teachers ventured to China to visit many places, including the Great Wall, Shanghai, Xian and Beijing.

“The trip as a whole was amazing,” Durkin said. “It was definitely a week of my life I will never forget. We crammed so many things into each day and never once did I complain about being tired because it was just so fun.”

In Beijing, the group visited government buildings. In Xian, they looked at the ancient buildings and the Terra-Cotta sculptures, and in Shanghai they saw more culture, Durkin said.

“I went on the trip because I really loved the language as I was learning it,” Durkin said.  “We found out about the trip my sophomore year, and when the information was put in front of me it seemed like an opportunity I would be crazy to miss. It was a great deal financially and it seemed so fun and exciting.”

Durkin and her friends in the Chinese program at LT will be the last class able to take the course, because after the upcoming 2017-2018 school year, Chinese will be taken out of the school curriculum, due to the low number of signups in the last few years.

“I’m pretty sad that I am a part of the last Chinese class, because taking Chinese definitely made my LT experience better,” Durkin said. “My teacher is super nice and it is my favorite class to go to everyday. The language is so interesting and I understand why they shut the program down, but I wish they didn’t and I think it’s a great language for kids to learn.”

Along with Durkin and her classmates, Chinese teacher Xiaofen Fu is sad, as next year will be her last year teaching at LT.

“I am really sad about Chinese being taken out of the curriculum because a lot of kids want to learn Chinese,” Fu said. “Many of my students are really positive about learning this language, and want to keep learning it in the future.”

Fu is looking forward to next year, with a different trip in the works, as she will not be able to take her students to China again next year.

“Next year, because there will be no China trip, I plan on taking my students to Chinatown,” Fu said.

For many, the thought of removing Chinese from the curriculum is upsetting, and there are talks about sign language replacing it.

“We have 84 students, more students who signed up for sign language next year than we ever had for Chinese,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Scott Eggerding said. “We have a full-time teacher just from one year of sign ups.”

However, the decision to shut down Chinese was not an easy one, Eggerding said.

“It’s not something that I really wanted to do, but we had to do it,” Eggerding said. “Some students in the program, prior to Mrs. Fu, had a new teacher nearly every year. That means there was a new structure to the class, new materials and new approaches to learning Chinese. I honestly wish she was our first teacher, because then we might have been able to keep Chinese as a course.”

For Durkin, taking Chinese at LT was not a decision to regret.

“I got to go on an amazing trip with a teacher I really like and my classmates who I also like,” Durkin said. “I appreciate that I will be able to stick out in this unique experience. Yeah, I might have missed out on some Spanish jokes and study sessions among friends, but if I did it all over again I would still enroll in Chinese and get my friends to enroll.”