2016-2017
MARCO POLO FUND Study Report
This form needs to be completed by every student who has received a scholarship from the Marco Polo Fund.
Last name*Please write your name as shown in
your passport Krijgsman
First name*Please write your name as shown in
your passport Dirk Jonathan
RUG Student Number S2572575
Please enclose a 2 page report on your experiences abroad, using the following headings:
1. Your study programme or your internship programme 2. Language
3. Finance and other conditions
4. Preparation and contacts with the faculty before, during and after your stay 5. Housing
6. Culture 7. Free time 8. Travelling 9. Other
Signature Participant
………
Date: January 7, 2017
SEMESTER ABROAD – 2016/2017 – NTU – TAIWAN
Two pages to describe my time in Taiwan, two pages to describe my time at the NTU, two pages two describe about my time in Asia. Of course this is way too short to really tell you about what I experienced here. To start with some cliques, it was the best semester I ever had. The opportunities you have, the interesting and open minded people from all over the world you meet and the different language and culture you live in: once of a lifetime opportunity.
The NTU is rewarded as the best university in Taiwan. You notice this. The campus is huge and the NTU possesses everywhere in the country research stations, farms hospitals and even a mountain.
There is a difference with the other universities in Taipei. At the NTU you have to do quite a lot for you study. My problem in the beginning was that I unfortunately only selected courses conducted in Mandarin, so I had to switch everything. They work here with online registration options, but people who are not selected for a course in this lottery have the opportunity to get a green card with an authorization code and via a different way can register yet. This causes a lot of chaos and everyone needs to collect enough cards to be able to follow the required amount of courses. This was a bit hectic in the beginning, but finally I managed to register for three normal courses (Modern Middle East, Taiwan through the Lens of its Museums and Politics and Nationalism in the Heritage of Southeast Asia). My major is history with interests in the non-western world. These course were really interesting and I learned a lot, had to read a lot and had to visit a lot of museums. Besides these courses I also followed general Chinese course, 6 hours a week (Monday and Wednesday evening). We had to put a lot of effort in this course with a lot of homework and many smaller or bigger tests but I am really glad I did it. You are able to speak a bit of Chinese and can therefore easily understand the culture better. Finally I participated in a government based exchange program where I had to teach elementary school children every week in English about subjects of own choice. It was really nice to help those children with their English and to come into connection with people from a local region. In the end of the semester we also visited their school and did some nice activities with them! The final projects or finals or exams were not really difficult, but still I had to do a lot of readings and preparations. This is a little bit different from the Erasmus exchange where people most of the time only party. Of course I did a lot of partying as well, but it was not the only thing I did haha ;)
I spoke a lot of languages during this semester. Of course, every exchange student speaks English and this is the common language. Besides this I learned a bit of Chinese so was also able to communicate a little bit with the Chinese people in this language. Because there are so many nationalities, you want to learn also a bit of each other’s language. If you like to languages, going abroad is the best thing to do. Many people also ask or offer language exchanges. People from Russia who want to learn Dutch are no exception ;).
Financially it was quite an expensive time here. I am not really sure about the exact numbers I spend during my time here, but at least 500 to 600 Euros each month. There are some reasons for this amount. My room in my dormitory was extremely cheap, 350 Euros for the entire semester, so I saved a lot of money on my housing. Doing trips costs always more money than you first expect. I travelled quite a lot. I saw almost the entire Taiwan, with as highlight a trip by propeller plane to an almost remote tribal Island in the south, I went to Tokyo which was really expensive, I went to Vietnam for 5 days in December, to Bangkok in the beginning of January and in the end I will go to the Philippines just after writing this report. On the other hand, when you are in Asia, Taiwan is a perfect place for travelling. Living in Taiwan is not really cheap, but also not really expensive. Food is quite cheap, but you cannot cook in the dorms and we were also not allowed to have a fridge. So every day you have to eat somewhere for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is not really expensive on campus for example or at the night markets, but it adds up. Drinking in a bar or even getting a beer from the seven eleven is really expensive. You pay at least 4 Euros for 1 beer in a bar and around 1 Euro for the cheapest can of beer.
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My preparations took me more time than I expected. Perhaps because this was my first exchange, so I was not really experienced, but you have to take into account that many things has to be arranged.
