Written by Helper- Andre Lin

I am honored to participate in three exchange activities for international students of the School of Management: campus tour, cultural night, and one-day tour. The core values of the three activities are to enable international students to have a better understanding of the country of Taiwan and the school of National Taiwan University.

The first activity is the campus tour. Since the exchange students are not familiar with each other, the campus tour plays an important part in getting everyone to know one another.

The campus tour contains 3 parts, the first part is the introduction to buildings and the environment, and the second one is a brief history guide about Taiwan. Although it seems like they are not very interested in the history part, the Q&A session makes the atmosphere lively and spice up the tour.

Last but not least, we played a wide game on campus, which let the students know more about the environment by running back and forth in the campus.

The second activity is cultural night, we prepare three night market activities for  the international students. I enjoyed the delicious food at the night market so much. Moreover, fried chicken and milk tea received unanimous praise.

During the one-day trip in Taipei, we visited the Lin Family Garden and the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. They all enjoyed and admired the breathtaking traditional garden architecture a lot. 

The reason why I participated in so many activities is that I learn a lot when I talk to international students, even if it is just a small talk. When I was a high school student, I went to Germany for exchange student for one year.

Although there were some setbacks at the beginning, I still made many friends when I got more familiar with the culture. I matured a lot in this experience and gained a lot of wisdom and skills. 

Since local students and international students have a lot of differences due to our geographical and cultural backgrounds, we can spark various ideas if we communicate or work with each other.

The most important lesson that I learned in cultural exchange activities is that we should be open-minded and curious all the time. Especially as we grow older, we may become rigid in our thinking, holding stereotypes toward one another. Talking to foreign students always reminds me to be humble and have diverse perspectives.

The second reason why I want to join the activities is that I hope I can use the experience I had in Germany to help those foreign students who just got here.

For example, introduce them some social taboos or teach them how to take public transportations.

Last but not least, thanks to the preparation team for their hard work and thoughtfulness, the cultural exchange activities went really well. The precious experience definitely broaden my horizon and allow me to have the chance to introduce the beauty of Taiwan to foreigners.

I hope I can participate in more cultural exchange activities and make more international friends.