Taiwan Today

Aiming for a world with “a little more knowledge and a little less conflict,” the Fulbright Program has helped consolidate Taiwan-US relations since 1957.

“American people visiting here in Taiwan easily feel the friendliness of Taiwanese people,” Christopher Marut, director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), said during a speech to some 70 American Fulbright grant recipients based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China. The occasion was the Fulbright Research Workshop in Taipei in early March this year. “That’s a testimony not only to Taiwan’s culture, but also to Taiwan’s friendship and kinship with the United States developed over the years,” observed the American official. Marut is the honorary chairman of Fulbright Taiwan, also known as the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (FSE) in Taipei, the organization responsible for administering the program in Taiwan.

The Fulbright Program, the most prestigious provider of education-related grants sponsored by the US government, was initiated by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas in 1946, the year after the end of World War II (1939–1945), with the aim of building global peace through education and cultural exchanges between the United States and other nations. The following year, the Republic of China (ROC) responded to the effort launched by its wartime ally by becoming the first country to take part in the program. The project ran for one year in mainland China before being suspended as the Chinese Civil War reached its peak in the late 1940s. The Fulbright Program resumed in Taiwan in 1957, eight years after the ROC government relocated to the island in 1949.

The Fulbright Program takes on even greater significance given the absence of official ties between Taiwan and the United States, says William C. Vocke, executive director of the FSE, adding that it is a symbol of Taiwanese-American friendship. Although the US government shifted diplomatic recognition from the ROC to the mainland Chinese government in 1979, for example, the operation of the Fulbright Program has not been suspended or substantially affected during the past 56 years. Following the ROC’s break in official ties with the United States, however, the FSE operated without formal legal status. That situation was rectified in 2010, when AIT and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington D.C, the ROC’s representative office in the United States, arrived at an agreement that ensures the foundation’s legal status.

In fact, the operation of the Fulbright Program in Taiwan speaks volumes about the mutual trust between Taiwan and the United States. The program operates in 155 countries and territories worldwide and in the majority of them is overseen by the US embassy. In just 50 regions is it administered through bilateral organizations like the FSE, which operates under a 10-member board that has an equal number of Taiwanese and US representatives. “That means Taiwan is a trustworthy partner for America,” Vocke says.

As a bilateral organization, the FSE receives funding from the ROC government, namely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education, as well as from the US Congress via AIT. Scholar and researcher exchanges between Taiwan and the United States have been the core projects for the Taipei-based group since 1957.

Two-Way Talk

The FSE launched its English Teaching Assistant (ETA) project in 2003 in Yilan County, northeastern Taiwan thanks greatly to the efforts of Wu Jing-jyi (吳靜吉), the exchange’s executive director from 1977 to 2009 and now one of its board members. The comparatively new program provides a month-long orientation session in Taipei for young adults from the United States, who then co-teach English classes with local teachers. The assistant project expanded to Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan in 2008 and outlying Kinmen County in 2012. It is about 80 to 85 percent funded by participating local governments. In the other direction, the Fulbright program included Taiwan in its foreign language teaching assistant (FLTA) project in the United States in 2011. Under this project, young Taiwanese nationals teach Mandarin classes at a number of US colleges and, like the ETAs in Taiwan, play a role as cultural ambassadors in the host country.

For the 2012–2013 school year, the ROC’s central and local governments each provided about 25 percent of total funding for Taiwan-US Fulbright exchange projects and the US Congress about 44 percent, with the remaining amount coming from other sources.

Fulbright exchanges not only boost trust and good will between Taiwan and the United States, but also broaden the vision of individual grantees. That was especially true for grantees from Taiwan in earlier years when the country was a relatively closed society. “Foreign studies opened our eyes to the world and we learned things we didn’t know at home. We learned more about our own country when in the United States,” ROC President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on the final day of this year’s Fulbright Research Workshop in Taipei, where he delivered a speech and took part in an extensive question and answer session. Although not a Fulbright scholar, the president studied in the United States for a number of years. His remark came in response to a question from a US attendee studying in Beijing about how Ma’s experiences abroad shaped his view of Taiwan and of the world. The wide-ranging questions led to comments from the president on topics ranging from Taiwan’s viable diplomacy to the National Health Insurance system.