The problem also was that I am from the faculty of Arts while the exchange with the NTU is handled by the faculty of Economics. For a visa you have to go to The Hague with a lot of papers and it look really long before I got those. Contact with the NTU was not really easy, also because there are more than 1000 exchange students so response to my questions took a lot of time. It became easier when I got my student volunteer buddy who helped me a lot with courses and arrangement of my dormitory.
The faculty tried to help me and I also had contact with my study advisor about some certain courses and also because I had to switch all my Mandarin conducted courses to English conducted courses, so this was really nice. What I missed in my preparation was a general meeting or presentation with all the students going to Taiwan or Taipei. There were three other RUG students at the NTU in my semester, but in total in Taipei there were more than twenty RUG students. Perhaps because from the faculty of Arts I was just the second year to go to the NTU.
At the NTU there are many dormitories. You can also rent an apartment outside of campus, but for me it was really nice to experience the real campus life once, because we do not really have this in the Netherlands. My buddy helped me with the dorms, I could pick three choices out of five. I was rewarded with my last choice a shared room, but in the end it was really nice. The building looked not really good but the service was great. I had a floor with 35 other guys and shared a really tiny room with one guy from Mainland China. In the end this unexpected cross cultural exchange with him was really interesting to learn more about modern day China. We had to share four showers and six toilets with 35 guys, but it was cleaned every day and I never had to wait. The bathroom and the water dispense machine was also a good meeting point. You have to get used to live on a small space with another person, but for me it was okay. And of course it was really cheap (340 Euros in total), and this made it possible for me to do a lot of other things with this money.
The Chinese culture is really interesting, but it is not the easiest culture to live in. Taiwanese people are the friendliest people I ever met. When you look a little bit lost somewhere, there is always someone who immediately wants to help you. In Taipei, most people speak a bit English at least, and in other places with the use of some simple words you can also manage yourself. On the other hand, people are closed and will not immediately tell you what they really think of something. You also need to get used to the food. I first thought that Asian food is everywhere the same, but trust me, there is a huge difference between Thai food for example and Chinese food. There are night markets with cheap food everywhere, but they also sell stinky tofu, intestines, dog, many things with gelatin, so in the beginning not the most convenient, but you will manage to find the good spots quickly! The temples are also an interesting part of Chinese culture and riding a scooter. I would definitely recommend to rent or ride a scooter because it get you easily to local places. Also good to realize is that backpack Asia is different from living in Asia. People in Europe do not realize enough how civilized countries as Japan, Korea or Taiwan are. In many things they are more developed then we are. So Asia has a lot more to offer than just full moon parties in Thailand.
Free time is of course the part you are most interested in right? I managed my classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so every week I had four days of weekend. On those three study days I spend a lot of time studying, but of course there was a lot of free time as well. I think I had a good combination of partying and making day trips or longer trips. Partying is different from partying in Groningen. Or you go with some friends to the seven eleven and drink a couple beers, or you go to bars but the beers are quite expensive there or you go to clubs where you have a fixed price and then you have open bar the entire night. Rules regarding those entrance fees are quite strange, with women who can get in for free often, or sometimes have to wear certain clothes to get discount. Also it is not really common for Taiwanese people to go to clubs, so you see a lot of internationals and some strange over the top Asian. I went to many different bars and clubs and had a very good time there! Making friends at NTU is really easy. There are so many dorms and so many exchange and domestic students who want to hang out with you. After a couple weeks some groups of friends are formed of course, but because the NTU is a really large society of young ambitious people, during the 2
semester you can still meet a lot of people. It can be also nice to join one of the hundreds of clubs the NTU has, to get more in touch with the locals. I made with all those friends from different countries a lot of daytrips or longer trips. Taipei is a perfect place to make cool daytrips in to the jungle, make very adventurous hikes or swim in waterfalls! Taiwan is really beautiful and really underrated regarding nature. Public transportation systems are really convenient and I visited many places, both more nature places and more cultural or urban places. Besides this, Taiwan is located perfectly to make trips. A lot of people go for example to Hong Kong. I made a 5 day trip to Tokyo and surroundings, a 5 day trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), a 4 day trip to Bangkok and I will go couple weeks to the Philippines. This also enriches your stay here. You have the opportunity not only to study, but also to travel!
Some last notes: go to Taiwan!! It was a perfect semester here. You actually live in a very interesting culture and have the opportunity to really learn about this culture. You have the opportunity to visit many places or countries you would have never thought of going there. And you meet so many new and open minded, young and ambitious people! So I hope you enjoy your time as much as I did!
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