Weekly Message from HOS 2026/02/23-2026/02/27

Dear Keystonians, 

What a delightful surprise to wake up this Friday morning and find our campus blanketed in snow. For those of us who love winter—and I count myself among them—it felt like a quiet gift, a gentle welcome back as we return from the Spring Festival holiday.  

Over the past weeks, our community scattered. Families traveled within Beijing, across China, and to corners of the world far from here. We reunited with loved ones we see too rarely, shared meals in hometowns that hold our earliest memories, and carried with us the threads of our own stories.  

Now, we are back—and those threads are weaving together again.  

This week, I sat with a Primary School teacher who described the New Year traditions of her hometown in Shandong. She spoke with warmth about how they differ from practices just a few hours away—small, meaningful variations in how families gather, what they eat, how they honor the season. It was a reminder that even within shared culture, there is beautiful diversity.  

I also spoke with students who returned with their own stories: time with grandparents they rarely see, cousins who have grown since last year, a first visit to a new country. Their eyes lit up as they shared—not just about where they went, but about who they were with.  

That's the magic of a returning. We come back carrying pieces of our separate lives, and slowly, over breakfast in the dining hall, in conversations before class, on snowy walks around the field, we stitch them back into the fabric of this community.  

Welcome home, everyone. The snow won’t last, but the stories we’re weaving together will carry us through the months ahead. 

Warmly, 

Emily