Taiwanese Grad Student Culture

In Taiwan, graduate students spend long hours in the lab. Not only do the work hard, but school is also the recreational hub. Athletic facilities, fast internet, and free air conditioning contrast the typical small studio apartment. They don’t usually spend too much time at home.

Takeout food from small (usually specialty) shops is extremely cheap, and the students rarely cook. Prices range from 50-100 NTD the equivalent of $1.50 - $3.00 USD. [Current exchange rates 1 USD = 33 NTD (New Taiwan Dollars)]. Food, either takeout or at the dining hall consists often of a meat or tofu with rice or noodles. Optional vegetables are commonly cooked. Hot soup is very common. Actually, I’m consistently amazed by how insatiable people’s appetites are for temperature hot food. A cold drink is commonly served only at the end of the meal. Plus, hot food here is basically boiling, and certainly no relief from the extreme heat and humidity. Also curious, I rarely see people wearing sunglasses.

Apartments are also inexpensive compared to US rates, but keep in mind graduate student stipends are proportionally less. One friend said the class structure in Taiwan is like an “M”. Large upper and lower classes, very little in the middle. Downtown large department stores carry expensive designer clothing. The style is actually interesting. Designer retailers rent a 50-500 square foot area inside a large store. The analogy is that malls and their substores are supersized in America.

Karaoke, or KTV, is done differently here than in the US. Instead of broadcasting to an entire bar, a group of friends essentially rent a living room for a private party. The Karaoke building has a hotel feel from the lobby and hallways. Floors have a dozen or two small rooms where friends hang out and sing. Also in this small living room style, it’s possible to rent a movie of your choice and have a private screening with your friends. This makes up for the commonly small apartments.

It's Getting Hot in Here

Basically, Taiwan is hot and wet. Typical summer highs are 95F/35C with a heat index of 104F/40C. The weather reports here are interesting because it’s common to just report a high and low. No ‘current’ conditions are reported, and in particular, relative humidity and heat index are foreign. The students here had never heard of a ‘feels like’ temperature. It’s an interesting cultural difference. Certainly, the lack of weather variation here makes the actual conditions less informative. And at some point, I’d rather just not know how extremely hot it is outside.

In contrast, Americans have access to hourly forecasts down to the ZIP code complete with temperature, ‘effective’ temperature, chance of precipitation, dew point, humidity, and wind conditions. Weather.com further reports a UV index, the air pressure, and visibility. The extent of our Doppler radar and satellite is also daunting.

Americans are picked on because we have the “world revolves around me” mentality. [Though I fail to see how one could get this impression because the evidence presented above indicates we can at most be criticized for having the world revolve around our respective ZIP code.] In the case of weather, we’re just living the information age to its fullest. I’m curious about ‘the world’ around me. If the technology is available, why shouldn’t I have access to it? I shouldn’t have to justify my entitlement, but here it is anyway: In the old days, people would stick their heads out the window. Today, with so many office buildings switching to fixed windows, it becomes clear the need for accurate electronic reporting.

National Chaio Tung University

An update from Taiwan is long past overdue. I have settled in an apartment adjacent to National Chaio Tung University. It has a great view. (Code for: I’m on the top/5^th floor, and there’s no elevator.) Jason, who worked with my lab at Duke for a year, has recently graduated. He has been attending to some errands the past couple weeks and is off to serve his military training requirement next week. He has introduced me to his lab, and they have been incredibly helpful showing me the basics for life at NCTU. In the past couple weeks, I’ve wandered around our campus here and visited downtown. Inspired by the success of Harry Potter night and the SIT farewell party, the crew met up for an evening of KTV (karaoke) last weekend. It was much fun. In the coming weeks I will explore other areas of Taiwan. I also have booked a flight to visit Japan August 3-7.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Last night a group of us went to see the premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (aka Harry Potter 5). This was my first Potter experience. The movie took a while to get going, and condensing the 2 hour 18 minute saga to a 100 minute version would have been appreciated. Overall, the movie was definitely entertaining with its special effects. Elements of mythology and ideologies created a complexity appealing to all ages. I agree with the current Rotten Tomatoes rating, 74% fresh.

SIT Rocks

My first week in Taiwan was great. A dozen college students prepared a wonderful orientation for the approximately 20 American and Canadian students studying here for the summer. We spent the past week getting to know Taiwan and have formed great friendships in the process. Collectively, the staff spoke English very well and communication was quite smooth overall. Some expressions sounded foreign but made complete sense. Especially amusing for me, we were asked to "upload the bus with our luggage". There were also the typical language differences between Team Canada and Team USA. You should know exactly what I'm talk 'about'.

There are so many interesting aspects of life here to compare and contrast. On the bus, as one of the students shared his engagement video you heard identically initial reactions from each group of girls that was watching. (Conversations quickly diverged.) The spoken language and characters are basically all foreign, but some English bands are scattered. The orientation's SIT 2007 photo share is still being developed, but I will try to create a photo essay as things become available. Here's a photo I took at the farewell party at the end of the orientation.

Touchdown

This is my first post from Taiwan! A few hours ago my plane landed at Taipei's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport (TPE). My flight plan took me from RDU to LAX (Boeing 737-800) and then LAX to TPE (Boeing 747-400). I was pleasantly surprised at my comfort level for the second (13 hour+) leg. The Delta flight operated by China Airlines Flight 007 had personal on-demand video screens for all. (Q really hooked us up.) Also, the food was excellent.

I left on Friday evening and arrived Sunday morning at about 6 am local time. With the 12 hour time difference, 'jet-lag' comes to mind. However, I don't feel like the time is 'wrong', I'm more clueless about the feeling of what time it is. ("You're not thinking fourth dimentionally" -Dr. Emmett Brown )

And so begins my 8 week overseas adventure. I look forward to continuing the updates as I explore the culture. One thing is certain. The Far East is far out.