My Study Abroad Experience

Why Study Abroad

College is a defining moment in an individual’s life. Besides academic and professional development, college is an experience meant to discover and embrace one’s own identity.

Last semester, I had the opportunity to study abroad for six months in Taiwan. What started out as an impulsive decision turned into one of the most significant and life defining moments for me. Growing up, I had always been raised in a traditional Asian household. Social and cultural norms, values, and traditions were imposed onto me by my parents and relatives, implicitly molding and preserving my Chinese cultural background while I grew up in an American society. Like many Asian Americans, I have always been self-aware of my mother culture, but preferred to assimilate and adhere to the American norms and values that my peers believed and practiced.

This negligence stuck with me throughout my adolescence and college years. As senior year began to roll around, I began to hear from friends of their life changing study abroad experiences. I figured that studying abroad would only broaden my academic and cultural awareness, and after flipping through the UCEAP website for an hour, reluctantly decided to apply to studying abroad in Taiwan. I had stayed there for a few days during my past winter break, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere and quaintness of Taipei. However, at this point, studying abroad was a decision dictated more by peer pressure than anything else. My desire to study abroad solely stemmed from witnessing my peers come back with life changing experiences, but I was still skeptical about how my own initiative would unfold.

Within my first week in Taiwan, I noticed something incredible: Despite being thousands of miles away from the United States, I felt strangely composed and at home. At first, I struggled to understand why I did not experience the same sense of culture shock that my peers felt. After my first month, I began to realize that this was all due to the fact that I shared a common background with the people around me. Eating blood cake, pig intestine, and burning incense were practices that I did not find bizarre, but rather refreshing and nostalgic. The culture in Taiwan felt familiar because I had implicitly been practicing the very same culture as a part of my childhood.

This revelation gave me a tremendous sense of pride. Up to this point in my life, I had considered myself Asian American. I had considered myself Chinese American. But never before had I identified as Taiwanese American. And with this realization came a yearning curiosity to learn more. I felt as if the more I immersed myself in Taiwanese society, the more I was learning about myself. An analogy I like to use is discovering a younger sibling that you never knew existed. Everything was familiar and new at the same time, and I basked in the opportunity to learn as much as possible.

I believe my experience abroad was fundamentally more unique than a typical exchange semester. As an example, I did not make many friends from America during my experience abroad. Nor was that ever my intent. I was resolute to completely devour and experience as much of Taiwan as possible, and that meant making friends with as many locals as possible and learning about their backgrounds and lives. Each little detail I learned seemed to add clarity to my own self-identity. It was a captivating puzzle that I had to solve.

Below I depict some of the details of my six month journey. Although the duration of my experience was merely half a year, I had some of the greatest moments of my life within this short time period.

Me at 十分瀑布 in January 2017

我衝動的選擇...

It's January 2017. I had just finished my first semester at UC Berkeley, and was getting ready to visit Taiwan for the first time ever in my life. Despite being half Taiwanese, I had never been to the island before, and was only going to spend three nights there before making my annual trip to Malaysia to visit my grandmother and her family.

I really didn't know what to expect at the time. Growing up, my grandmother, who immigrated from Taiwan to the United States, had always exposed me to Taiwanese culture through her cooking. My childhood is filled with memories spending my weekends at her house eating eating foods such as 炸醬麵，鍋貼，包子，and 油飯. Although we wouldn't directly talk life back in Taiwan, I always sensed that she had a longing to return to her homeland. Her cooking helped her relieve this sentiment, and she bestowed into me her Taiwanese roots. After she suddenly passed away in 2012, it suddenly dawned upon me that I had never visited Taiwan, nor had I ever asked my parents to take me.

Reflecting on my childhood, I stepped foot onto Taiwan soil that cold January. And even though I only spent three nights there, I couldn't help but feel a sense of familiarity, and a sense of belonging. Here I was, in a country that I had never been to before, and yet the people spoke the same language, ate the same foods, and cherished the same culture that I did growing up with my grandmother. It was at that moment that I promised myself that I would one day return.

And return I did. In January of 2019, I decided to return to Taiwan once more, this time with my cousins from Malaysia. Once again, I only stayed for less than a week. After the trip, I couldn't help but feel an even greater sense of belonging than ever before. It was almost like a calling, a gut feeling that I can't quite describe, pushing me back to Taiwan even after going there for the second time.

With my undergraduate career at its tail end, I realized that there was only one opportunity left to quench the curiosity that had accumulated since those long weekend days spent at my grandmother's house. So in April of 2019, almost impulsively, I committed to spending a semester and a half studying abroad at National Taiwan University.

一個二十年的旅程...

Spending six months in a foreign country was a concept that I suddenly began to fear in May of 2019. I had one of my best semesters at Berkeley so far, and I felt that I was leaving a good situation behind by going to Taiwan. Moreover, I had never been out of the country by myself before, let alone for more than half a year.

