Taiwan Dialogue 2023 - Blog

Having just gotten back to Hsinchu last night after a fun-filled weekend, the crew got back to our usual schedule once again. The morning started by waking up in the Tsing dorm beds once again, after the brief hiatus of last week’s hotel stay. After getting ready for the day, I went to my favorite breakfast joint and grabbed another one of my favorite scallion pancakes I’ve had in Taiwan so far (it was just topped this past weekend in Tainan). Having thoroughly enjoyed this familiar taste, I walked to General Building II for class and did some last-minute studying for our daily vocab quiz. During class today, we debriefed on our busy weekend in Tainan, applying the unit’s grammar structures to our explanations of the weekend’s activities. We also presented our reports for the unit, in which we discussed family structures and values. These reports were very informative and I am very proud of my classmates and their presentations. As class finished up, we went to the cafeteria’s buffet o...

Today, we had a later start time than usual. Before our checkout, which was at 10:30, some of us went out to enjoy a cup of coffee, take a walk, or buy some buns for breakfast. Personally, I took the opportunity to sleep in a bit, and luckily, a friend was nice enough to bring me a bun (thanks, Derrick!).   After checking out of our lovely book-themed hostel, we took a coach bus to the National Museum of Taiwan History. This beautiful museum, which is the first of its kind, focuses exclusively on Taiwanese people and their history. The exhibition building and extensive grounds opened to the public in 2011 and has since attracted plenty of visitors.   We first had the chance to view the museum’s special exhibitions. One exhibition featured a Taiwanese song called Wang Chun Feng, which has come to be a sort of national anthem. It has been sung at countless occasions, from political demonstrations to sporting events. I thought it was really beautiful, especially since the lyrics ...

  Today was a very long day indeed! The morning was free, which meant we got to split up and choose our own adventures! Sam, Savannah, Fiona, Annie, and I found a very nice little cafe which served us a cute European-style breakfast, complete with latte art. Then, many people went to the Tainan Art Museum, where I am assured they had a wonderful time admiring art in the AC.  However, I went on a bit more complicated of an adventure this morning. I got out the handy dandy travel book Dong Lao Shi recommended we get before the trip, and was in fact not disappointed. Lonely Planet led me on a “Town Temple walk”, which was both a fun and culturally enriching experience, even if I did get a little lost along the way.  Stop One was the Confucius Temple, a place for students to pray for knowledge, and for tourists like ourselves to be very impressed by the large space and awesome tower. We returned to the Temple during the scavenger hunt, so I’ll mention this space again. It was...

It was a rushed morning for me and many of last night’s KTV’ers as we all had to pack our bags and check out of our hotel in preparation for our departure to Tainan this afternoon. On my way to class, I ran into some friends and we started singing Last Christmas by George Michael. It was very clear that the KTV spirit was still running strong! Chinese class was normal today with the exception of a quiz that concluded our 2nd chapter, 我住院了 (staying overnight in the hospital).  After Chinese class, I exited the language building and speed-walked through the light rain to grab a quick bite. At 2:30, we gathered in front of our old dorms, loaded up into different vans, and headed over to Hsinchu’s high-speed train station for the last weekend trip of our program.  The train ride to Tainan was short and sweet. It is always exciting riding a high-speed train, especially in Taiwan where there is no shortage of lush scenery. I spent the first half of the train ride gathering research ...

Today started as usual with a breakfast at 7/11! Our walk to breakfast from our hotel was very scenic with a lot of pretty trees. It’s a nice change of pace being able to take a different route to our morning classes and see more of campus. This morning the weather was extremely foggy and muggy, another side effect of the incoming typhoon. We managed to avoid rain but the weather was really dreary. At 7/11 I ran into Jack on his way out but was able to catch up before we headed to our Chinese classes. Today in Chinese class we had many fun debates about “what makes a family”. Although the debates were for fun and simply for learning purposes, it got very heated in class (I strongly believe that you can have a happy plant family, while other classmates do not). After Chinese class we got lunch at the “canteen”. We all love to go to the self-serve buffet at the canteen. We are 99% sure that there is no actual metrics to how they price our food, but we always see who can get the most food...

     Today was a day! (I think this is the best way to describe the events of the past 12 hours). It started with a breakfast at 7/11 and a morning of Chinese classes as usual, but today my Chinese class had a special guest – 小卫 (Xiao Wei). Xiao Wei is the newest member of our Dialogue and was won last night by 大卫 (Da Wei - David) in a claw machine game. The claw machines have been a popular topic amongst the group, so hearing that David won something was very exciting!        After classes, I went to a small fried chicken stand with Fiona, one of our personal favorites, only to find out it was closed D: We instead went to the stall next door and got scallion pancakes. We decided to add a little bit of spice, but that was a big mistake. For the next two hours my mouth was numb. The pancake was so spicy both Fiona and I were struggling to finish it.          After lunch, the afternoon was study, study, study! All of us ar...

       After an exciting weekend in Yilan, today was our first full day back in Hsinchu. In the morning, we all got to enjoy a nice 10-minute walk to the Tsinghua campus from our new temporary home: The Royal Hotel. I enjoyed a breakfast from 7/11 of onigiri, cereal, and black tea. Then, the other students and I made our way to class.      In Chinese class today, we continued working on activities related to the hospital unit that we began focusing on at the end of last week. We listened to a dialogue between friends where one of them had been in a recent accident where he had been hit by a car, broken his wrist, and therefore went to the hospital and needed surgery. While discussing this, we learned a lot of new vocabulary related to different types of medical specialists. In pairs, we wrote dialogues related to going to the hospital, and then performed them for the rest of the class. Sienna and I wrote a dialogue where she was the patient who came in...

 Today we said goodbye to Yilan, which also meant saying goodbye to our hosts 阿妈 and 阿公. After packing and going down to eat one final breakfast, we said our goodbyes and loaded all of our luggage onto an awaiting coach bus, ready to take us to our first dialogue of the day.  Our first dialogue of the day was a walking tour of a number of existing projects courtesy of the Field Office Architects, most notably the Yilan Social Welfare Center and the Jin-Mei pedestrian bridge. After arriving at the welfare center, we were allowed a couple minutes to explore, with many of us finding our way to the neighboring observation tower which grants onlookers with a majestic view of the neighboring scenery such as the riverside park and pedestrian bridge, as well a view of the nearby mountain range in the background. One of Yilan Social Welfare center's many hallways Beyond the observation tower, a characteristic feature of the Yilan Social Welfare center was its connectivity and integrati...

While several students went to the beach, the rest of us headed over to Island Time where we experienced life as a part-time farmer! We had the pleasure of having Lai Ching-sung, the founder of Island Time, give us a guided tour of his “farmland utopia.”  Mr. Lai shared his experience on leaving the bustling city and becoming a “dreamer,” which he calls “half farmer/half X.” I think it’s truly admirable that he was able to gain the trust of farmers around the Shenguo Village to farm organically. Farming without the use of pesticides and herbicides of those sorts was  very much unheard of at that time, so Mr. Lai really paved the path for organic agricultural practices in Yilan county. After listening to Mr. Lai’s life as “half farmer/half X,” we were given the opportunity to farm and become 农夫 (nóng fū- farmers) ourselves! The twelve students were divided into three groups and we each went on to take on our respective roles before rotating to the next one. We got to harvest ri...