Ho Gwo-hwa (何國華), director of the News Department of the Public Television Service Foundation in Taiwan, credits his experience as a Fulbright scholar with helping him gain greater insight into his profession. “I have a deeper understanding of the major challenges and transformations facing the American media such as the declining revenue of print media and its stronger mobile features, which makes me reflect on how Taiwan’s media is moving in a similar direction,” Ho says.

From August to November 2012, Ho visited the east coast of the United States, not only talking with executives from more than 20 media operations, including Fox News, Google, Public Broadcasting Service and The New York Times, but also observing firsthand that country’s presidential election debates. The news director adds that although he had been to the United States as a journalist on relatively short trips, this time he was able to experience American culture and lifestyles in both urban and rural areas. “At the get-togethers regularly arranged by the US Department of State for international Fulbrighters, I met with grantees in various fields from other countries, which also helped broaden my views.”

Peggy Lee (李家慧) is another beneficiary of the Fulbright Program. Having developed an online Mandarin-learning community over several years through her YouTube videos, she started to teach Mandarin as an FLTA at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith in August 2012. “The Fulbright project provides an amazing opportunity for ambitious teachers to observe American classrooms and culture,” Lee says, adding that her experience in the United States helped her decide to pursue a master’s degree in teaching Chinese as a second language when she returns to Taiwan this month.

Since 1957, the FSE has offered grants to more than 1,500 Taiwanese and 1,100 Americans to travel to each other’s countries. For the 2012–2013 school year a total of 52 American Fulbright grantees—19 senior academics and young researchers, plus 33 ETAs—traveled to Taiwan. During the same period, 56 Taiwanese Fulbright grantees received sponsorship to travel to the United States, a figure made up of 28 academics and researchers, 23 students and 5 FLTAs.

High Achievers

In Taiwan, numerous local Fulbright grantees have gone on to become influential figures in society, which helps strengthen the links between the country and the United States. For instance, Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), the ROC’s premier since February this year, received a Fulbright grant to study at Yale University from 1988 to 1989. The premier is currently the board chairman of the Taiwan Fulbright Alumni Association, which was founded in 1992 to facilitate interaction with Fulbrighters around the world. Another grantee is Lin Hwai-min (林懷民), the founder of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. Lin studied in America from 1989 to 1990 as a non-academic professional Fulbright grantee. This year the choreographer received the American Dance Festival Award, thereby becoming the first award recipient based outside the United States or Europe. Vocke says it is much less common for those from the United States to end up as high-profile government officials or politicians, although they often play an equally important role in their respective disciplines. “In Taiwan, academics are often seen entering the arena of politics, but in America they tend to be advisors to government agencies,” he adds.

These days, however, Taiwan has to compete with mainland China’s ever-growing attraction for American Fulbrighters, a challenge that emerged in 1979 when the Fulbright Program began to operate in mainland China. The phenomenon is also true for Hong Kong, says Vocke, as both the special administrative region and Taiwan are quite close to mainland China, culturally and geographically. In the 2012–2013 school year, a total of 62 senior scholars and young researchers traveled to mainland China on Fulbright grants.

Actually, Vocke notes a tendency for career-minded scholars across academic disciplines to focus on mainland China. That said, democratic Taiwan has advantages as a destination for researchers, he says. “Doing research can be more difficult in mainland China as many of the topics are sensitive there,” he notes, adding that Taiwan is quite attractive in specific areas like arts and education, and is also an ideal place for historians because of its rich collection of archives.