My concerns were further agitated when I realized that I had been been accepted to intern over the summer at bio engineering company that I had always wanted to work at. Because I was leaving so soon for Taiwan, I reluctantly turned the offer down, a decision that would haunt me for the next few weeks. As I became more stressed out, I started losing sleep. A week before I was set to leave, I began to question my entire reasoning for going to Taiwan. To make matters worse, EVA air, the airline company for my flight to Taiwan, suddenly went on strike, forcing me to book a different airline three days before my scheduled departure.

I felt that the universe was telling me not to go anymore. I frantically texted all of my friends who had studied abroad before, asking them if they felt the same sense of anxiety and stress as I did, and how their experiences eventually panned out. Then, on June 30th, 2019, I boarded my flight set to Taipei. The next six and a half months were some of the best months of my life, and I hope that that this blog will convince you to take a chance as I did and study abroad in Taiwan.

我對留學的目的

Before I dive into my actual experiences, I'd like to elaborate on a concept that I struggled with for the first few months. People study abroad for different reasons. For some, it's about leaving their country for the first time, and experiencing that sense of independence. For others, it's about experiencing a different culture. For me, it was about discovering my self-identity. I was at the place where my paternal grandparents had lived their lives. Although I had never been to Taiwan prior to 2017, my childhood was indirectly shaped by Taiwanese heritage, and I intended on embracing this heritage as much as I could over the duration of my stay. As a result, if there was ever an opportunity for me to spend more time with Taiwanese people, or experience more of Taiwan as a whole, I did it, even if it was at the cost of friendships with people within my program, or even schoolwork. As a student from Berkeley, this was last bit was new territory for me. When I first signed up for courses, I approached my workload as if I was picking courses for another semester a Berkeley. Three weeks in, I realized that this decision was a mistake. I soon came to the following conclusion: I am here to experience as much of Taiwan as possible. Taking courses is something I can do back at home, but there is only a finite amount of time I can spend here in Taiwan.

This became my new philosophy and was how I decided to live the majority of my time abroad. In fact, most days in Taiwan, I spent a grand total of zero hours on homework. That's right, zero. Every hour spend on homework was an hour loss to exploring Taiwan. Many may not agree with this mentality, but it was my approach and it felt right to me. And looking back now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

A map of all the places I went while in Taiwan

我旅程最精彩的亮點

Summing all of my experiences in six months is a likely an impossible task. Therefore, I will highlight the most sentimentally profound highlights of my journey, and describe why I think these moments were critical in my discovering my self-identity.

國際學伴 (International Learning Companion)

If there is one extracurricular activity that you should do at NTU, it's definitely the ICL program. The ICL program is a program sponsored by the ministry of education that pairs foreign exchange students with a group of elementary school kids from rural areas of Taiwan. Most of these kids do not speak English, and you are paired with an NTU student to help translate. Each week, you and your NTU partner are responsible for Skyping the kids for one hour. Most of these kids have never been outside of their rural hometowns, let alone seen or heard of foreign culture. This cross collaboration allows the foreigner to learn more about Taiwanese life, and gives the kids an opportunity to interact and learn from a foreigner. At the end of the program, you are provided with a free trip (all expenses included) to the school you are responsible for, where you can meet the kids in person!

The school I was assigned to was 深澳國小, a small elementary school located on the outskirts of 基隆. During our school visit, the kids taught us a traditional dragon dance (depicted below). After the performance, we were instructed on how to make traditional mochi from scratch (shown on the right).

At the end of the school year, the kids from 深澳 elementary school also came up to NTU to visit us. During the final visit, we toured NTU, and shared gifts.

The reason this program was especially memorable for me was because it provided me with a "what if" kind of scenario. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, but yet I felt an emotional bond to these kids because it felt like we came from a similar background. Their childhood was almost like an "alternate universe" to me, and learning more about how they lived their lives was almost like learning more about myself.

In addition to visiting the school you are responsible for, ICL also gives you the opportunity to apply for other trips to other areas of Taiwan. This is a great way to see as much of Taiwan as possible, as the transportation and living arrangements are taken care of for you. In addition to 深澳國小，I also went on the trips to 花蓮 and 臺中.

花蓮

On this trip, we went to three elementary schools: 花蓮縣長良國小, 臺東縣樟原國小, and 花蓮縣美崙國中. This trip was particularly memorable because the schools we went to were mostly populated by the Taiwanese indigenous people. They taught us how to sing songs in their indigenous language, dance their indigenous dance, and even harvest bamboo to make our own bowls and chopsticks. We also played various sports with the kids, including soccer.

After the first day, we returned to 玉裏鎮, a small village south of 花蓮. We were able to find rent bikes and ride along the well paved bike path through the city. Along the bike path we encountered the border line between the Philippine Sea tectonic plate and Eurasian tectonic plate (shown below).

That evening, we had dinner at Yulin township. After grabbing a few beers from seven, we headed to our bnb. We spend the evening lounging on the beach, where a full moon illuminated the untouched coast and the gentle waves of the water lapped at our feet.

