Archive

“It’s made by chili, not curry.” Supra-understanding of Foreign Friendship Talks in ELF

In America, I found that many speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) experience misinterpretations involving loanwords, culturally-specific locutions, creative wordplay, or individual idiolects. Accordingly, in my talk for the celebration of 75 years of Fulbright, I proposed the concept of supra-understanding to explicate how ELF speakers can develop

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An Unforgettable Adventure in Taiwan

Looking back on this past year, I couldn’t have imagined how incredible my Fulbright experience in Taiwan would be. For most of my life, I lived in Boise, Idaho, a modest-sized city in the Mountain Northwest. I knew, however, that after graduating from college I needed to explore more of

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Hong Jiang: Nature, Culture, and Geography

Dr. Hong Jiang is an Associate Professor of Geography and Environment from University of Hawaii at Manoa, and her Fulbright project is on Cultural Geography of Tea in Taiwan. While her Fulbright post at National Taiwan University is lectureship, she has been able to use the opportunity to build research collaborations on the study of tea in Taiwan, and has gained much in combining teaching and research. Hong Jiang teaches in the area of cultural geography, and has been doing research on tea and culture in imperial China and contemporary Taiwan.

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The importance of optimism

“I don’t know if you’re brave or if you’re crazy,” said a fellow Fulbrighter to me after our quarantines had ended, “coming to a country where you don’t know anyone and you don’t know the language.” The comment caught me off-guard, but she was right: What on earth had I

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Lessons from my Mini-UN: Teaching History in an International Classroom

While preparing for my teaching grant at Tunghai University, International College Dean, Dr. James Sims, asked me to design a world history course that introduced students to foundational concepts from history and geography. His request was particularly exciting to me because I have a passion for history, but don’t often get to

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Memory, Connection and Community: My Fulbright Story

The Fulbright program shaped some of my earliest childhood memories. In 1967, my father received a Fulbright to National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan.  A math professor at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, he and my mother had never been to another country (except perhaps a trip

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Life in Taiwan as Cultural Ambassadors

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

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My Fulbright Program in Taiwan

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

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