Tainan city doesn’t have anything that comes close to the Taipei 101 and the Tainan view is of no comparison to the beautiful view of Taipei from the 101, but, there is some to see. The building complex I live in has some of Tainan’s tallest buildings, my building running as high as 24 floors. Yeah, it’s a big complex of about 8 building enclosing a green well-guarded garden with …
Stats do a good job of summarizing a phenomena. A few years back the Taiwanese government decided to internationalize the Taiwanese universities by pouring unbelievable funds into promoting English-based programs and research activities within Taiwanese universities, hopefully bringing in accredited scholars and promising international students. The number of scholarships available either through the Taiwan scholarship or the universities is quite remarkable.
To get a sense of how fast this is happening in Taiwan I suggest we take a close look at some stats I photographed in some events I attended. It’s a bit strange, but when I asked for the presentations with the stats afterwards I was - Taiwanese politeness style - denied. I can’t imagine why.
How about we start with …
Chanukah, Hanukah, Hanukkah, Channokkaahh, Chanooka, Hanooka or how ever the $*&^$% you spell it in English, is here.
It’s strange, you know? Sharing a taxi with Michael and a Taiwanese I didn’t know from my program this week, the Taiwanese suddenly turned back to look at me and the way he opened the conversation was “So! you’re a Jew, right?”. When everybody’s talking about Christmas, what does it feel like to be a Jew in Tainan-Taiwan?
Adam, help me out…
What does “Hanukah” culture have to do with “Chinese” culture? tough one, but I was …
Taiwan’s been trying to encourage foreign students to come and study in Taiwan and the number of scholarships offered are increasing. I’m currently studying for a graduate program in NCKU-Tainan-Taiwan with the National Science Council scholarship which is considered part of the more general “Taiwan scholarship” offering 30,000NT$ (equal to about 900US$) monthly for a period of 3 years. It’s a very simple and straight-forward scholarship. Two weeks ago, southern Taiwan orientation for the various Taiwan scholarship holders was held at NCKU with some entertainment and information given about the …
The Tainan God temple celebrations just get crazier every week. Just when I think I’ve seen everything, Tainan hosts another unbelievable temple party for some other God or temple and I get to see some more. This one started 2 in the morning. I know, because I woke up to what sounded like a huge explosion combined with a massive earth quake. My windows were shaking with that first boom, and from that point on it kept going for more than 24 hours - endless fireworks and firecrackers from the nearby temples. A few seconds after that, all the dogs in my building complex started to bark, and we’re talking about one really big complex, maybe the biggest in Tainan. …
I woke up this morning to find 6 (!!!) emails awaiting me from friends and people I don’t even know telling me that the People’s Republic of China girl - Zhang Zilin - won the China Miss World 2007. Strange! I had no idea people are that into Miss World or that they consider me as being that associated with Miss China. The amount of incoming traffic from Google about Miss China, Miss World 2007 and Miss Asia variations is quite overwhelming for a small blog. I kind of saw it coming. China’s Miss World candidate is absolutely gorgeous and no …
