Safe trip home !

Team's back to Taiwan !


Thanks to the Rotary club for giving us this great opportunity to broaden our mind, we had such a wonderful and eye-opening journey !
Thanks to all the sponsor clubs and host families involved from Minot to Grand Forks, Wahpeton, Detroit Lakes, Pine river, Perham, Park Rapids, Grand Rapids, Two harbors and ThunderBay. We surely had a life-changing experience !

Frequently Aked Questions

It's really interesting that people we've met have some similar questions for us that we would like to share here !! we are trying hard to make the answer as accurate as possible, but it's just based on our current limited knowledge !! lol ~ here we go ! You betchA !!

Q-1. Did you guys know each other before you came to on this GSE trip ?
No. After we knew we were chosen for this team last November, we contacted each other through internet only. Lateron, we started to meet each other and gather together for various events, such as Rotary club supper, preparation for our presentation...etc. So our friendship started with being teammates, then develped to be good friends... till now, WE ARE FAMILY !!!

Q0. Where is Taiwan ?







Taiwan is an island located in East Asia off the coast of Mainland China, southwest of the main islands of Japan but directly west of the end of Japan's Ryukyu Islands, and north-northwest of the Philippines. It is bound to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea. The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation. (source: Wikipedia)

Q1. What's the relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China?

Taiwan is an independent country. We DO NOT belong to Mainland China ! We elect our own president and we have our own flag ! We are TAIWANESE !!!

Q2. What's your demographics?

Area: 34,507 km² (13,323.2 sq mi)
Population:23,036,087 (2008)
Density:668/km²

Q3. What's the weather like in Taiwan ?
it's wet and hot and sticky in summer as we sweat a lot !
The temperature then is about 90 degree F, while in winter it's about 41 degree F. Thus, we LOVE snow ! because we don't have it in Taiwan !

Q4. Why do you still live with your parents ?
People in Taiwan usually move out when they get married unless they study or work far from home. And... we are all SINGLE, that's why !!

Q5. What are the religions in Taiwan ?

A wide diversity of religions can be found on Taiwan, due to its multicultural history, and religious freedom written in the constitution of the Republic of China.

Buddhism- 35%
Taoism - 33 %
Christian - 4%

Q6. What's the average age to get married ?

Well, we don't know, our average age is 27.5 and none of us is married yet !!

Q7. Did you like the food in US ?

Should we tell the truth !?
alright, here are our favorite so far : Quesadillas & salsa sauce @Zorbas, peanut butter and jelly sandwich @Kesley's, hot brownie/cobbler with vanilla ice cream @everywhere, buffalo stew @Drayton, fried Walleyes @Detroit lakes & Toasted Frog in Grand Forks.

Q8. What's the difference between Chinese and Mandarin ?

Chinese is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees.Spoken Chinese is distinguished by its high level of internal diversity, although all spoken varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. There are between seven and thirteen main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most spoken, by far, is Mandarin (about 850 million), followed by Wu (90 million), Min (70 million) and Cantonese (70 million)

Q9. Is Taiwan same as Thailand ?

NO!!! it's 2 different countries ! please refer to the world map !

Q10. How long does it take to fly from Taiwan to Minot, ND?
Were it a direct flight, we would say... 17 hours.
However, we took 4 planes for this trip, and it took us 26 hours in total (including waiting time) to get there. Here's what happened:
Taipei -> Tokyo - 3 hours
Tokyo -> Los angelos -10 hours + 2 hours waiting
LA ->Minneapolis - 3.5 hours + 6 hour waiting
Minneapolis -> Minot - 1.5 hour

GSE Team on local media !!

It's kind of exciting for us to appear in the local media ! It's absolutely an unique experience for us ! Our first appearance was in the Newspaper in Grand Forks. Let us share with you the honor to be on the media !

1. Drayton, North Dakota
Valley News and Views
April 23rd, 2009





















2.Detroit Lake
a. Becker county Record
May 6, 2009






























nice picture with both GSE team from D5580 and D3480 ~

b. Detroit Lakes weekly TV show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCBqIjqfJwo

Our team member Ada was interviewed by the outbound team member Kesley on their weekly TV show ! pretty nice, isn't it !

Rotary Club Service for the Community

I remember the first time I attended the meeting of my sponsor club,Rotary club of Taipei Long Sun, uncle Sam was dumping water into my glass and said "in Rotary, it's all about service !". Now, during our exchange, we had the opportunity to put this concept into pratice !

