The Online Tritonian has featured quite a few international students who have left their homeland to go to school here at Notre Dame Academy in Green Bay.  Now, NDA has sent one of its own, junior Michael George, to study abroad.

George, sponsored by Rotary Club International, is spending the school year in Taiwan.

Reporter Ben Wolcanski sent him questions and received some very interesting information about how different school there is compared to school here. 

Q. What have been your biggest takeaways since starting school there in Taiwan?

“I’ve learned a lot here, of course. I think probably the first thing Americans think about when they think of Taiwan is obviously war. The funny thing about that is that most Americans are way more concerned about it than people here are. Almost everyone I’ve talked to has not seemed very worried whatsoever. I think the situation here has caused a lot of people to accept the situation as it is, but Taiwan’s national pride and sense of national protection is very high. 

“School here starts at 8 in the morning and goes until somewhere after 5 in the afternoon depending on the school. Most kids take the city bus to school, so it can be chaotic getting to and from school, and my school is an hour away from where I live by bus. 

“Because school is so long, there is a 30-minute nap time for all the students after lunch which is honestly really helpful for the students because school here is very stressful, and most students go to ‘cram school’ after school is over. So if school gets out at 5, a lot of kids go to cram school at 6:30 until 10p.m. when they get home. 

“School is very competitive, and when there’s a significant test, they post the students with the best scores on a board in the front of the school. Also, another important thing is that there are a lot of different high schools here, and they can vary quite a lot because there’s no standard high school curriculum like there is in the U.S. That’s mainly because high school here is a lot like college in the U.S, where you take an entrance exam after middle school, and the score you get determines the high school you go to. Schools here are also enormous compared to most American high schools. Every high school, whether public or private, wears a uniform.” 

George is staying in Taichung, the second biggest city in Taiwan located in the middle of the island.  “People often talk about Taichung as the craziest city in Taiwan,” he said.

Q. What do you miss most about being away from home in the USA?

“Food in Taiwan is very good, but the variety is pretty limited. It’s not like how in the U.S where we eat a lot of different cuisines. Here most people have Taiwanese food for breakfast, lunch and dinner pretty much every day. I also miss some American chains that they don’t have here like Chipotle, Chick Fil A, and Nothing Bundt Cakes.”

Q. What about the language difference?

“My English has actually kind of gotten worse since I’ve been here because the only people who I speak English to are second-language speakers. And I don’t have to write much in English, so my skills are really rusty. It should be back to normal as soon as I get back to the U.S., but for right now it’s a very strange feeling.” 

Q.  Overall, how are you enjoying the experience?  How difficult has it been to make friends?

“I have plenty of friends who are also exchange students, so we are always spending time together. As far as my Taiwanese classmates, it’s kind of hard to get too close to a lot of them because of the language barrier. But I do have a handful of good friends I have spent time with outside of school. The first few days took a second to get the hang of the language barrier, but honestly I rarely have any problems with the language. I think my Chinese is pretty good, and that mixed with the people here’s limited English ability and sometimes a translator, it’s never impossible to communicate with anyone. But most of the time I can get my message across in Chinese, so it’s not much of a problem. My host brother here has also introduced me to his friends, and they are all very nice, and I’ve spent time with them as well. 

“The coolest thing I’ve seen here so far is probably when my host  family and I went to the mountains on the island, and we went up to one of the higher mountains in the country. We went up in elevation super fast because the mountains here are super steep. So the nature switched from what looked like tropical Southeast Asia at the bottom to where it looked like we were in Iceland. At the top it was nothing but moss, rocks and a few spruce trees.”