A week has passed since Boston Teen Enrichment Camp came to a close. The campers back in China are still fighting jet lag, and I am still immersed in the joy — and the questions — the camp left behind. I write this as a summary of 2026, and as a look toward the summer of 2027.

My son Dayu has been part of this camp for four years — the last three as a youth counselor, working alongside me. He told me this was his favorite cohort yet. I asked why. He said most campers genuinely focused in class, played hard together afterwards, and spent far less time on their phones. And he especially admired Mike — always doing everything earnestly, chasing Luca around to practice English or teach him Chinese, bringing meals back for his roommates. I know Dayu is drawn to peers who are driven and kind; he has been since he was small. But I asked him: is there another possibility — that you have turned fourteen, and you have become able to open your heart and build deep friendships? He thought about it and said, that is probably it. Watching him post photos of his team members, I saw what friendship looks like. It confirmed something: teenagers are hungry for friendship, and the window for building good friendships has arrived. Mencius’s mother moved house three times for her son; today, helping a child choose their circle of friends is no less important.

On the last day of camp I asked the children to fill out a survey — fully anonymous, I promised. I wanted their unguarded voices, so that the camp itself can keep growing.

One survey question asked: did you make new friends, and what changed most about you?

One child wrote: “My biggest change is that I improved my sense of responsibility, independence, self-expression, critical thinking, and problem-solving.” That string of words maps exactly onto the four threads of the camp’s design: dorm life, managing your own money and ordering your own meals, the public speaking course at Harvard, the research course at MIT. Nothing could gratify us more — quiet nourishment doing its work.

Another wrote: “It let me experience a completely different cultural system, and gave me a new goal.” Between “seeing something different” and “having a goal” lies a real comparison and a real choice that happened inside a child’s mind. What we can do is open a door and a window, and let them feel for themselves whether this is the life they want.

And one child wrote: “I learned to use an electric kettle.” A line that makes you laugh — and worth pausing over. For a child who has always been well taken care of, independence is never a slogan. It begins with using a kettle, watching the water boil, making yourself a bowl of instant noodles. Growth doesn’t happen in grand moments; it happens in every moment, in every small detail. (And here the mother in me can’t help wondering: why is it that no delicacy on earth beats a bowl of instant noodles for these kids?)

Mia wrote in her reflection: “It made me step outside of my comfort zone, try new things I wouldn’t normally try, and take myself out of the background.” Out of the background. In the dispatch about the Harvard speaking course, I wrote about the word Professor Remo used for his fifteen-year-old self: invisible. Mia grew up in America; English is her native language. Yet she describes herself as “usually shy and quiet.”

Which shows: stepping in front of people is not only about language, and not only about where you were born. Every child has a background they need to step out of. A child with fluent English can hide in quietness; a child with weaker English can hide in “I don’t understand.” The hiding looks different, but the step out is the same step. It takes the same courage — and the same support.

Mike — the camper Dayu admired — appears everywhere in the surveys and reflections. No one asked Mike to chase Luca around practicing English. No one asked him to bring food back for his roommates. As someone who has taught language, I know what that scene means: what truly moves a child’s English forward is never a few weeks of immersion — it is the motivation inside, the desire to go out and see the world. Language is the tool; internal drive is the engine.

Putting local Chinese-American kids and kids from China in the same camp worked beautifully, and both sides wrote it down themselves. A camper who grew up in the US wrote: “I made a lot of new friends, and was even invited to hang out with them at China next year!” Mia wrote that camp made her friends with kids from “different backgrounds, who I wouldn’t normally interact with.”

The children from China saw, in the local kids, what it looks like for people who share their heritage to take root and grow on this soil — like glimpsing a future version of themselves. The local kids saw, in the children from China, a world half a globe away yet joined to them by blood. The team photos Dayu posted are what that bridge looks like.