Service 1. Sandbagging in Grand Forks
As we know, there was a serious flood in North Dakota in April 2009, especially in Fargo area. During that time, the residents built up walls of sandbags to prevent the water from flooding their own premises. By the time we reached Grand Forks, the river has already gone down, and the residents were cleaning up their yards. One big issue then was the sand bags used to build up the protective walls. Here we go~ our host father in Grands Forks, Dave, was moving out the sandbags from his backyard, that is what we call "sandbagging" ! Ting and I were inspired by the spirit of serving the community of the rotary club, so we volunteered to help sanbagging and play catch with Duffy. (Actually, it was because Kathy, our host mother, said : work hard to get your dinner !!). Our effort did pay back ! we had our best steak ever ! ( Grilled by our great chef Dave !)

Service 2. Highway cleanup in Detroit lakes
When we saw "highway cleanup" on our itinerary, we didn't expected something like "cleaning up the highway" ! We thought it was a special name for something like "riding on the highway for many hours". But we were wrong ! we actually felt very happy to participate in this highway cleanup activity held by the Detroit lakes Rotary club !
from the cleanup, we had 2 conclusions:

1. Serving the community make us happy !
2. people who drink Mountain Dew are pigs ! they just throw the empty cans away while driving !Those who drink Diet coke are nice, because we didn't find any Diet coke cans on the highway !

4/24~4/30 Busy Days

*District Conference
I still can’t forget how much fun we have in the Hospitality Area after dinner in that two days!! Taiwan rarely has social party like here, so this really make me so excited!! Can’t stop myself swinging when I heard the music!! And our team learned electric trips!! We meet GSE team 2008 to Sweden and GSE team 2000 to Sweden in district conference and they are all very crazy people!! Just like me!! We have a lot fun together. Beside those fun times, there is a touch moment which is Kim dance with Turner and John. This will picture in my mind forever.

*Museum and University of North Dakota
We’ve been visited lots of places since we leaved Minot for Grand Forks. My favorite part is museum tour. I love all kinds of museum because I am a collector. It’s fun to see what people gather for a specific theme. You can always find the creative part in the small details. And that makes each of them so different. I think everyone is unique and so do those things.
Besides Museum tour, we visited different centers of University of North Dakota. Such as Center of Innovation, Areospace, TV center… so on. Include my vocation visits which are ELS center and Adult Learning Center. Those places remind me how fun when I was a student. Learning is always fun and creative. You will never know what’s gonna learn tomorrow and there are always lots of events to prove how much have you learned. First thing I’m going to do when I back to Taiwan, is to take more English classes to get improve and apply for a school in U.S.A.

*School bus
Taiwan is a small country and we have pretty good pubic transportation. It’s easy to get everywhere you want to. When I was a student, I used to take a bus or ride a scooter to school, lots of my classmates walk to school. We are rarely having school bus, especially in YELLOW!! That’s the school bus show up in the movie and SNOOPY!! Today we took it in Grand Forks!! How cool is that, right? SUPER!!

*Stuck in the mud
Louise is a professional biker. She loves all kinds of out-door activities. After our vocation visit, our host took us biking. At first, we enjoy our biking very much. We followed the river side and see the beautiful view. Even the road was covered by the mud, but we think it’s already dried. BUT NOT!!!!!! Then, just like that, WE STUCK IN THE MUD!!!
And we have to wash the bikes in the mid-night, without light!! Sorry, Dave and Kathy, the bikes still in the back yard. And we really don’t know is it clean or not! : )

*Bar in Grand Forks
I though we won’t have chance to go to the bar when we are in U.S.A. But we were there!! It’s a small bar and totally like the bar that show up in the movie. People were drinking, smoking and talking. Baseball game was playing on TV and we were playing Pool. Use a dollar to order songs from machine. The bar has the small curling game table next to the Pool table. It’s really hard to get the points so we started to bet. Do you know what the prize is? A STAMP!! ‘Cause we have to mail postcards to Taiwan!! How funny we are!! : )

*Hate to say GOODBYE
My host in Minot was Kim, John and Turner. They treated Ada and I very nice. Whatever Kim’s schedule was, she always puts us on the top of her list. We know she was the planner of the Black Tie Governor’s Banquet so she was very busy, but she spends lots of time on us to make sure we are very comfortable. Turner is a very sweet gentleman who is good at observing. He focuses on small details and prepares what you need before you ask. I was so touch when he prepared the piano notation of my favorite song “Kissing you” even there’s no time for him to play for me.

My host in Grand Forks was Dave and Kathy. There are just like the old kind couple only shows up in the fairy tale. They are living in a peaceful life but always finding pleasure in their normal life. They enjoy spending time with their dog Duffy and talk to each other what happened and what they felt that day. I admire their living tempo and happiness. And we had a BBQ beef covered with bacon, cheese potatoes, and hot apple pie with ice cream for dinner one night. How cool is that!! : )

In Grand Forks, there are lots of people do so hard to plan our schedule and spend time with us. Make sure we get everything we need. Satisfied my requests. Bring me to the theater, school, Museum of Art and bookstore. Treat me like their daughter. And I will remember each of you forever.
I cried very hard when I left. I can’t help myself. People always say: Ting, you are always so happy, right? OF COURSE NOT!! I just hide my sad time, such as this kind of situation. I hate to say GOODBYE!! Now you know I am a very sensitive girl. >_<

Differences between US and TW

It's been 4 days we are in the US, and I've noticed some interesting differences between here and my hometown Taipei.

