Each group set down the day's highlights in its own words.
Team 1: Top Players
The autumn air was cool and bright when we gathered at the Huanghuacheng Lakeside Great Wall for a day we will not forget in a hurry. We come from all over the country and from every walk of life—design, trading, philanthropy, manufacturing, aviation and AI among them. We had each been running our own race; BiMBA is what put us on the same track.
Every one of us carved time out of a crowded schedule to make it happen. Under our captain Zhang Jinyu we held one late-night planning call after another, each of us playing to our strengths and putting a hand up for tasks—and along the way we watched one another shine: brainstorming an AI poster, designing a team flag, packing the supplies, honing a cyberpunk video and dance, rewriting a song with NSD lyrics. A hundred small, deliberate gestures like these are what gave the day its warmth.
By day the hillside was alive with energy. The orienteering course wound along the old Great Wall trail, and step for step up and down the slopes, we kept each other going.
Out on the lake, the kayak relay was quite a spectacle—paddles up and down as one, laughter rolling off the water.
At dusk the variety show opened, and ours went on first. Our cyberpunk Thousand-Hand Guanyin and the NSD rewrite of "New Boy" brought the house down, to wave after wave of applause.
Flat stretches and steep climbs, much like studying at NSD: the going gets hard, but we have company for it.
As the day closed, the BiMBA starlight stayed with us. Back at Chengze Garden with the warmth of that gathering, we mean to study with focus, explore in good company, and set off toward new horizons together.
Team 2: Two the Top
Top, Top, Two the Top!
From the foot of the mountain to the beacon tower, from dry land to open water, and on to the stage after dark, Team 2—"TWO THE TOP"—covered the ground on our own two feet, with laughter and sweat: strangers becoming familiar faces, companions becoming a unit that moves as one, all in a single day.
What moved us most during the morning's orienteering was not who was quickest, but that nobody was left behind. Challenge after challenge, regroup after regroup, we held our line and our rhythm, and all twelve of us reached the beacon tower. People found their roles fast—one coordinating, one taking the harder task, another quietly looking after a teammate—and everyone gave what they had from where they stood. That is how twelve became a team.
The afternoon kayak relay carried the same spirit from the trail out onto the water. When the water challenge came, our captain stepped up for the "piano on water" task, and round after round of coordination drove home the same lesson: a team is not about making one person quick, it is about getting everyone across.
What carried the mood into the evening was our show, "Yanyuan Has Drama." We live in different cities and juggle jobs and coursework, yet we still cleared time to gather on one stage and rehearse it again and again. From Wu Yifan opening with a jazz lead, to Zhou Yanbang singing "We Will Rock You," to Zhang Siqi and Lin Miao performing "Ni Zhan," and everyone who danced behind them, prepared backstage or held the show together on the night—one evening's rehearsal turned an idea into a finished act. We took first prize for performance, and that prize belongs to the rapport we built.
The trip also brought us new classmates from other classes and backgrounds, and watching Team 1 "Top Players," Team 3 "Weiming Team" and Team 4 "Wonder 4" do their thing showed us just how vivid—and how funny—our classmates can be.
Thanks to the NSD faculty for the care they put into organizing this, to the team doctor for looking after us, and to the alumni volunteers who stayed with us all day. The spirit of "Top, Top, Two the Top"—shoulder to shoulder, lifting each other—will see us through the rest of the MBA.
Team 3: Weiming Team
Meet at the south gate of PKU! We left under a sky full of stars, prodding the driver along, dark circles firmly in place—some still half asleep, some still circling the maze of the car park. Fourteen little ducks (a nod to the ducks of Weiming Lake, and our name for ourselves) each pulled off their own trick and made it to the field with seconds to spare.
That day the mountains and rivers laid our table and the sun and moon called the order. "How can we say we have no clothes? We share the same coat." We set off together into distance and danger. A team of flat-out idlers we may be, "Weiming" and nothing more, keeping "distance and danger" for company—though the captain had his orders: safety first, and stay well clear of trouble. Idling has its compensations, mind you: our "battle robes" came in the crimson red everyone wanted, and in red that bright there is no keeping your head down.
