Fili’s world

The Taiwanese students are just adorable. Somehow, they make me feel even older than I really am, and that’s old enough when it comes to university students. 

Part of the Taiwanese student life is belonging to a club. My receptionist has invited me and another IMBA student for a "club-night", which I thought might be a Ministry of Sound kind of rave, but turned out to be a display of  NCKU student associations. There’s one for anything you can think of - sports, dancing, geekery, coolity, it’s endless. The foreigners are in really high-demand and the few of us that were there, especially those with the western appearance ("No, not American, Israeli… yi3se4lie4ren2"), were approached endlessly with high spirits and rolling laughs. They weren’t shy, they were outgoing and open and it was fun talking to them and hearing what their ‘club’ is about.

The two student associations that have something to do with international students are IEAS (International Exchange Association for Students) and the Toast-masters clubs. I put my name down in there as well as with the shocked ping-pong bunch and another one I can’t recall, and so every once in a while I get this really long e-mail in my inbox, usually in Chinese.

Last week, I got an English invitation to come to a snack-sharing party for the IEAS. I already guessed that I’ll be, by far, the oldest guy there, but I was too curious to resist not going.

So, I went to have a look at the international exchange in NCKU. I arrived at the wrong building, wondered around for a while looking for anything that would indicate a different location, but was finally saved by a local Taiwanese student who was as mis-guided as I was. After a phonecall we found the place and went in, and it soon turned out that together with another guy from Hungary we were the only foreigners who came to that party. The club organizers were extremely thrilled to see me, and there was so much energy of good-will going around that I couldn’t help smiling through the whole event.

Luckily, there was also a small group of exchange students from mainland China, and so the hopes for international exchange were not all lost. Naturally, I had to introduce myself and have given my MSN messenger address to about 20 people who wanted to keep in touch or show me around. I have a feeling that might not work out as expected.

It felt like I went back more than 10 years to the childhood clubs I was never part of. Snacksharing actually meant doing group activities to earn more snacks, if it’s playing cards, rolling dice, or doing the hola-hoops. The students running the show seemed to know exactly what would excite the Taiwanese students who demonstrated their enjoyment with a LOT of noise.

It was fun, I had a good time.