First day of classes
The day dawned bright and early for me -- well, perhaps not bright, since I woke up at 1:38 AM -- but I was thankfully able to get back to sleep and joined my classmates for breakfast at 7:30 AM. The meal was interesting, to say the least. The school, probably in an effort to cater to our American tastes, provided french fries, chicken nuggets, and hamburgers alongside the more traditional Taiwanese breakfast options of congee (a sort of watery rice porridge to which you can add powdered dried pork) and zha huashengmi (fried peanuts). Personally, I stuck with the more palatable options of cereal, milk, orange juice, and hard-boiled eggs.
After that, it was off to class. We had no Mandarin training today, but instead had two hours of orientation followed by two hours of lecture and Q&A on Taiwan's medium and small enterprises with Chiu-Cheng Chang, the chair of the Department of Finance at Asia University's College of Management. After an hour of lunch, we were back for four more hours of lecture with Professor Chang, before loading onto a bus that would take us all into Taichung for a reception and dinner party with other professors, deans, and the president of the university.
The bus ride in was fun. Taichung is a very crowded, bustling, colorful place, but the influence of the West is much more pronounced than in Beijing. The signs are both obvious (huge stores like Toys 'R' Us, or chains like T. G. I. Friday) and more subtle (competent English translations, greater sensitivity of personal space). The streets are flooded, as in Beijing, with two-wheelers alongside the larger vehicles, but in Taiwan these are all mopeds or scooters, not bicycles -- a clear sign of economic prosperity.
Dinner was delicious -- twelve courses long, with warm wet towels served at intervals for us to wipe our face and hands in between courses. As fate would have it, I wound up sitting at the same table as the university president. He went to Brown! He was actually a pretty cool guy. I got to practice some Chinese (and was teased by the president about having a Beijing accent -- who would have thought it could be distinguished beneath what I am sure is a pretty heavy American accent??) as well as my toasting method. Everyone just kept toasting each other, all night long. This became somewhat awkward if someone raised their glass to begin a toast just as you finished your last sip of orange juice, necessitating a quick but silent scramble to fill the glass before the toast was over and you needed to drink something to give honor to the toaster. Very interesting. (Amy and Steph: I will teach you the Taiwanese way of toasting when I get home!)
Anyway, many pictures were taken of the event, as you can see from the photos scattered throughout this post. I don't know why, but the Taiwanese in general, and our TAs in particular, are totally photo crazy. It took us almost twenty minutes to even get into the banquet hall because of all the group pictures we posed for. All in all, a good first day and a wonderful reception at night. Now, I can't wait to go to bed!!
posted by Kelly @ 2:41 PM
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