fulbright Taiwan online journal

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Month: October 2018

Bilingualism in Science and Engineering Education in Taiwan

The Basic Question      As an American scientist in Taiwan, what language should I speak?      I am a US-educated chemical engineer who has spent a year collaborating with engineering professors and students at Yuan Ze University in Taoyuan, Taiwan. I have a bachelor’s degree in Chinese language, and had previously studied in Taiwan and China, but my language classes were all non-technical; before arriving in Taiwan, I knew how to talk about current events, but not how to talk about organic chemistry. I wasn’t sure how much of the technical vocabulary I’d be using for my project would be in Mandarin. Before arriving in Taiwan, I tried to study some scientific vocabulary. Though I learned some words that were relevant to my project, I was surprised to find that there were fewer resources available for learning scientific vocabulary than for learning economic or business terms. I worried that I was missing something important: surely there were other scientists who wanted to learn Chinese words so that they could work internationally?      Once I arrived in Taiwan and began working with the Taiwanese students, I paid attention to how they spoke. I started to find the answer

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My Fulbright Year at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania

     It was a great privilege and honor to be selected as a Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) in 2014. As I looked back on my Fulbright experience at Ursinus College four years later, I could see more clearly the many blessings that I received throughout my ten-month stay in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. It is impossible to detail every aspect of the grant experience in one single reflection, but three aspects figured prominently during the grant year: cultural exchange, academic study, and community outreach and travels.      One of the richest experiences as an FLTA is the exchange of cultures with my students and other FLTAs through sharing and learning. In terms of sharing, I had numerous occasions in my weekly conversation class to share Chinese cultures with my students – Chinese tongue twisters, shadow puppetry, cuisines, films and TV shows, poems, just to name a few. One memorable experience was my leading several American students to perform in the school’s annual celebration. We sang and danced to a popular Taiwanese song by Wu Bai, “You Are My Flower,” winning us a big round of applause from the audience. Another notable experience took place during the Chinese New Year

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Reflections of a Southern Girl on her First Trip to Taiwan

     Reflecting on our two-week journey to learn more about the rich history of Taiwan, I am thankful to be a part of the first International Educators Administrators (IEA) program for Fulbright Taiwan. I hope to give back by taking what I have gained and building upon it: I want more people to learn about the Fulbright Taiwan vision: “a world with a little more knowledge, and a little less conflict.” I am a “Southern” girl. I was born in the South of the United States, in Burlington, North Carolina. Growing up, I also spent five years in southern China and Hong Kong, where I learned Mandarin Chinese. I would like to reflect on my first trip to Taiwan using the lens of language and language learning, and share about my experiences in Taiwan: the charms of Taiwan, speaking Chinese there, and some things I learnt about the challenges Taiwan face. Charm of Taiwan      The island of Taiwan is the size of Maryland and Delaware but has 23 million people, giving it one of the highest population densities in the world. I could feel the “heartbeat of Asia” when I first arrived in Taipei, and began to

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Air Quality in Taiwan

I’m a Senior Scholar and visiting researcher who studies air pollution in the College of Public Health at National Taiwan University. My primary appointment is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, where my research group applies quantitative methods to track the emissions, transformations, and fate of gases and particles in indoor and outdoor air. When people find out what I study, they often exclaim, “The air pollution is so bad in Taipei!” While vehicle exhaust along busy streets is often noticeable, in general, Taipei’s air quality is relatively good compared to that of other large cities in Asia. In fact, this is one of the reasons why my family selected Taipei for our sabbatical. How is the air quality in Taiwan?      The pollutant of greatest concern in Taiwan is fine particulate matter of diameter 2.5 microns and smaller (PM2.5); it is roughly 100 times smaller than the diameter of human hair. Exposure to elevated levels of PM2.5 can cause coughing, make it hard to breathe, and aggravate asthma. Long-term effects include cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and ultimately, premature death. The World Health Organization estimates that exposure to PM2.5 is responsible for 7 million

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Charting the Evolution of China-Taiwan Cross-Strait Financial Services in a Sea of Digital Disruption

    Every morning when I woke up in my apartment on the campus of National Tsinghua University in Hsinchu, I was greeted by the sound of singing birds. I lived in a faculty residence inside the lush NTHU campus with its rivers, lakes and rolling hills, sheltered from Hsinchu’s urban bustle and noise. I got around the campus and nearby shops in Hsinchu on a bicycle that a faculty colleague lent to me. Temporarily disencumbered of my family, my house in Seattle and my obligations as a University of Washington faculty member, I felt like an undergraduate again. The time I spent in 1985-86 studying Chinese in Taiwan had been one of the happiest in my life. Even though so many things about my life had changed in the thirty years between my return to Taiwan, my year of Fulbright research was also one of my happiest. I was grateful every day for the privilege of being able to step away from my life in America and to step back into life in Taiwan.     I received a Cross-Strait Studies Fulbright research grant to study the integration of financial services in Greater China. For the last twenty years,

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Peilei Fan: Urbanization and Environmental Change: Comparative Analysis of Taipei and Shanghai

Being an expert in urban development condition of East Asia, Peilei Fan spent the first half of her Fulbright Cross-strait Studies grant in Taipei, Taiwan. She developed an urban development index and framework, and will continue her research in Shanghai, China. In the video, she also shared her observations and experiences on the education system and natural outings in Taiwan. Dr. Peilei Fan is an associate professor of Urban & Regional Planning in the School of Planning, Design, and Construction at Michigan State University. She holds a joint research appointment at the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations. Dr. Fan’s research focuses on the urban environment, innovation and economic development. She is a Fulbright US Scholar of Cross-Strait Studies Program for 2017-2018 in Taipei and Shanghai.

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fulbright taiwan online journal