Free subject: Road trip

Hello everyone, in this article, I am going to be your own tour guide and share with you the road trip that I have made during my semester in Taiwan. 

Actually Taiwan is not a very big island, it's take maybe 8 hours to cross (North to the South) all the country by bus. Buses are the most convenient and cheaper way to travel in Taiwan. You can also have free wifi in the bus, which is something cool because personally, I don't have buy any SIM card. 

The main cities to visit are Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. 

Taipei is the biggest city of the country, it's composed of historical places, museum, universities, night markets, traditional districts but also fancy and fashion areas. If I had to choose again my exchange destination, I would not hesitate at all to say again: Taipei ! I feel at home in this city. Here is a list of things that I have love to made :

- Taipei 101 world trade center district for it's Malls and dressy nightclubs

- The "Din Tai Fung" restaurent at the bottom of the 101

- Ximen district for the night market, piercing and tattoo shops

- Guting, Gongguan and Taipower building for the students life and good atmosphere 

- Jiantan and Shilin district for night markets and traditional food

- Da'an park to make jogging and walk around 

- Longshan Temple and the snake street: very traditional

- Tamsui and Beitou (out of the center) nice places for hot bath and eat seafood 

Then Kaohsiung is the second biggest city after Taipei (6 hours of bus), located in the south, the weather is wet and warm. Otherwise, the more you go in the south, the more people don't speak English so you must to manage talking with hands and signs !

 Here is what I have really like there:  

- Cijin Beach

- Kaoshiung Arena

- Night market

- Fo Guang Shan (the mountain of the light of Buddha) which is a Buddhist monastery

In a third part, their is Taichung and its surroundings. Taichung is also a city near the sea and in Chinese it's means "center of Taiwan". There are a lot of temples and night markets. This city is very typical and artistic. Close to Taichung, I went to small cities called: Puli, Taomi and Sun moon lake. I have made a lot of camping there, it's perfect because it is very preserved: the nature and mountains are beautiful.   

I also want to talk about Kenting, which is a little city located at the southern tip. It is actually a National Park. I was there 4 days in a youth hostel (7 € per nights), it was really nice.

So all those cities that I have mentioned before are on the West side of Taiwan.

In the other hand, there is the east of the country which is famous for the mountains hiking and ride with a scooter or bicycle. Indeed the middle of the country is only mountains. So on the East, there is the small city of Hualien with the national park of Taroko which is impressive for its trails and views. I was again in a cheap youth hostel ! It is in this kind of place that you meet other people and create interresting relationship.

Thank you !!!

Noémie 

Local News concerning economic :

Hello everybody ! Here is my fourth article and I am going to talk about the nuclear in Taiwan. I have decided to choose this topic because last month : on the 26th of April, workers of a Nuclear Plant located in eastern Taiwan’s Pingtung County reported its number two reactor control rod became deformed. This maintenance incident did not result any radiation leakage but the schedule of the maintenance work of the central had to be delayed. 

 

Indeed, espacially during the summer saison Taiwan need to prevent from the power shortages because the population consumes much more energy. The compagny « Taiwan Power CO. » aimed to complete maintenance work by May 17th, 2017 but with this incident it will take more time. If the maintenance is not finished before May 20th, 2017 this would have a really negative impact as much as this Plant have a really important role to play during the summer season to support all this energy and power demand.

Actually, taiwan has six nuclear power reactors. The demand in the country is very important because of the rapidly industrialising economy. 

Furthermore, the demand have increased of  3,5 % per year during 1992-2012 and in 2012 half of the demand was in electricity (numbers find in an article of the World Nuclear Association). Nuclear power was a significant part of the electricity supply for two decades but now its not provide enough power. So today, the country imports 97,5 % of its energy.

The Democratic Progressive Party want to phasing out nuclear power by 2025 with the development of alternative source of power, espacially hydro and wind power.

Indeed, Nuclear power is considerably cheaper than alternatives… and the closure of operating power plants by 2025 could result in lower economic growth rates.

