Taiwan, the conclusion

It was sad to leave Taiwan, it had really started to feel like home. People here are really nice, and it's so easy to get comfortable.

My last week (July 18-24) began with a typhoon that gave me school and work off on Monday. By Tuesday it was back to long days beginning at 6am when i would wake up to head to four hours of one-on-one instruction and class, and then seven hours of work (although work got more and more relaxed as the week drew to a close). My main project at work was researching the U.S. defense departments recent release of their annual white paper on China's military build-up. Because it is relatively explicit about China's ambitious military activities, the report generated a lot of press in Taiwan and in China (in Beijing, the U.S. ambassador was summoned to defend himself). If you haven't read it already, you can access the white paper here.

After work on Friday, the international department took me out for dinner, (see picture) and after dinner some of us went to KTV (Karaoke), along with a few members of the youth department (see pictures below). There's a specific kind of Chinese love song that they love to sing to over and over again, deep into the night and early time. It's a painful experience, but it would have been rude to turn them down or leave too early.

Evelyn is 23 and fluent in Portuguese, French, English, Mandarin, and native Taiwanese. I hung out with her a lot over the weekend.
After cleaning up my apartment for Dr. Rigger and her family, who will be living there in August, I left for Hong Kong on Monday morning, where I am now. I'll tell you about that in the next post.

See below for more pictures from Taiwan. There's a lot more I would like to write about Taiwan, and I hope I get the chance to share my experience with a lot of you (and hear about your summer experiences) when I get home.