Day 9

For our first full day in Taichung we spent the day at Tunghai University.  Tunghai University is a private university.  Most designs were by I.M Pei, a world renowned architect.  We first had a course on the financial markets of Taiwan for 2 hours. We focused on GDP, exchange rates, purchasing power parity, labor markets, and monetary policy.  Of the 23 million people in Taiwan only 10 million are considered the working population.  The number of those willing to work is decreasing because more and more students are choosing to not work while they are in school.  I found it interesting that they consider the current school age population “generation strawberry” because they are less willing to study abroad than previous generations also they avoid manufacturing and manual labor.  Also, the birth rate is one of the lowest in the world here and divorce rate is rising (1 out of 3 couples).

 

After our class we at lunch and took a tour of the campus.  We saw Luce Memorial Chapel, which was designed by I. M. Pei.  The trees and landscaping are very nice.  The building are all very well kept and different in design.

Next we had our class discussion about the last few days then meet up with students from the finance department for the rest of the afternoon.  We told them about our campus experience in the states and they told us about theirs.  Here and at most colleges they have a “Student Labor Program.”  This is a course most freshmen must take.  They clean the campus.  It fosters volunteerism and helps develop social responsibility.  We at with the students and were free to talk about anything.  The three girls I was talking to were freshman.  They liked to talk about movies and enjoyed practicing their English.

After we got back to our hotel on campus a group of us walked to the Tunghai Night Market.  This market was actually on an active street with cars and scooters.  There were still places where it reeked of stinky tofu.  I never want to smell stinky tofu ever again!  I can’t even describe how bad it smells, maybe like 20 stinky diapers and the smell stays with you for a while.  I did have one squid ball with fish flakes.  It was kind of like a corndog breading with squid inside and dried fish shavings on top.  It was not bad.