Greetings from Kaohsiung, Taiwan
你好! 我們是來自印尼的交換生 (Hello! We are exchange students from Indonesia)
The year 2015 has become a year of excitement for 5 Binusian students named Elizabeth and Jessica from International Relations Department, Anisa, Arie and Aulia from Business Law Department. It was unbelievably amazing to start our 3rd and 5th semester in Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa Island. Heading to one of the famous science and technology universities in Taiwan, located in the second largest city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. Cheng Shiu University (正修科技大學) has become our destination to gain more knowledge and academic experiences. Through unexpected things that come up, we believe the challenges and opportunities will always on the way up. Sweet and bitterness moments colored our journey to Taiwan, but as long as the sun is still shining, everything will come up with the solution.
dent exchange program is one of the many ways to enlarge our global networks. Believe it or not, people who go abroad will learn how to understand people from different parts of the world with different cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives. For the past few weeks, culture shock happened a lot. We were surprised by using toilet without hand held bidet spray beside toilet seats, seeing free tea in cafetaria and restaurants, and finding a lot of helpful people here. People in Kaohsiung are kind and generous. We have experienced to get free portion of rice by āyí in cafetaria, free drink by āyí near Fongsan West MRT Station, free five portion of rice, biscuits and mango by āyí near dormitory and free package of chicken pok-pok by xiānsheng near dormitory. How lucky we are! As well in here, we have a very patient, helpful and beloved teacher named Krystl Lim (Kai Kai Laoshi). We already gave her Indonesian name called Ibu Intan and she liked it.
Been wondering to have best friends, we start to make friends with so many people here. Language barrier may be difficult, but we do using body language and translating applications, that are so helpful. The most interesting part is, all people are so respectful knowing we are from Indonesia. Indonesia is so popular here. When we meet someone, mostly they will say 你是印尼人嗎? (Are you Indonesian?) or they will say 你是哪裡人? (Where are you from?) When we say 我們是印尼人 (We are Indonesian), they will put on a warm smile and ask more about ourselves. We do love Kaohsiung people so much!
Class has already begun most of our classmates cannot speak English. Some students could but they don’t speak English fluently, but we tried our best to making friends. We just realized that our LINE and Facebook friends nowadays are full of new friends who type their names with Chinese characters. We have never imagined starting our first weeks with so many wonderful experiences which full of laughs, good friends, tasty foods and beautiful places. Challenging yet fun, another memories are waiting for us. 待回見. (See you later)
