30 Aug, 2010 in
Asia-Israel connections by Fili An

The current Israeli prime minister – Benjamin Netayahu – spoke at the last Israeli Business Convention and elaborated the importance of introducing Chinese studies to the Israeli education system. I’ve known about this for quite a while, but I finally got around to listen to his speech. Here’s the video of Benjamin Netanyahu [...]
28 Aug, 2010 in
Asia-Israel connections by Fili An

3 years after I wrote about the first signs of the Israeli Chinese studies trend and there are signs that the trend is still going strong (see “The Chinese Language Studies Trend in Israel” and “Channel 2 story : Israelis studying Chinese” for more info). Every once in a while, Israeli news channels rediscover this [...]
30 Jun, 2010 in
Rankings by Fili An

Looking for the best universities in Asia? There are so many rankings and lists out there, so it gets confusing. Let me try and help you… Following is the top world university rankings for the Asian academic universities analyzed for year 2010. These rankings vary in methodology and the things they evaluate. These do [...]
31 Oct, 2009 in
Hong Kong by Fili An

Hong Kong’s getting serious about globalization and attracting global academic talent this year with a new scheme for PhD fellowship that is quite generous. The Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) announced last year that the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme will be offered to student applying for the 2010/11 academic year. Since I’m a [...]
27 May, 2009 in
Cross culture,
HKUST by Fili An

Some cross cultural differences can cause serious issues if not addressed correctly. Cultural insensitivity can, at times, be catastrophic. This next story, forwarded to me by my professor from a CNN interview with Malcolm Gladwell is about his 2008 "Outliers: The Story of Success" book with one especially interesting tale of cross-cultural issues with Korean [...]
25 May, 2009 in
Hong Kong by Fili An

South China Morning Post recently came out with a series of fascinating articles on the state of education in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong struggles to become an international education hub, HK media is reporting on the overwhelmingly increasing number of non-local students dominating the research positions in Hong Kong’s top universities. What does non-local [...]
14 Sep, 2008 in
Asia-Israel connections,
NCKU by Fili An

I’m the only Israeli student in southern Taiwan, as far as I’m aware, and although it sounds a bit culturally lonely, it does bring up some unique opportunities. During Friday and Saturday I joined the Israeli Technion president, Dr. Yitzhak Apeloig, while he was visiting NCKU with his charming wife – Mrs. Tzippi Apeloig. It [...]
15 Jul, 2008 in
Education in Taiwan by Fili An

It’s been a few years since Taiwan announced the plans for promoting the Taiwanese universities into the top of university world rankings. The Australians have recently published an in-depth analysis of the program with details I wasn’t able to find anywhere else on the English web. I strongly recommend that you read through the Australian [...]