Location: Jian Tan (Chien Tan), Taipei.
"HOW do I feel about these 20 days spent in Taiwan?" and "WHAT am I feeling right now knowing that I'll leave tomorrow?"
It's kinda new for me, for starters, it's a study trip OVERSEA. Like far far away from home.
It's not Malaysia anymore. People don't speak Malay/Eng/Cantonese... People here speak Hokkien and mandarin, which made me feel so at home but at the same time, well aware that I'm standing on foreign soil. I can't screw up and hope that mom and dad will show up in a jiffy to sort things out for me. I don't know the taboos and traditions in that country... Though we are all Chinese (having tan skin and black hair) maybe it's the distance, the stark difference in culture is so obvious to ignore. Taiwanese mentality reminded me of the Japs.
Compare to them, I feel so inferior. Before the trip, the organizing committees gave long long speech telling us about the positive side of Taiwan. They ask us to take a neutral look at their culture, their tradition, their mentality, their way of life, etc. We can see that the people there take simple social benefits seriously. It might be that their DBI (Dewan Bandaraya Ipoh) people are more hard working, I see clean streets that I don't quite often see in our country.
Their achievement in recycling system in the cities were not taken as that "Recycling-Campaign-our-government-enforced-a-couple-years-back-and-never-heard-of-ever-since". They talk about recycling EVERYWHERE.
There's this one thing though, our study trip was organized by a very influential organization in Taiwan and the whole thing to is get some Malaysians between the ages of 16 - 26 over to Taiwan, promote Taiwan and hope that out of the 338 people the Taiwanese government sponsored, at least a quarter of them might attracted to come and study in Taiwan, work or at the very least, come to Taiwan again to contribute to Taiwan's industrialized economy in the future.
And because of that, I feel like we don't get the see the whole of Taiwan, and I don't mean physically. The scenery were totally mind-blowingly awesome but the whole presentation of the trip made me wonder what's behind the mask of majestic achievements of this newly industrialized country. In other words, the side of Taiwan that we saw was a really perfectly flawless Taiwan with an united nation leading harmonious life. But seriously we missed all the dramas of earthquakes, hurricanes, political rallies and all that jazz that Taiwan is famous for. In a way, the perfectly flawless Taiwan made it a really dull country to me, besides having sibeh many types of Chow Tau Fu man... Hehe...
Anyhoo, it's really fun to know 35 and more friends that I'll cherish and tons and TONS of pictures pictures to allow me to reminisce later in life~~
Like what I put in my msn
"Happy 2008! Glad to have spent my last days of 2007 with you strange but adorable people!!"
Oh, and yea.. Happy 2008!! I'm SO gona miss shopping and eating in Taiwan!
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