Month: January 2022

Although Fulbright Taiwan is officially named Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, the supported activities are not only about scholarship but also cultural exchange. Doing so, I firmly believe that we scholars can have a deeper understanding of the society, especially when interpreting research findings from a social-historical context that is very different from the U.S. With this mindset, I took my family visiting as many places as we could in Taiwan, such as the Confucius Temple and one of the earliest Baptist churches in Taipei, and interacting with people of diverse backgrounds. For example, we visited “contemporary” farmers, who are also scientists receiving highest academic degrees from the U.S., and stayed in a traditional house in the countryside. (the only thing that I can complain about this visit to rural Taiwan is that roosters woke up at 4 AM!) In a different trip to central Taiwan, when tasting natural honey fragrance (or, fruit-flavor) black tea, I also ran into an award-winning singer performing his soul-touching songs on the deck of droughty Sun Moon Lake. (“…the unique taste is due to insect wound…but the wound makes it particularly tasty…Tea is like people. Wounds can make people weak or can make people stronger.

I arrived in Taipei on January 31, 2021 to begin my Fulbright program in Taiwan. After three weeks of quarantine in two hotels in Taipei, I arrived at Tunghai University on February 22, 2021. My stay in the university was officially over by June 30, 2021 and I returned to the United States on July 2, 2021. In total, I have spent more than five months in Taiwan. Giving lectures is the major part of my Fulbright program in Taiwan. After arriving at Tunghai University, I met with the Dean, Dr. Wen-den Chen, of the College of Social Sciences and Professor Peiyuan Cai. With their arrangement, I had the opportunity to meet the chairs of the departments of sociology, social work, political science, and economics. Later on, I also met with the director of the Graduate Institute of Education/Center of Teacher Education and the chair of the Department of Public Management and Policy. These meetings allowed me to introduce my research and teaching topics to the department chairs and also learn the needs and interests of these departments. According to each department’s interests and needs, I have delivered six lectures to both graduate and undergraduate students as well as the