So this weekend my Chinese professor from America was in town for the AIEF Fair
(American International Education Foundation). So this means it was basically a
study abroad convention where students from China and Taiwan could look at
schools overseas and ask questions about living in America. We ran the booth
with Professor Liu on Saturday and on Sunday. It wasn’t much different from
running a comic convention really, just instead of giving on comic stuff we
were pitching SVSU and trying to use a little of our Chinese. (Also everyone thought our mascot, the
cardinal, was an Angry Bird… lol). It made me really happy to show off my school.
On Monday we had the day off for Shih Hsin’s anniversary. This didn’t mean
there wasn’t things to be done. I spent the morning studying for a Chinese test
(encompassing all we’d learned so far) and doing translation homework. Then the
evening was a formal dinner with Professor Liu.
The dinner was at the Brother’s Hotel near Taipei 101. It was super fancy. We invited students from English Corner and friends from campus. We ended up with something like 25 students total, more than expected but a great turn out. There were also students from Ming Chuan (forgive my spelling) University that had studied at my home university over the summer (they were really cool) and alumni. The alumni were professors and CEO’s and leaders of the alumni association in Taiwan. They had studied abroad at my home university and now visited every so often. One from Ming Chuan University, Ms. Carol Song sat at my table.
Apparently they are going to start a new graduate program with Chinese language as a focus, with some classes in the US and then some classes back here in Taiwan. I am super interested in seeing where that goes.
The food was Taiwanese and very good. Carol told us that it was “very Taiwanese, just fancy,” because of the hotel. So there are lots of food pics for me to share.
At last it was time to return home. I got to ride the MRT and Bus home with many of my Taiwanese friends and one from Hong Kong. We took pictures and sang songs and talked about the evening. It made the trip home go a lot faster and helped me forgot for a short time how tired I was.
Back at Shih Hsin it was time for more studying. Sally went out the Jingmei night market and got me a milk tea while she was at it. I was up pretty late studying and preparing for the week, but it was all worth it. Tomorrow I get to sleep in a little and then its off to buy decorations and costumes for the ~Halloween~ party at English Corner.