The Journey There

The Return Journey

The Rural Country Side of Hualien

On the border of Eurasian and Philippine Sea tectonic plates

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Dancing with the aboriginal children of Hualien

Me at Yuli station, where we ate dinner

The experience was particularly eye opening for me. Because I was living in the metropolis city of Taipei, I was only ever encountered Taiwanese-Chinese people. I had the impression up to this point that the island of Taiwan was predominantly populated by Chinese, and this experience brought me in contact the indigenous culture that is still so relevant today. Moreover, this trip exposed me to the very rural parts of Taiwan, and enabled me to see many natural scenic ares that I would not have been able to see otherwise.

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Our BNB was right by the ocean

We were taught how to make steamed rice over a traditional bonfire

The kids were well versed in various crafts, including making clothes

臺中

This trip was especially memorable because of the special activity we did at one of the schools. The kids (mostly first and second graders) took us to the back yard of their school, where a natural stream flowed. The school provided us with water shoes, and we waded through the stream with the kids. They kids even taught us how to set traps to catch little fish and shrimp in the stream.

The Backyard of the School

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We were taught how to catch wild shrimp

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Dancing with the kids!

ICL was one of the most fruitful experiences during my time in Taiwan. It exposed me to the lives of children that lived away from the big city, where I spent most of my time. In addition, I feel like I was able to fully experience Taiwan by learning more about aboriginal culture and lifestyle. I have made some lifelong friends in this program, and I hope to keep in contact with these friends in the future.

火舞社團(Fire Dance Club)

The decision to be part of fire dance while abroad was a very impulsive one. During the English club fair, my friend Justin and I both became interested in the joining the club. However, I was on the fence till the end, as I had been part of a dance team before in college and was afraid of the time commitment. What ended up convincing me to join was the sentiment I shared at the beginning of the blog. I really wanted to meet as many Taiwanese people as possible, and taking all English courses at NTU (combined with the fact that I was living in the international dorms) prevented me from doing this. I also wanted to participate in an activity that I felt I couldn't do at Cal, and look cool while doing it xD.

Towards the middle of the semester, we had a social outdoor BBQ activity. After the BBQ, we were instructed on how to safely practice with fire for the first time.

Practices sometimes went extremely late (1 or 2 in the morning), but I still had a great time getting to meet so many talented people. As the semester wore on, my group became extremely close. Below is the video of our final performance.

Hiking

One of the things I love the most about Taiwan is the nature that surrounds the island. Over the course of my semester, I did several different hikes, each providing an eye opening perspective on the natural beauty that Taiwan has to offer.

茶壺山（Tea-Pot Mountain）

By far my favorite hike was Tea-Pot Mountain, known for its unique shape. This hike is located behind the famous 九分 old street. After taking a winding bus to the top of the hill, we commenced our hike to the top. When we got near the summit, we had to climb through a small group of rocks, almost like a tunnel. After emerging out of the tunnel, you reach the peak of the Tea Pot Mountain. The top of the mountain offers gorgeous views of Taiwan's coast.

七星山（Seven Star Mountain）

Seven star mountain is the highest point in all of Taipei. It is one of the most popular hikes in all of Yangmingshan. As we hiked to the summit, natural steam vents surrounded us on both sides. Once at the top, there are amazing views of all of Taipei.

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日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake)

Sun Moon Lake is one of the biggest natural lakes in Taiwan. The trip to Sun Moon Lake was especially memorable, because the whole time we really didn't know what was going to happen. The hostel we had booked was about a mile away from the lake, and we hoped that the bus from Taichung main station would be able to take us there. However, the line for that bus was too long for us to catch. With the sun setting fast, we agreed to let a driver we met at the station take us to the hostel, for a fee of 200 NTD per person. Everything felt a little bit sketch, but it all worked out in the end. The hostel owner even provided us with free transportation to and from the lake. It was a beautiful weekend, and we were able to explore most of the lake by boat and bike.

小琉球

小琉球 is a small island located off the coast of the southern part of Taiwan. It is famous for its natural caves, and is one of the best places in Taiwan to swim with sea turtles.

After taking a half hour boat ride to the island, we found a local shop that rented electric scooters for us to use. This was the first time in my life driving an electric scooter, and it was an absolute thrilling experience. One can drive around the entire island in about an hour.

Zach and I decided to take our time and drive down the west coast of the island first. We had an awesome time exploring the caves and taverns, but didn't see any sea turtles. As the sun began to set, we decided to visit one last vista point. While we were taking pictures and wading in the warm water, a few college students approached us, and asked us to help take their picture for graduation. I agreed. As I was about to hand back the camera, they suddenly told Zach and I that they wanted to take pictures with us as well, which really took me by surprise given that we had just met them.

What started as a photo session soon blossomed into a really unique friendship. That night, we got dinner with them at a local seafood restaurant. After, they took us on what's called a 夜游, a night tour of the island by motorbike/motorcycle that gave us gerogous views illuminuated by the full moon.

That night, we stayed in their hostel till 3 or 4 in the monring, playing card games and talking about life. We agreed to go snorkeling with them the next morning, all of us hoping to see the legendary sea turtles of the island.

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