The first week of classes

The first week of classes is almost over now. After the nightmarish boring typhoon weekend, I got up on Monday and the rain was gone, after almost 3 days. It was still cloudy and wet, but people were walking around as if the ice age had just finished. On Monday we had an orientation and welcome party for my IMICS program. Altogether there are 12 of us (as the first-year students). Half is foreigners, half are Taiwanese. The foreigners apparently come in clusters – we have 2 Canadians representing North America, girls from Chile and Mexico representing Latin America and the Slovakian Lenka and myself representing Europe. This program must be really popular for the Czech people, as another guy, Adam, came by to the orientation. However, he will only start next year and is studying Chinese now. In fact, even the foreigners have all been spending time in Taiwan before the program started. I’m the only one fresh-off-the-boat. The students have very different backgrounds, working and studying in various areas, but so far it seems that the group will get on very well.

Monday afternoon was the mandatory medical check at the university. Fortunately, no leprosy tests this time around, but it was still pretty awkward. All of the masters students (several thousands) had to undergo the check in just one afternoon, hence the checks look a bit like prison admissions. Everybody lined up in a large hall – they handed us test tubes and put us in a line in front of several portable toilets. Then, after filling the tubes one by one, everybody had to proudly walk back around the line with their urine to have it tested. When that was done, the blood giving part came. Again, big line, people one by one sitting with a nurse, having their blood taken. There were some tears and several people fainting. The hard part was over, after that we had a quick dental check, hearing, vision, blood pressure, chest x-ray and questionaires (how many pieces of fruit a day do you eat, when did you start smoking..)

Tuesday was my first Chinese class. I signed up for one that takes place 3 times a week, for 2 hours. The class was opened for people who have studied Chinese before. There are 4 of us altogether – a German guy, Danish girl (with Chinese roots), Dutch guy (with Indonesian roots) and me (with Czech roots). The teacher is a Taiwanese miss, who wouldn’t tell us her age, she appears to be about 18. She is very enthusiastic and active, hence no time to get bored in class. I believe we will be able to learn a lot with her. The first homework due Thursday consisted of answering several questions with about 300 characters altogether. An assignment like this would be really easy to type on the computer, as one can just type the pinyin (Romanized Chinese) and transfer it to characters through software, but being the good and hard-working student that I indeed am, I wrote the whole thing in hand instead. It took a while, but was quite rewarding. Enclosed is a photo of what homework like that looks like.

Later that night, we were sitting in the dormitory cafeteria with several other foreign students, drinking beer. When we got to the point of having about 20 empty beer cans at a table of 5 people, the local students started giving us looks of shock and disbelief. I guess they wouldn’t fare too well in the typical European beer rallies.

Wednesday nights are reserved for Czechoslovakian parties. There is a bar called Roxy 99, which gives 4 free beers to the first 400 people to arrive. So of course, this is a perfectly natural place and opportunity for our little community to meet up. 

Weekend is coming up really quickly, and after Friday’s Chinese class, I will have 3 days off, and am planning to spend them exploring Taipei and the surrounding areas. The bigger trips will only come up later, as I joined all the other scholarship students in a “September saving regime”. Basically, there are big and inevitable expenses in September (the tuition, insurance, books etc.), but the scholarship is always delayed this month. Hence, everybody is walking around, looking for cheap places to eat to survive till the end of the month. But then, “In October, I’m going on a splurge..”

I will write more about my classes once I figure out what they are really all about.