This energy topic is very important and alarming for the future of Taiwan and we could ask us how the government is going to deal with that …

GEOPOLITICS :

            Hello everybody ! Today I am going to talk about geopolitics in Taiwan. First of all, I will present   the country government. So Taiwan’s government is a multiparty democratic regime headed by popularly-elected president.

            Taiwan’s power is distributed among four large branches of government :

            1. The National Assembly :

            Originally, the National Assembly had the task of electing the R.O.C. President. Under the 1994 amended constitution, however, the President is popularly elected. The National Assembly decided  five important tasks:                                  

           -  help to remove presidential decisions

           - vote amendments of the constitution,

           - to approve or disapprove of the President's nominations of the top officers of the Judicial                 Yuan, the Executive Yuan, the Examination

           - electing a Vice President of the R.O.C. if the office becomes vacant,

           - discussing national affairs and offering counsel on such affairs.

            2. The President’s executive branch which include the Executice yuan, The Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan :

            The Executive Yuan is defined as the highest administrative organ of the state. The Executive Yuan President is desigated by the R.O.C. President. His duty is to enforce the laws passed by the Legislative Yuan.

            The Examination Yuan take care about the difficult system of exams, controll the  access to education, jobs, business licenses and of the civil service and. The Control Yuan is a monitoring agency that tries to keep things honest.

           3. The Legislative Yuan

            The Legislative Yuan is mostly compose of members who are elected from separate voting districts and who serve three-year terms. Their duties are the usual legislative duties of passing laws and overseeing administration. 

           4. The Judicial Yuan

            Judicial Yuan is the hierarchy of national judges who handle criminal and civil cases. There are three levels in the hierarchy: the lower court, the court of appeals, and the court of highest appeal. Judges of the Judicial Yuan are hired for life through a civil service examination.

 

            In addition to that, I am going now to explain you the political orientation of the country. Actually the president of Taiwan is a women called : Tsai Ing-Wen. She is from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Founded in 1986, the DPP is one of the two majors parties in Taiwan. This party convey the image of a real Taiwanese identity, have a strong support for Human rights, want an economic and social liberalism and is anti-communism. In Chinese it is called : Minjindang. Here is the symbol of the DPP party :

            The second major party in Taiwan is called "Kuomintang", it's can be translate by the Chinese Nationalist Party. It was founded in 1919, it is the dominant political party of  the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 1949, led from 1925 to 1975 by Chiang Kai-Shek (CKS). CKS still have an important influence and impact  in Taiwan. Indeed there is a big memorial in honor of CKS. He have raise important debate in particularly about the independence or not of Taiwan. Here is the symbol of the "Kuomintang" party :

 Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

            Here are other political parties in Taiwan: 

•             People's First Party
•             New Party
•            Taiwan Independence Party
•            Green Party

            Now, I am going to talk Politic conflicts about the Independence of Taiwan. The story begins in 1927, when civil war broke out in China. Years of war between the communist revolutionaries led by Mao Zedong defeating the Nationalist party that had been ruling China until them. CKS as a representative of the Nationalist party has to leave for exil in Taiwan. Since 1949, the status of Taiwan has been the source of constant political tension and potential military conflict between the Republic of China (ROC), which is Taiwan and the People's Republic of China (PRC), which is China. Traditionally, Taiwanese overarching goal is full independence, whereas the goal of China is a peaceful reunification of the two sides for China.  Another important actor is the United States (US), which has played a key role in the historical dispute by first supporting the ROC during the Cold War. US have signe with Taiwan the Taiwan Relation Act (TRA), which mean that US have the right to sell defensive weapons and give is military support to help and protect Taiwan. This Act raised the Hunger of Chinese.

            In an other hand, the economic interdependence (exchanges and cooperation) between Taiwan and China have increased this past few years so it has improve the diplomatic relations.

            To conclude, it's not only a problem between the two sides (China and Taiwan), it's overall development trend will also be decided by the East Asian-Western Pacific region's great power relations and by the geopolitical situation of the region. It's not simple to solve this conflicts and it will be always ups and downs. In any cases, this situation stay sensitive for Taiwanese people. 

