NSLI-Y 2024 Taiwan – Week 3
Jacob (費嘉博) and Mary (麥莉莎), your blog writers for this week!
大家 (dàjiā)，早安 (zǎo’ān)! Good morning, everyone! We are officially halfway through our stay in Taiwan, as each day brings a new adventure to our cohort.
We started off the week with our favorite ACES Program Manager, Henry Pratt, visiting us! He got to see all the progress we’ve been making in our Mandarin classes as we prepared for our mid-term on Friday: a 10-minute speaking test. On Monday, he also got a sneak peek of us rehearsing our class song, 暖暖 (nuǎn nuǎn).
Monday’s lunch at the Shih Chien cafeteria (with our RDs and Henry)!
Tigers Class, with Yè 老师 (teacher), taking a class field trip to get ice cream after practicing direction words in Chinese. Pictured left-to-right: Emilie, Amelia, Samuel, Juan, Mary, Lucy, Jacob, Yè 老师, and Sparda.
Dragons Class, with Yáng 老师 (teacher), playing a game in class to practice their Chinese. Pictured left-to-right: Yàng 老师, Scott, Elim, Owen, and Katherine.
Pandas Class, with Lín 老师 (teacher), taking a break (xiūxi) in between their Mandarin lesson. Pictured left-to-right: Raffaella, Shivani, Jennifer, Chloe, and Gabriel.
Haben, David, Kallianne, Sparda, and Katherine at our post-lunch song practice!
Halfway through the week, we visited the National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院)! With over 700,000 pieces of Chinese artwork and artifacts dating back thousands of years, there was a lot to explore! We all had a fantastic time learning about the various dynasties (from the Xia to Qing), metalwork, ceramics, carvings, and rare books.
A picture of us just arriving at the museum. Pictured left-to-right: Jacob, Phillip, Jennifer, Lucy, Shivani, and Emilie.
Gabe, Emilie, Calvin, and Amelia soaking up the sun and cultural history!
Exploring the museum’s floral artwork and calligraphy exhibit! Pictured left-to-right: Haben, Phillip, Calvin, Gabe, and Jacob.
Chloe, Jennifer, and Gabriel at the National Palace Museum’s ceramics exhibit.
In addition to our intensive language classes and incredible field trips, many have done mini-adventures around Taipei! From cat cafés to gondola lifts, Taipei has no shortage of unique sights to explore.
Sparda, Kallianne, and David at Dahu Park–just a few metro stops away from our school on the Brown Line!
Visiting a cat café in Ximending. 很可愛 ! Pictured above: Juan, Jacob, Shivani, Raffella, and Mary.
Shivani, Chloe, Raffaella, and Juan explored the Maokong Gondola near Elephant Mountain after class!
Jacob, Elim, Owen, and Scott took a visit to the once-tallest building in the world: Taipei 101!
The 660-metric-ton (1.45 million pounds) damper shown here protects the Taipei 101 building from severe earthquakes.
The end of this week marks the official halfway point of our Taiwan NSLI-Y program. As we reflect the past few weeks, we’re amazed at how far we’ve come: as students, individuals, and citizen ambassadors. Many of us entered the program with little to no Mandarin experience — fast-forward three weeks, we held 10-minute conversations for our mid-term!
We’ve been able to visit so much of Taiwan while learning about its people, culture, and history. Navigating a new city and way of life with host families isn’t easy, but the journey from A to B is never a straight line. From getting on the wrong bus to confusing new words like “sleep” (shuìjiào) and “dumpling” (shuǐjiǎo), these moments have allowed us to grow. We are excited to see what new adventures the second half of this program will hold!
Until next week!