0.I'm a movie star !
Ting and I feel the same about this ! we feel like movie stars !
What we see here is exactly the same as what the movies taught us, so we feel like a movie star in an american movie:
Americans got big house with big garage, a garden and a back yard~ wonderful house of our dream ! it's really hard to get a house like this in Taiwan !


ps: this is Bruce and Diane's house in Minot, ND(my first host family! I really had a great time at their place, thank you Bruce and Diane !)

1.where is the garbage can ?
while taking my first breakfast in my host's home in Minot, I couldn't eat my banana because I couldn't find a place to dump the garbage. I've searched everywhere in the kitchen, under the sink, under the cupboards, opened every drawer... just couldn't find it. Then luckily, I was on MSN with Kesley (D5580 outbound team member to Taiwan), and eventually, she told me that the "compator" was the one !!! and she found that very funny !



2.because we don't have space to put it !
I've noticed that people here have a lot of equipments that we don't even if we need it more than they do !

a.the climate in Taiwan is very humide, but we don't have a dryer, because we don't have space to put it !
b.we don't have a dish washer in the kitchen, because we don't have space to put it !
c.we got only upright pianos in Taiwan, because we don't have space to put the grand ones. sometimes, it's not unsually to see those two types of piano at the same time in one house in USA!
d.American keep a lot of interesting decorations at home, but we don't, because we don't have space to put them.
e.sometimes, americans store things they buy in a "self-storage" they rent, why? because THEY don't have space to put them anymore !!

3.no chairs in the bedroom !
why ? because the bedroom is supposed to be a place for sleeping. Americans got dedicated rooms for all other purposes, they don't need to use computers in the bedroom !

4.everything's big !
meals are big !

cars are big !
even horses are big !


5.drive through everywhere !
Here, they got drive through for quite a few restaurants/cafes while in TW, we only have it for Mcdonald's and KFC.

Starbucks in Minot, North Dakota, USA
drive through for Starbucks ? that is the first one !!

Actually, I wondered how D5580 Team Taiwan felt while they were staying in Taipei, is it crowded for them at all ?

Fabulous vocation visit

2009.04.23 Fabulous vocation visit

Woke up in the morning, I can’t believe I am really in America right now!! Look out from the windows, everything was so peaceful. All the view that I’ve seen it’s like the traditional America movie where the story’s background is happen in a small town. This kind of country side view is only show up in the east or south of Taiwan. People create this kind of environment for people who wanna to take a rest, have a holiday trip… something like that. But in here, this is life!!! J I can only say: WOW~
George drove six hours to come having lunch with us. It was at a very America style restaurant where provide very America style food such as popcorn, fried food, large salad, large drink. When I say “large”, it’s really large!! Much more than we have in Taiwan, I can’t finish all of that. Sorry for the delicious food. :(

After lunch, my kind host has arranged an appointment for me. So it was very honor for me to visit the Adult Learning Center which is the public school provide education for adult. The class I attend today was for the adult whom speak English as a second language. The teacher is Marsha and she has been teaching for 20 years.

I joined the class and be one of the students. There is big difference teaching way with Taiwan, but it what our school has been working on. Have more activities to let the students do the practice as much as they could. Always asking questions and let the students think of the answer. In old way of teaching in Taiwan, we used to give students answer instead of helping them find the answer by their own. The purpose is different around here. They don’t care about scores very much, but do care about what they really learn from the class. Taiwan is changing right now, but slow changing. It’s a long way to go.

The school provide teacher very good material for teaching. There is an electric white board called “The smart board.” Basically it’s an electric board connect with computer. The function is the same with the computer. You can easy to get any result from the disk, and show it right away. Teacher save lots of time, don’t need to do most of the props for the class. Have more time to prepare lessons or helping student. And there is another machine called “Documentary camera.” You can show any original material under the camera and no need to retype it or copy. We have similar machine like that but not quiet convenience as this. So kind of Marsha to having me in her class and spend her time with me. I found out even the students are adult, they still make mistakes on learning, I guess I am not suppose to push my student so hard. Haha… I’ll try. :)

And you know the local TV station- KXMC sent the reporter here and interviewed me. I will be on the TV news on Saturday!! I think I can get the video from internet. WE’LL SEE!!
At dinner we’ve invited to have dinner with district government at Holiday Inn. We meet a lot of people and they all gave us warm welcome. And we just see our booth and fix it a little bit. It’s a wonderful day to have spent time with these guys. Oh, by the way, I tried the Diet coke with cheer fever today. It’s taste good! I like it! :)