Fifty-five students from 16 countries studying in Taiwan took part in a Mandarin and Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) speech contest in Taipei yesterday, sharing their experiences in language learning and living in Taiwan.
Twenty-two-year-old Russian student Romar Mikhailovich, who is studying Mandarin at National Chengchi University, said he enjoys living in Taipei because it is a city “with restaurants serving a wide variety of food, with small food stalls selling inexpensive yet delicious gourmet food” and is “a paradise for shopping,” with large shopping malls and night markets.
Mikhailovich said he especially enjoys the hospitality of Taiwanese.
“The people here are so friendly and welcoming, especially to foreigners,” he said.
Indian student Gujay Royson Pais said he was invited to talk about Indian culture to 800 students at an elementary school in Kaohsiung earlier this month, after the school was assigned to cheer for Indian athletes during the World Games.
“I was very worried because I was only in Taiwan for nine months at the time and I knew I couldn’t speak Mandarin well enough to introduce my own country,” he said.
He didn’t have to worry.
“The kids probably didn’t understand what I was talking about, but they listened attentively with smiles on their face. It gave me a lot of encouragement and confidence,” Pais said.
He said it really moved him when the students sang Hindi songs and cheered in Hindi when the Indian team played in the Games.
Many foreign students said they chose to learn Chinese in Taiwan instead of in China because they wanted to learn traditional Chinese.
South Korean student Lee Ji-yong said her friends were all surprised when she told them that she wanted to learn Chinese, since she majored in Korean literature at university.
“But to really master classic[al] Korean literature, learning Chinese is a must, because before the Korean writing system was created in the 15th century, Koreans used Chinese characters,” Lee told the audience.
She said she first went to China to learn Mandarin, but soon realized that learning simplified Chinese used in China didn’t help her much, since ancient literature was written in traditional Chinese.
She therefore decided to come to Taiwan.
“I think traditional Chinese characters are more artistic as well,” she said.
However, when she came to Taiwan, Lee discovered another beauty of the language.
“In China, people like to speak very loudly, but in Taiwan, people speak more tenderly,” Lee said. “So it was when I came to Taiwan I discovered that Mandarin can sound so pleasing to the ear.”
A total of 15 students from Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the US, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Germany, France and Switzerland took part in the annual event organized by the Rotary Club.
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