Experiential Learning Application:

I am studying abroad in Taiwan from 6/19 to 7/19 this summer. I will be staying in Taipei for 2.5
weeks, Changhua for 1 week, and Kaohsiung for around half of a week before finishing the trip
back in Taipei. I will be traveling with a cohort of 18 other students from UW and meeting with
students from three different Taiwanese universities: National Taiwan University, National
Changhua University of Education Jin De Campus, and National Sun Yat-Sen University. I will
be learning about themes surrounding ecotourism, building eco-friendly cities, local culture,
Indigenous Taiwanese communities, and more.

This activity demonstrates the Honors Program International Engagement category because I am
going to be immersed in Taiwan for a month learning from Taiwanese professors, college student
peers, tour guides, community organizers, and more. I will be taking classes with students from
the aforementioned universities on the themes of this study abroad (eco-city, ecotourism, local
culture). I will be going on tours of museums, historic towns, national parks, college campuses,
and more to learn about the diversity of Taiwan's cities and communities.

I selected this activity because my dad was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. Growing up as
Han Chinese diaspora, I've often felt isolated from feeling connected with Taiwanese culture. I
grew up attending Taiwanese Chinese school, but I've only ever been to Taiwan once in my life
when I was eight years old. I would love to go back to a place that is, at the same time familiar
and foreign, in order to reconnect with pieces of myself and my upbringing. I hope to improve
my Mandarin speaking and reading skills, as well as learn other aspects of local Taiwanese
culture and how to navigate life in various parts of Taiwan. I chose this program because I want
to experience what it's like to live in Taiwan, and not just be a visitor.

This activity connects to my coursework because I am interested in interdisciplinary studies of

people and the ways communities interact with one another historically and currently. I think this
knowledge is crucial to inform us on how we take steps to build a better and more equitable
future. It's so important to me to understand local contexts to be able to do so. I think change
implemented at the local level with directly impacted community members at the forefront of
these movements is such an important method to push for equity. This program dives into local
contexts, for example, how local communities work to establish community solar panels,
gardening in public housing, etc.

My activity will contribute to the larger goals of this organization because this study abroad
program prioritizes bringing attention and visitor foot traffic to places that often receive less
attention, such as the coal mining museum in Jingtong. In our program, our professor tries to
engage with community activities that are rooted in sustainability and ecotourism. The point of
ecotourism is to make conservation profitable through tourism. Hopefully, by participating in this
program, I will aid in bringing more foot traffic to local places and businesses that prioritize
ecotourism.

Final Student Reflection:

Through this study abroad, I’ve learned so much about Taiwanese culture and made
amazing friends both in my UW cohort and with classmates from partnered colleges in Taiwan.
One theme I took away from the course and also talking with classmates was the complexities of
preserving diverse Indigenous Taiwanese cultures in Taiwan. When we visited the National
Taiwan museum which is located in 228 Peace Memorial Park, we discussed histories of
colonization (Dutch, Chinese, Japanese) on Indigenous Taiwanese/Austronesian culture and
communities. We learned about Han Chinese colonization and Sinicization, and the difficulties
of how to address these problems moving forward. One thing I learned from a classmate was the
push for re-contextualization 再脈絡 instead of de-contextualization 去脈絡 in Anthropology.
For instance, in the NTU (National Taiwan University) Museum of Anthropology, they house an
ancestral wooden post that was of the Zingrur chief family of Kaviyangan (Paiwan tribe),
originally taken to NTU in 1932 under Japanese colonization. Recently, instead of returning the
statue to ancestral lands in Pingtung, they decided to keep it in NTU to continue to preserve it, as
it is listed as a national treasure. This means maintaining it at required humidity levels and other
regulations, but this still raises questions of whether it should be returned to and owned by the
tribe. In 2015, instead of returning the ancestral post to Kaviyangan, they married the
ancestor/wooden post (Zingurur chief family) represented by NTU Museum of Anthropology as
the male side of the marriage and Muakai (an ancestral goddess), represented by the daughter of
the chief family of Kaviyangan as the female side of the marriage. NTU participates in the
preservation of Indigenous Taiwanese culture, as young people participating in coming of age
ceremony 成年祭 from the Paiwan village in Pingtung travel to NTU to celebrate in front of the
statue.
We also visited a Taiwan Indigenous Culture Park in Pingtung as part of the program itinerary.
Our tour guide Baru was the grandchild of a Paiwan chief, but said that even then much of the
culture was not passed down to them due to the banning of cultural practices such as weaving,
traditional tattooing, etc. during Japanese colonization. Baru explained that Indigenous
Taiwanese culture is only orally passed down, which makes it very difficult to sustain.

Another theme we explored in this study abroad was the challenges of the renewable energy
industry and movement. We learned that the Taiwanese government has been pushing the
development of the green industry in Taiwan. Its goals are to become nuclear free by 2025, and
reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. As important as these goals are, the top-down focus on
renewable energy often leads to prioritizing the interests of foreign corporatized green industry
investment, such as Orsted, a Danish multinational company that builds wind turbine farms.
These wind turbines generate green energy, but also cause environmental degradation: noise
pollution in the sea, endangering already endangered species like the white dolphin, and are
opposed by local environmental groups and oyster farmers in Changhua (where the turbine farms
are being built). We also learned about community-level organizing for green energy in Taipei,
nuclear free homeland, green diet, green energy, lowered carbon emissions, and more from an
NGO called Homemaker’s United Front or HUF. One of their projects is to install
community-run solar panels on the roofs of local churches, schools, and other vacant roofs.

Lastly, another theme we explored were preserving Han Taiwanese histories and balancing
commercialization/profitable tourism with maintaining history. We visited places like Treasure
Hill Artist Village. The housing in Treasure Hill Artist Village is government owned and
designated as a cultural heritage site. As long as the remaining families that are descended from
the original KMT military veteran families follow the guidelines (社會住宅法) of living there,
they can continue to reside in the cultural site. However, the guide told us after the tour that the
guidelines said that they can only live there for a set number of years, so they currently only have
nine years left if no changes are made. The complexities of maintaining a living cultural site (活
脈絡) demonstrate the social resilience from the people who descended from families that have
been there for generations. In contrast, we have seen cultural sites and old streets 老街 that have
become more commercialized and catered towards tourism like Jiufen or Dihua Street in
DaDaoCheng.
All in all, I was able to learn so much about so many different aspects of Taiwanese history,
culture, and environmental efforts.