            To finish, let's talk about religion in Taiwan. There is a big diversity of religious and practices. The dominant is Buddhism (35%), then Taoism (33%), Christianism (18,7%).  There is no religion conflicts in Taiwan, people are really respectful.

Here is the end of my third article, see you later ! 

Noémie 

Social Rituals :

Hello everyone, in my second article I will speak about severals significant social rituals.  

On the beginning, let’s me explain you differents currents habits from Taiwanese people. Especially in the subway there is few rules to respect if you don’t want to have reprobate looks :

•         Never drink water/tea and do not eat food because it is prohibited, you can even have a fine if an agent of the station see you with a chew gum (2000 Taiwanese Dollar).
•        To get inside the subway you must wait only in the delimited spaces (there is white line to follow, and if you don’t go on the right way, the other people will look you in a strange way and it is very disturbing)

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•          Futhermore, there is few priority seats (those seats have a color more dark so you can recognize it easily). There are destinated for pregnant women , old and ill people and even if the subway is crowded, those seats will be always empty. So don’t make the mistake to seat on those seats if you have anything :)

Finally when you are waiting for the bus, there is always two waiting line : one for the persons who want to have a seat and an other one for persons who can be standing an the bus. I have take few weeks to understand this system beacuse nobody explain it to me before.

In addition to that, the notion of illness is very awkward and sensitive for Taiwanese people. Illness persons are badly seen and are look with such loathing. Well anybody want to be infect, so that’s why, wearing a mask which cover the month is a current practice. Even if you just have a cold, you must wear this kind of mask. It is also a sign of respect for the others.

Secondly, let’s talk about the Taiwanese food ! It’s really different from the Occidental food. There is a lot of fish, fried chicken, fried pork, fried Rice (this are the staple food and after you mix it with vegetables, sauce, eggs, seafood…) Globally, it’s hard to eat everyday this kind of food and sometimes its is a bit disgusting.

Here it is few exemples of typical taiwanese food speciality that I particulary like and enyoy to eat:

•        Da Chang Xiao ("chinese hotdog", it’s a rice bread with a spicy sausage)
•       Dumplings  and Buns (with vegetables or pork)
•        Beef noodle soup
•        Wheels cake with read beans
•         Fried sweet potatoes

You can find all this food espacially in Nights market. There are a lot of Nights market in Taiwan. The biggest of Taipei is called : "Shillin Night Market". I have join some pictures that I have take to show you this special atmosphere. 

After have explain you somes cultural habits and customs, I am going now to discribe you few National Celebrations.

The most famous and important in Taiwan is the Chinese New Year. This celebration is very important for the locals. Every shops are closed because people are with their family. Locals make a lot of wishes (happiness, Job, Studies, money, family and good health), so they buy traditionnal little papers where it is written holy texts. It is for the gods, so they they burn it in the street to carry them luck.

After the Chinese New Year, there is the Lantern Festival which celebrate the end of New Year celebrations. It’s take place on the 15th day of te first lunar month. Everybody can buy a Lantern, writte theirs own wish on it and after in a special time, all the Lanterns are released in the sky. It’s really a beautiful and meaningful moment. The best place to be to enjoy the Lantern festival is in a little village located in the mountain. It’s possible to go there only for one day with a shuttle bus.

Finally, The Taiwan Nationnal Day is also very important. It is the same national day as the Republic of China. Festivities takes places in front of the Presidential Office Building in taipei : The public sing the National Anthem of the Republic of China, there are also military parades and culturals dances coming from Taiwanese aborigines. At the end, there is a wonderful fireworks to close the celebration.

To finish this article, I will speak about family habits in Taiwan. First, children are considerated as king and their parents will always want the best studies and education for them. They have to study and work a lot. It is also to get a good social roow. After, children take really care of their parents when they get older. Old people are very well respected and are put to a higher standard. Globally people enjoy to take care and stay with their family ;)