The Ultimate Challenge — Playing for Top Player, Gathering at the Peak
Maybe the organizing teachers simply tried too hard; maybe a handsome stranger had slipped into the ranks (Duck No. 15, as we found out later, a model and an alumnus). Either way, our teammates visibly raised their game. One clambered stubbornly up onto the bridge railing to save a companion the effort; two slender teammates turned into weightlifters, shouldering 14 backpacks between them so that all twelve could reach the beacon peak. When it became clear that our score really was behind the others', we hesitated a beat, then talked each other round: safety and turning up are what count. And when our captain carried a teammate up the Great Wall, we understood that what we were climbing was no longer a beacon tower but a height only a group of people lifting one another can reach.
Starlight Avenue
The pink team opened, laying out the full package—Thousand-Hand Guanyin, chorus and an AI skit—to considerable effect. Then came the turn of us fourteen ducks, shoved on stage with no idea what we were doing and left to play ourselves: big director, small parts, the straight-A student, the one scraping by, and the teacher. Word came back that the audience laughed and wept; at the time, we just wanted to get off. Then we were swept up in act after act that carried the evening higher and higher. The seniors' performances and reflections, the heartfelt words and encouragement from the senior sister—they let our "double first" team, and every other team, truly earn the slogan "Nameless for now, winning together first." Looking back, they said, the last time they had felt joy this uncomplicated was childhood. It was wonderful!
We came to Yan Yuan from busy careers in search of something more than the skills to make a mark in the world: kindred spirits like you. Between these green hills and clear waters drifted the moments our photographers caught, and the smell of roasting chestnuts. May our classroom hours be spent investigating the world and living out the unity of knowledge and action; and however long the road runs, may we never forget the blazing sincerity of this day among the hills and the water.
Homeward we laughed till it hurt and were wrung out to the bone. That steep pitch from the restaurant to the car park could no longer hide the "NSD spirit" blazing in each of us. We looked up—and there it was: the North Star.
Team 4: Wonder 4
WONDER 4: Four Seas, One Team
Only a very particular kind of fate could have brought fourteen students from across national borders together at Chengze Garden, Peking University, into one international team: WONDER 4 (Wangde 4).
On September 19 we walked side by side through the autumn colors of the Huanghuacheng Lakeside Great Wall. Language and borders were never the obstacle; a single line—"This is four, we are wonderful"—tuned a jumble of accents to the same wavelength. Every one of us was a leading player, and between us we strung the whole room's laughter onto one thread. Under the night sky we saluted Peking University's spirit of "freedom of thought, inclusiveness" with a poetry recitation, "Young Yanyuan Declaration," then set the place alight with "Red Sun." Paper planes flew up toward the stars, carrying our hopes for what comes next.
One teammate called it "a super-charged, concentrated shot of everything good," another "a happy, high-energy day," a third "so lucky to have met you all." United and earnest, serious and full of life, we felt in one another a sincerity and a vitality that crossed mountains and seas. Talented, buoyant, and—rarest of all—holding the same determination to be excellent. International is not a label; it is the truest color of this team. May the friendship of Wonder 4 last, and may we head off together toward finer adventures still.
This is four, and we are truly wonderful!
Alumni Volunteers: Passing It On
Four alumni joined us this time as volunteers. They kept an eye on everyone's safety all day long—and then brought their own NSD stories to the stage.
Guo Yiqing, PKU-UCL MBA 2023 Part-time Class Alumnus — Guo traced a career that turned several times over, from criminal investigator to lawyer, and described how the MBA reshaped his thinking and his life.
Wang Yu, PKU-Vlerick MBA 2024 Part-time Class Alumnus — Wang brought his class's creed of "unity, dedication, inclusiveness," and made a warm pitch for NSD's Asia Desert Race team and sports clubs.
Xu Tao, PKU-Vlerick MBA 2025 Part-time Class Student — Xu drew on his own classes to share exam tips, urging the new students to try things boldly and push at their boundaries.
Hou Gang, PKU-Vlerick MBA 2023 Part-time Class Alumnus — Hou, two years into the MBA, reminded everyone to make the most of campus life and get stuck into activities—that is what leaves the deepest impressions.
Four accounts, different in emphasis, equally sincere. The seniors' stories and their hopes gave the new students a little more anticipation—and a good deal more certainty—about the NSD journey ahead.
