My Fellow Foreigners in a Foreign Country

Taiwan is a huge hub for international travel, study and vacationing.  Taipei's status as a huge cosmopolitan center has allowed me to interact with people from other countries.  Even just within our our dorm building there are people from Australia, Brazil, Mainland China and other places I have never even been too.  Interacting with my fellow foreigners has been a very interesting experience.

I have noticed a lot of Mainland Chinese people here, which makes sense since the two countries are so close to each other.  My prior experience interacting with people from the mainland has allowed me to distinguish between them and the natives of Taiwan.  They can be pretty quirky at times, but I am used to that.  I have noticed that they many mainlanders that we run into as a group take pictures of us like we are a tourist attraction.  I am somewhat flattered and don't really mind but that is just my personal opinion.  Many mainlanders have also come up to me to ask directly where I am from.  I always answer their questions immediately in Chinese and they seem to brighten up immediately when I do and become more friendly.  If anything, they seem to really appreciate that an American has taken the time and dedication to learning their native language.  When I tell them I do 武術 (Wushu) as well, that is basically the icing on the cake.  It is pretty interesting to interact with them and I do plan to travel to China at some point in the near future while I am still young.

The people in my class are all diverse and friendly.  I feel very lucky to have such awesome classmates that are so open and engaging.  Some of them I have already friended on Facebook even.  They are all from other Asian countries such as: South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam.  In fact, the Indonesian student is the first Indonesian person I have ever met.  I really hope to stay in touch with these people in the future because they are all so interesting and fun.

This weekend we are traveling to the East side of Taiwan.  The area is known for having aboriginal tribes in the area.  My knowledge of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan only stems from the Japanese era of occupation.  I am very interested in learning more about them, because as a history major, I always want to learn more.