“Breakfast is too repetitive.” I read that one and laughed. I was not surprised at all. Camp breakfast had toast, cheese, chicken breast, salad, fresh fruit, milk, yogurt, boiled eggs, waffles, oatmeal, cereal, and juice — a thoroughly typical American breakfast. Its “monotony” is the same monotony as noodles, congee, baozi, and soy milk with youtiao every day back home. What the children miss is not a longer menu — it is the taste of home. Away from home, eating food not made by your family, the stomach is always the first thing to feel homesick. That is a lesson every child who goes abroad must live through. Chinese stomachs are spoiled by a “Bite of China” level of good food everywhere; in America, even Boston lobster every day would still earn a suggestion that the food needs improving. I will not promise a menu that satisfies everyone next year — that is impossible anywhere. I keep this complaint here because it reminds me: children’s growth in a foreign country often begins at the dining table. If you plan to study in the US, come mentally prepared — in a contest with Chinese cuisine, American food never stood a chance.

“I threw up so many times on the whale watch. But it’s a great activity.” The first half is a complaint; the second half is a vote. The whale watch — where children vomited into the sea wind — won Best Activity. Mia recorded why: “we also saw 8 different whales, which wasn’t that common.” The seasickness was real; so was the payoff. We handed out seasickness medicine, and we have tried both mornings and afternoons; four hours on deep water simply defeats human countermeasures. But an activity that made them throw up still won first place — perhaps proof of something: hardship shared brings companions closer, and closeness makes everything feel better. 😄

Which brings me to the question I have thought about most these past two years.

Today’s China — especially its big cities — has overtaken America in many ways: infrastructure, modern daily life, applied technology. When the kids ride the subway, China’s is newer, faster, cleaner. When they look at a skyline at night, many Chinese cities are far more spectacular than Boston. So is it still worth sending a child to study in America?

Different people will answer differently. This year, standing on MIT’s campus, Austin spoke frankly to the children about the problems of American universities — and also said MIT remains better than most. The children watched a mayor talk with residents at Cambridge City Hall, watched a professor confront the problem of data fraud in the research course, and frowned over an eighteen-percent tip in a restaurant.

After two weeks, every child’s answer was different. One wrote of “a new goal”; another simply learned to use a kettle. But their answers were seen with their own eyes and felt with their own senses — not passed down from someone else’s retelling.

The advice I can offer: this question deserves serious, deep thought — and thought needs firsthand material. Before the age when the decision must be made, let the child come in person: take the classes, live the life, calculate the tips, ride the boat that makes you seasick — and then answer whether to come study in America. That is probably more reliable than borrowing anyone else’s conclusion.

The last question on the survey: write a note to Ms. Apple. I have read these many times. A few belong here. They are not mine alone — they belong to every teacher at the camp.

And one note that was only five characters long: “You work too hard!” (😄 I am simply doing what I love — it doesn’t take anything as strenuous as diligence.)

The children’s feelings about the camp are scattered across every corner of the survey. “Fun, warm, healing.” “I gained so much — the camp truly helped me grow. I’ll be back!” “This place is so much fun, full of interesting people — if there’s a second time, I’m coming back.” “I made friends with so many different personalities — it really felt like fate.” One child wrote in English: “It is always interesting and all the group members are kind and supportive.”

The survey that made me laugh hardest: “Would you recommend this camp to a friend?” One child gave a zero. The reason: “I don’t want my friends to come. I want new friends.” The note left for me: “Apple, I love you to death.” A child used a zero to declare that these friends are to be kept all to herself. A zero like that, I accept with my whole heart. 😄

At the end of his English reflection, Dayu wrote: “The lesson is to not be sad that it ended but be happy that it happened. Life is short and we need to cherish the time we have. Visit new places, meet new people.”

A lovely fourteen-year-old said my closing remarks for me.

Next summer, the camp will be here in Boston, waiting. More children are welcome — to build a joyful stretch of time together, and to come answer, in person, the question that belongs to them alone.

Every summer, the weeks I spend with these children are among the fullest and happiest of my year. They grow, and I grow along their trails of thought, moving forward in their footsteps. One of life’s great fortunes. Thank you, kids!