Taiwan is a mysterious land to people in many parts of the world, but its international visibility is being given a boost by student exchanges between Taiwanese high schools and their foreign counterparts. According to the Ministry of Education, 144 foreign high school students from 21 countries are spending the current school year in Taiwan. Reciprocally, at least 300 Taiwanese high school students are facing the challenge of diving into the education systems and cultures of distant nations.
Although high school exchanges serve a laudable political end—the furthering of peaceful international relations—they are not usually organized by national authorities. The arrangements are instead left to the high schools themselves or nongovernmental organizations such as the Rotary Club. “Demand for exchanges between Taiwanese high school students and their foreign counterparts has been increasing in recent years,” says Dennis Liao (廖正方), a youth exchange officer for Rotary Club Taipei. He attributes the phenomenon to overseas host families’ overwhelmingly positive experiences, which have enhanced the reputation of exchange students from Taiwan.
“Sending students abroad means they’re ambassadors for Taiwan,” says Gary Rawnsley, a professor of public diplomacy at Aberystwyth University in Wales. The exchange programs also allow foreign students to gain firsthand knowledge of Taiwanese culture and society. “It’s probably best that the government remains distant from the initiatives, but it must always encourage exchanges and, via the creation of infrastructures and frameworks regarding visa and travel regulations, allow educational institutions to get on with the job of educating the world’s young,” Rawnsley says.
A Taiwanese classmate helps Alex Mey, right, a Canadian exchange student at Taipei’s Wanfang High School, with his schoolwork. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)
Indeed, the Republic of China (ROC) government’s diplomatic advances in recent years have made it easier for such exchanges to take place. For example, since May 2008, the number of countries and territories that grant visa waivers or other visa privileges to ROC passport holders has risen from 54 to 161, and the nation extends visa-free or landing-visa treatment to dozens of Western countries as well as Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Chile. The Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, in addition to the ROC’s overseas missions, also readily assists high schools and nongovernmental organizations in arranging exchanges when asked to do so. For example, the government offers small subsidies to help fund pre-trip briefing events for would-be exchange students, their parents and teachers.
Alex Mey, an 18-year-old from Vancouver, Canada, is among the foreign students attending a Taiwanese high school for the 2015-16 school year. A member of the Rotary Club, Mey was accepted by ROTEX, the group’s youth exchange program. He had to submit a list of six countries he wanted to visit, ranked in order of preference. Brazil topped Alex’s list, with Taiwan filling the bottom spot. “I had my heart set on Brazil, so I was initially a tiny bit disappointed when I was selected to travel to Taiwan,” Mey recalls. “But since I am an avid photographer, I quickly realized that Taipei was a dream playground for me with so many things to explore, and I have no regrets whatsoever.”
The young Canadian, together with an American exchange student, is spending his junior year at Wanfang High School in Taipei. Mey’s host parents work in Taiwan’s central government and live in the heart of the city, right across from Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Since every subject is taught in Mandarin, he does not always understand what is being said. “But my classmates are very welcoming, and the class is designated an ‘advanced English class,’ which means the teachers and students can help us with all kinds of issues,” he explains.
Prior to his arrival in Taiwan, Mey was reminded by organizers from the Rotary Club that the exchange program’s ultimate goal is “the development of world peace.” The 18-year-old, however, emphasizes that high school exchanges are also about immature teenagers growing into independent, thoughtful adults who can negotiate obstacles in life and become positive role models. “It’s also important to see that the differences between the peoples of the world are less significant than you expect,” Mey says. “Here in Taiwan, I rarely think that anything a Taiwanese person does is strange, and what I do doesn’t seem odd to them, either.”
Nini Liao (廖家宜) took part in the ROTEX program during the 2011-12 school year. The then-16-year-old Taiwanese girl spent her time abroad in Dole, a small town in eastern France, and like all ROTEX students, Liao changed host families several times during her stay in order to experience different aspects of the local culture. “The high school in Taoyuan I went to before the exchange had 3,000 students, but the school near where my first French host family lived had just 600,” Liao recalls. “So from seeing buildings and elevators every day, I was effectively thrown into a place where I saw lots of cows and grass.”
Liao was initially challenged by the fact that few inhabitants of Dole spoke English, a language in which she is proficient. Before embarking for France, she had taken 50 hours of French classes in Taiwan, which, according to her, helped very little. “In the first few weeks, I cried myself to sleep,” Liao says. “But by attending the local high school, I was soon almost fluent in French, and that helped me overcome many of the initial issues.”
Exchange students are introduced to traditional drama at a Lantern Festival event. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)
As to the differences between France and Taiwan’s education systems, Liao recalls that before the exchange, she assumed French students spend as little time at school as students in other European countries, but instead it was more like Taiwan, where students usually stay in school until 5 p.m. “On the other hand, something that struck me was how much the French value their sports classes, which in Taiwan are usually neglected for the benefit of other subjects,” Liao says. “This allowed me to try out indoor climbing, which I would never have had the chance to do in Taiwan.”
Not all exchanges between Taiwanese and foreign high schools last as long as an entire school year. Germany’s Gymnasium Korntal-Münchingen, a high school near Stuttgart, has been organizing two-week exchanges with Feng Yuan High School in central Taiwan’s Taichung City since 2011. Students from Gymnasium Korntal-Münchingen and Feng Yuan take turns visiting one another, with a 20-strong group from one of the schools embarking on the lengthy journey each year. “The two weeks that we spend in Taiwan are not easy, with my students unfortunately behaving only 96 percent rather than 100 percent of the time,” says Tobias Hauser, the Gymnasium Korntal-Münchingen teacher who led the German school’s trips to Taiwan in 2013 and 2015. “Also, we arrive on Sunday evenings and have the first class on Monday mornings, which is no piece of cake either, given the long flight.”
The German students that visit Taiwan usually attend classes from Monday to Wednesday, while also going on day trips to tourist sites in the Greater Taichung area in the late afternoons and evenings. During these three days, the German students live with the families of local classmates, while the two German teachers stay with their Taiwanese counterparts. From Thursday to Sunday, the German group tours the island, visiting must-see attractions such as Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan’s Nantou County and Kenting in southernmost Pingtung County before returning to Taichung. The final weekend is normally spent exploring the Greater Taipei area.
Meanwhile, the Taiwanese students who travel to Stuttgart are given the opportunity to see places such as the Porsche Museum and the Ritter Sport chocolate factory. This year’s visit will also include a two-day bicycle and canoeing trip to neighboring France. “The most rewarding aspect for the German students is that they get to interact with a completely different and yet overwhelmingly friendly culture and see how lucky they are to have so much leisure time compared to the Taiwanese students,” explains Hauser. “And for the Taiwanese students, the German experience is attractive as they generally have a strong interest in and respect for the country.”
Professor Rawnsley emphasizes the importance of international high school exchanges, first of all because he believes they are an effective form of public diplomacy. He observes that famed journalist Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)—the former head of the United States Information Agency, which from 1953 to 1999 was tasked with fostering public diplomacy—is credited with saying that the most effective communication happens “in the last three feet,” in other words through face-to-face interactions. “This form of exchange is organized at a time when young people’s attitudes and perspectives are being formed,” explains Rawnsley. “This is an opportunity to instill in the next generation a set of beliefs and attitudes that will benefit them and public diplomacy in the long term, before prejudices and political opinions are set in stone.”
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Jens Kastner is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
Copyright © 2016 by Jens Kastner