“Though Taiwan shares a cultural heritage with Hong Kong and China, it has its own aboriginal peoples, and Japanese and Portuguese influences that make the country a distinctly different place,” says Simon Joshua Levin, a Fulbright grantee from Wisconsin in the United States. The ceramicist was an artist-in-residence from January to May this year at Tainan National University of the Arts in southern Taiwan. “Taiwan is energizing my career with an openness to materials and possibilities,” the potter says. “Fulbright is also adding a gravitas and institutional recognition to my own work.” Levin’s project explored local pottery materials and included using a wood-fired kiln he had built at the host institution. At the same time, he says his stay at the school pushed local art students to reflect on using local clay and other materials in addition to the usual range of commercially made and imported clays.

Perhaps unsurprisingly as it is a major source of Asian immigrants to the United States, Taiwan also attracts Fulbrighters of Taiwanese extraction. “Taiwan was my first choice, in large part because my parents grew up in Taiwan, so I felt a closer connection to Taiwan,” says Bernard Liu, managing director of the securities division of Goldman Sachs Taiwan. The investment bank executive, who came to Taiwan on a Fulbright grant in 1995 as a student at National Taiwan University, says the Fulbright Taiwan experience has defined his professional career. The young man stayed in Taiwan after his Fulbright year ended in 1996, remained until 1998 in order to improve his Mandarin ability, then came back again in the summer of 2002. “I have been happily living and working in Taiwan ever since, in a job where I utilize both the Mandarin ability and my knowledge of Taiwan history and culture whose foundation I first started building during my Fulbright year,” he notes.

In 2014, the FSE plans to initiate a cross-strait studies program as part of its effort to help US researchers learn more about Taiwan. Grantees in the 10-month scheme will spend either four or six months in Taiwan and the rest of the time in mainland China. The plan is aimed at helping researchers who would otherwise focus only on mainland China shift part of their attention to Taiwan. The ROC and US governments will jointly sponsor the project, which will provide funding to a maximum of three people in its initial year. “American China specialists tend to focus only on mainland China, but their research would be more complete if they can take a look at the big picture of Greater China,” FSE board member Wu says.

Expansions Ahead

At the same time, the ETA project, which does not operate in mainland China, will expand in Taiwan. “At least six local governments have shown strong interest in taking part,” Vocke notes. Both Taichung City in central Taiwan and Taipei City will be included in the project next year, he adds, with the latter offering co-teaching posts only for those who have already taken part in the ETA program in Taiwan. It is estimated that the number of ETA grantees will increase to 50 in 2014.

Looking further ahead, Vocke says the FSE will work to maintain the high standards of the program and make greater efforts to publicize it. In the United States the promotional effort will focus on academic circles in order to attract more Fulbright applicants. The FSE’s executive director plans to promote the program in Taiwan mainly in the local business sector in hopes of garnering more support, which could be used to broaden the ETA project, as some local governments do not have the funds to participate in it.

Partnering with the Fulbright Program should present good marketing opportunities for enterprises, Vocke says. He hopes that the legal status the FSE obtained in 2010 will give local enterprises more motivation to donate. “Because of our status, before now we couldn’t give donors receipts, which they can use for tax purposes,” he explains.

On the other hand, the recent Fulbright Research Workshop in Taipei definitely has sown seeds of interest in many of the attendees who are stationed outside Taiwan. “Many of them had never been to Taiwan, but decided to stay for some time after the event. Some even thought of coming back to do research here,” Vocke says. The workshop was held in Hong Kong from 2002 to 2011 and moved to Taiwan in 2012. The FSE head says there is a good chance it will take place locally next year, too, since the US Department of State has been quite happy about the outcome of the meeting in Taipei.

At the end of his speech on the final day of the workshop, President Ma made a plea for the nation. “Taiwan has always been underreported in the international media. Please help us with that,” he said. As Fulbrighters all have great potential to become major figures in various areas of academia and public life, and in light of the impact and prestige of the Fulbright Program, the occasion was well suited for such an appeal.

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw