English - Research & Reflections

Storytelling, Trash-chasing & Break-dancing: An Inside Look at an Iranian-American Girl’s Journey through Taiwan

Lillygol Sedaghat 賽莉莉 October 9, 2018

September 4, 2017. Taipei. 12 hours over the Pacific, and I felt invincible. “This is it,” I told myself, pushing three pieces of black luggage (one small, one medium, and one super large) over cracked concrete slabs to Greenworld Hostel, the first of 15 different locations I would come in time to call home. “This—this is what I’ve been waiting for.” Months of preparation led me right here—this tiny spot outside a 7-Eleven—to begin a nine-month adventure as a Fulbright researcher and National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellow. A tan camera bag and beat-up black satchel crisscrossed my shoulders, balancing the two things my life (and my work) depended on. I paused for a moment, straightening my back to look at the bright city lights and wipe the sweat off my forehead. I imagined what the people walking past me saw—a young woman with a ridiculously wide smile, two large sweaters wrapped around her waist, an awestruck expression glued to her face. “Wow,” I whispered softly. This was where I wanted to be. One month prior, I was standing shoeless on a matted surface, staring at a computer screen and answering emails. The standard

A Year of Weaving in Taiwan

Jennifer Huang 黃謙恕 October 9, 2018

It is astonishing to me how quickly these nine months have gone by in Taiwan. This semester in the remote hills of Tainan, where I am a Visiting Artist at Tainan National University of the Arts, my spring has been more introspective, and I am recoiling inwards to access how to best create a work of art in response to my research of indigenous Atayal weaving in the fall, when I was hosted by the Ethnology department at National Chengchi University in Taipei. I have been fearful of being unable to adequately respect and promote the revered weaving process that I have learned. Not being Atayal, I have been afraid of appropriating their patterns to tell a story that was not mine to tell. I had reservations about researching Atayal culture, since “the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to imperialism and colonialism. The word itself, ‘research,’ is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary,” as Maori anthropologist, Linda Tuhiwai Smith writes in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. I have witnessed this skepticism in the Atayal community that I was working with, and I recognize the validity of their concerns. I knew

Bilingualism in Science and Engineering Education in Taiwan

Rose Doerfler 杜玫瑰 October 9, 2018

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

My Fulbright Year at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania

Ying-Jeng Wang 王瓔錚 October 9, 2018

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

Reflections of a Southern Girl on her First Trip to Taiwan

Anna Dunaway October 9, 2018

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

Air Quality in Taiwan

Linsey Chen Marr 陳蓮式 October 9, 2018

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

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

Jane Winn 康涵真 October 9, 2018

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,

Reflections: Track in Taipei

Taili Ni 倪泰麗 September 11, 2018

My Fulbright experience in Taiwan has allowed me to pursue a master’s degree in International Studies and explore different facets of student life in Taipei. One of the ways I have involved myself in the campus community at National Chengchi University has been by joining the track team. Running was a critical part of my undergraduate experience in the U.S.; after seven years of track and cross-country throughout high school and college, I was not ready to give it up quite yet. Running track in Taiwan has been a very different experience than running track in the U.S. This was unexpected, since I figured that running in circles and making left turns was pretty intuitive and would be exactly the same regardless of geography. I did not anticipate how different the sport, and my experience in it, would be here, and it has surprised me many times throughout this 2017-18 school year. Transitioning to life in Taipei has been easy for me. From the very beginning I felt quite at home in this friendly city with its many stunning views, delicious food and lovable stray dogs. Even though the past nine months have been filled

Bringing a Piece of Kentucky to the Taiwanese Classroom

Alexandra Hezik 賀琳 August 22, 2018

For the 2017-18 academic year, my alma mater, Western Kentucky University (WKU), hosted a Taiwanese Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) to help tutor students currently studying Mandarin Chinese in the university’s Chinese Flagship Program. As a recent graduate of that program, I thought it was an interesting coincidence that the two of us essentially switched places—she went to WKU and I came to Taipei. The FLTA was named Pia Lin. She also happened to be the co-founder of The World In Your Classroom (TWIYC), a non-profit organization that provides foreigners living in or visiting Taiwan the opportunity to share information about their home country with Taiwanese students by guest lecturing at local middle and high schools. Around March, Pia contacted me to ask if I would be interested in volunteering as a guest lecturer for TWIYC. After reading about TWIYC and their work, I figured this would be a great opportunity to share a piece of my home, the great Commonwealth of Kentucky—a place most Taiwanese people know very little about, compared to U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles—with students. On April 28th, I attended the second of two training days held

From Pennsylvania to Taiwan: Reflections on Fulbright International Education Administrators Seminar

Kati Csoman August 22, 2018

Professional Development My participation in the Fulbright International Education Administrators Seminar in Taiwan in March 2017 broadened my professional experience in East Asia, which was previously limited to organizing site visits to Japan (2007) and China (2016). The Fulbright experience helped me contextualize a deepening engagement with partnerships in Taiwan and explore new opportunities for both student exchange and faculty collaboration. The Fulbright Taiwan IEA seminar provided me with an in-depth professional and intercultural learning experience quite different from the experiences I have had leading site visits or student groups. I was able to focus on my own learning and experience for a substantial period of time rather than being responsible for the organization and logistics for a group. As an academic administrator, the daily demands of my position’s responsibilities and the constraints of the academic calendar do not allow for intensive and extended experiences abroad. From lectures and cultural visits to direct access to officials in the American Institute in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education and even the President of Taiwan, the overall structure of the Fulbright Taiwan IEA seminar provided invaluable information about the politics, economics, and culture

Research & Reflections

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Research & Reflections

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Tag: English

Storytelling, Trash-chasing & Break-dancing: An Inside Look at an Iranian-American Girl’s Journey through Taiwan

A Year of Weaving in Taiwan

Bilingualism in Science and Engineering Education in Taiwan

My Fulbright Year at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania

Reflections of a Southern Girl on her First Trip to Taiwan

Air Quality in Taiwan

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

Reflections: Track in Taipei

Bringing a Piece of Kentucky to the Taiwanese Classroom

From Pennsylvania to Taiwan: Reflections on Fulbright International Education Administrators Seminar

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Research & Reflections

fulbright taiwan online journal