Closing Remarks from Yu Bin, Director of the MBA Center
As night deepened and the day wound down, Yu Bin, Director of the PKU NSD MBA Center, took the stage as the closing speaker with a warm and thoughtful message for the 2026 MBA Class.
Director Yu began with why the event existed at all: putting on a group day outdoors just before the holiday was meant to give new students a chance to put down phone and laptop and really get to know one another among the hills and the water. With AI now everywhere and screens running our days, he noted, a whole day spent looking at each other instead is a rare and precious thing.
He then offered "three things to cherish."
Cherish the classmates around you. For most of those in the room, this is probably the last stretch of life in which they will study for any length of time alongside a completely new set of classmates. After years in the workplace, to come back to campus and find one another on the same road is a rare piece of luck. There is no need to hold classmates to account for small flaws or the occasional clash: set the timeline at five or ten years and today's bumps come to nothing, while the people you meet today become the memories you keep.
Cherish the decision you made. Coming back to study is something the students chose for themselves, and it deserves to be taken seriously. Director Yu held up two alumni. Guo Yiqing was very young when he enrolled; while studying he opened his own bar, and after graduating he reinvented himself as a practicing lawyer and won a place on a doctoral program at China University of Political Science and Law. Xu Tao, once a counter-terrorism special forces soldier and a model, came away from NSD with a PhD offer from MIT and is about to begin studying overseas once the MBA ends. None of these turns figured in anyone's plan on day one—the PKU platform unlocks far more than you would guess.
Cherish these two years on campus. Rather than fretting over the small stuff, keep your eyes on the breadth of the platform and the room to grow that Peking University offers, and explore your own limits without holding back.
Director Yu closed by thanking the four alumni volunteers—especially Wang Yu and Hou Gang, veterans of the Asia Desert Race, who kept everyone safe from start to finish and passed on the personal growth that comes from being outdoors.
The Great Wall stands witness: in a single day among the hills and the water, the students went from "me" to "us." And as the awards ceremony got under way, the team-building day for the 2026 MBA Class reached its warmest, loudest finale.
Our Thanks to the Sponsors
(listed in no particular order)
PKU NSD Alumni Fund
JIN&CO TOYS (Jin Zihao, MBA 2019)
Guanghua Best Pork Jerky (Lin Jiahao, MBA 2021)
OATSIDE Oat Milk (Li Chunlai, MBA 2021)
TEDxWeixiuyuan Road (Xie Shaodong, MBA 2022)
Mengniu Milk Calcium Electrolyte Drink (NSD Asia Desert Race Committee)
About Peking University National School of Development
The National School of Development (NSD) at Peking University is a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary school grounded in economics. Its predecessor, the China Center for Economic Research, was founded in 1994 by scholars including Lin Yifu, Hai Wen and Zhang Weiying, and took its present name in 2008. Guided by a belief in "commitment to the nation, deep confidence, harmony in diversity, and seeking common ground while reserving differences," and by an ethos of truth-seeking and pragmatism, the school has steadily strengthened its faculty and drawn together leading scholars and renowned academics.
For more than three decades, NSD has pursued an integrated model of teaching, research and think-tank work. In teaching, it has built up three systems—government, business and academia—and many of its graduates have gone on to lead in their fields. In research, it sets its sights on the world's academic frontier, tells China's story in the language of international scholarship, and develops new theoretical frameworks. In think-tank work, it focuses on the key, difficult and hot issues of reform, conducts rigorous field research, and has put forward a series of influential policy recommendations on major questions, earning its place among China's first high-end national think tanks and considerable public influence. Operating on a "small institution, big network" model and engaging openly with all sectors of society, the school serves as an important platform for exchange and cooperation between China and the world.
PKU NSD BiMBA Business School (formerly PKU International MBA) is a byword for excellence in Chinese business education. Established in 1998 and run by PKU NSD, it brings together top-tier business education resources from around the world and has a distinctly international character, while drawing deeply on Peking University's humanistic heritage. With the motto "East meets West, knowledge and action as one" and the mission "grounded in a national think tank, forging business leaders," it has become a pioneer and leader in Chinese-foreign cooperative education. PKU NSD today runs two international MBA programs—the Peking University–UCL MBA and the Peking University–Vlerick MBA—both enrolling each autumn.
