The Taiwan Scholarship & Dragon Boat Festival dinner

News travels fast. It’s quite extraordinary, really. I never thought that people from all over the world, some of whom I’ve never met, would take interest in what’s happening with me.

So, yeah, it’s true. Taiwan has kindly awarded me the Taiwan scholarship for a 3 years degree, and I now have to choose between two international-business English PhDs in Taiwan - the first in the Taipei branch of the Xinzhu (Hsinchu) National Jiao Tung University (NCTU ) and the second is with National Zheng Gung University (NCKU ) in Tainan. The combined scholarships from Taiwan and the university should be more than sufficient to take care of my basic needs,  allowing me to concentrate on what I’m really interested in and do it in a place that I adore.

There are many things I’m concerned about when it comes to Taiwanese academics, like the level of research, international accreditation and such, and naturally I’m a bit concerned with details and technicalities on how everything is going to work out. But, you know, I guess I’ll just give it a try and see how things work out. I’m actually really looking forward to something new and exciting, even though it has also made me realize how important certain people are to me and how fortunate I am to have them in my life.

Last week, Wen, Ili, David and I went to the Taiwanese representative’s house to have a special Dragon Boat Festival scholarship celebration dinner. Attending the event were all the students that were awarded the scholarship this year (5), some of the Israelis that were previously awarded the scholarship or have previously studied in Taiwan and the heads of the East Asian departments from the Tel Aviv and the Hebrew Universities. The representative made an attempt on a short Hebrew speech followed by some greetings, and then we sat down for a Philippine cooked Taiwanese food.

(The Taiwanese representative giving a speech) 

 

(The Taiwanese representative shaking hands) 

 

(The lovely Mr. Eddie Yang, who kept me company most of the evening, is giving a warm farewell to Prof. Gideon Shelach of the Hebrew University)

 

(A horrible group photo. From left to right - Mr. Chao, me, David, the Taiwanese representative, Ili, Wen, Efrat of the Tapuz China forum and Mr. Yang)

Wish me luck.

 
tags: Asia-Israel connections, business_english, General, gung, hsinchu, international_accreditation, international_business, ncku, nctu, phds, research_international, tainan, taipei_branch, Taiwan, taiwanese