Mr. Luo: The Swedish-Speaking, Curling, Environmentalist of RHS

You may recognize his name from the weekly sustainability tips on the morning announcements or his intensive work as the Green Club advisor to make RHS a greener place. Either way, Mr. Luo is an integral part of the RHS community, whose passions span beyond the health of our planet and the education of his A.P. Environmental Science (APES) students.  

As any APES student will attest, Mr. Luo loves curling. He has participated in tournaments in Charlotte, North Carolina; Albany, New York; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis has a particularly big, intense tournament with 96 teams competing. Later this year, he is scheduled to attend a tournament in Huntsville, Alabama.

However, according to Mr. Luo, this now 15-year-long commitment “started off as a joke that got really out of hand.”

He first became interested in the sport while watching the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada: “[It] seemed like something insane to try out, and I was in the wrong place at the time. I went to undergrad in Cornell, and at the time, there was no curling club anywhere near there. We had to drive two hours over to Utica, and I had to convince people that it was a good idea. And I convinced enough people that it was a good idea that I tried it.”

Since then, he has sought out curling clubs in the driving range of each place he has lived, including while attending graduate school at the University of Michigan. Now, his curling club is only a 35-minute drive away.

Last year, Mr. Luo began sharing this interest with APES students, taking them on a field trip to his curling club where other league members  taught the art of the sport. 

“I have to credit three students for incentivizing me to do it again; Emily Scharfenberg, Maiah Riedel, and Nick Bradbury all curl in college now, which is nuts to me,” said Mr. Luo, explaining that he spends “so much of my outside time curling that when people kind of see exactly what that’s all about, then it’s quite wholesome for me.”

Mr. Luo went on to share a story from the first such trip: “Curling is seen as a very civil sport. It’s like when the other team makes a mistake, you don’t celebrate. When the other team makes a good shot, it’s kind of expected for you to say ‘That was pretty decent,’” but last year, “I was getting ready to throw rocks, and then three students from the other team booed me while I’m in the hack. And I’m not used to that. [My friends] got such a big kick out of that, [telling me] ‘it was one of the more fun [private] events they’ve done.’”

Currently in two curling leagues, Mr. Luo has developed a close bond with many teammates, with whom he has shared numerous funny experiences.

One such moment occurred while at a tournament in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which Mr. Luo prefaced with: “this story is not gonna paint me in a good light,” nevertheless:

“There’s one person at our club who does some things a lot of people don’t appreciate. We were off the ice. We’re just watching cause we’re waiting for our game, and this guy is sweeping, and then he slips as if there’s a banana peel on the ice. He just does the full, both legs up in the air, lands on his butt. And, you know, most people, their first reaction is, ‘Oh my God! Is he okay?’ We knew this guy was okay, so we, all four of us, were cackling behind the glass, and everyone just looked towards us like we’re the worst people in the world. And we probably were the worst people in the world at the time. And then we realized how bad that looked, and we had to kind of explain ourselves.”

He also shared a story from his team’s first night in Albany:

“We were all in a hotel, and then the fire alarm went off at 6:20 in the morning, and our tournament was at 10:00, so I woke up completely disoriented. Apparently, my teammates were the same way. [It] was dark because all the curtains were drawn. I had no idea where I was. I think, oh my God, what do I do? And then double back for my wallet, double back for my phone. I got back to the reception area, and then everyone seemed remarkably calm. And then the lady behind the desk said, ‘Yeah, someone burnt their bagel.’ And we were all joking, ‘Does the other team know where we’re staying? Because that’s a great way to throw us off.’”

This was not his only notable hotel experience while with his teammates:

“One guy picked out a hotel for us, and then we all got to our hotel rooms, and then one guy sent us an image of his door, and it says: “use both the deadbolt and the doorknob and use the security latch.” And we were alarmed, [thinking] where did we pick a hotel. This does not seem like a safe idea. And everyday after that, we refer to that place as the murder hotel. We actually lost early, so we went home a day early. We’re not staying at the murder hotel one more night than we have to.”

In addition to traveling for curling tournaments—and the occasional (allegedly) near-death experience—Mr. Luo also travels to Sweden nearly every summer. This annual month-long trip, just like Mr. Luo’s other passion, “started off as a joke.” In fact, it started out with the thought “I like the colors on their [Sweden’s] flag better [than Norway’s].”

“In 2010, one particular [political] party had someone who I didn’t really like, who was looking pretty decent in the primaries. And I started thinking, I need a backup country to go to. Canada really wasn’t that different from the US, and it wasn’t different enough for me. I’ve looked a bit more into it, and Sweden does a lot of things that I like. I mean, when it comes to environmental responsibility, they’re at least a decade ahead of the US. When it comes to social responsibility, they’re quite far ahead of us. I don’t think we’re going to catch up. This is not always true, but essentially, if you have a lot of money [in the U.S.], you can do whatever you want, even if you get hit by a lawsuit, you can just pay your way out of that in a lot of situations, Sweden has a concept called jantelagen, which is basically law of Jante, which means no one person is more important than anybody else. If you want to do something but it’s going to harm the rest of your community, you’re not allowed to do that, something I very, very much believe in. Yeah, they have high taxes, but of course, in general, they are a lot happier than we are. Obviously they take environmental responsibilities quite seriously, [while] Norway gets so much of their revenue from oil exports.”

While visiting Sweden, Mr. Luo volunteers at Swedish Universities. On one such trip, he emailed a university, “Hey, I’m willing to be free help because I’m not a good tourist. I need to be productive, so I ended up working in a beetle lab.” 

Through college classes and three years of month-long trips to Sweden, Mr. Luo has become well-versed in the language and the culture. 

“A couple years ago, I was very, very actively considering going to Sweden as a permanent move. There are some people who are still encouraging me to do that. It’s scary though. There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Mr. Luo, adding “But the reality is that I really love my job here. I mean, the students are great. I think a lot of people respect my opinions on things. I credit him [Mr. Nyhuis] all the time for this, but you know, I come up with a lot of crazy ideas that, you know, I think in other schools wouldn’t get this kind of support.”

However, “the other reality is, like, the second I leave the building, there’s a lot of stuff that drives me crazy. The number one frustrating thing for me here is, I care so much about sustainability, and I think a lot of people, they either don’t know their impact or they don’t care. I don’t know which one is worse. Probably not caring is worse. But I mean, we have a lot more funds than a lot of communities around us do, which on paper, should mean that we can do things a bit better or do things the way that they should be done, but we just don’t do that. And for me personally, that’s frustrating, and to just get constant reminders of that everywhere that I go that’s outside of this building, it’s discouraging, and knowing that there’s a country a continent away, that does everything a little bit more responsibly, it’s something that’s constantly in my head, and part of my mentality is still, when I retire from here, I can go over to Sweden and  live the rest of my days there. But is it realistic? I don’t really know.”

Despite these numerous environmental setbacks, Mr. Luo is encouraged by APES and the Green Club. Enrollment in the former has nearly doubled since last year from 38 students to around 69. While Mr. Luo acknowledges that, “some people think APES is the easy AP,” he is comforted by the fact that “some of them do want to learn about the environment.”

In regards to the Green Club, he says “We have so many people involved this year. Really, I have to credit the underclassmen, because freshmen and sophomore involvement has been enormous this year, and that’s really, really encouraging.” 

So, perhaps all hope is not lost. In striving towards sustainability, Mr. Luo says: “It’s not about going outside and hugging a tree, because that doesn’t do anything I’m interested in. Do people understand why these things are important? Do we understand how we can make things a little bit better?”