Day 1: Herb and language discovery

Have I said that I am on an AIESEC exchange? Yup I've just typed it out, haha! In case you don't know, AIESEC is an international organization which promote and develop youth leadership. Its members, so call AIESECers, are university students who are or want to be culturally sensitive, entrepreneurial and socially responsible. Sound tough, but actually it's a community of students who dream big, learn hard, play hard and deliver fun and results. AIESEC exchange is a platform for AIESECers to experience the culture of other countries, to push themselves towards their own limits and to make dreams come true.

And before my dream comes true, I first have to taste some bitter experience, go through some harsh life trainings and on some high notes, listen to Fighter and Born to Try to lift my spirit up. But trust me, these are moments you learn the most about yourself and the world, these are moments that you grow mature and these are moments that you are proud of yourself once you are over them!

The first challenge when I work in Mudan is language barrier. Before arriving Taiwan, I was warned that I had to learn as much Mandarin as I can, because my TN, aka boss, cannot speak much English. Thence, every night I spent half an hour talking to my 8-year-old cousin in Chinese, literally, this primary-2 kid taught me Chinese haha. And sometimes, during dinner, I tried to listen to dubbers instead of reading subtitles. However, it turned out to be that most of my co-workers are indigenous and do not speak English at all! They belong to Paiwan tribe, which scatters around Southern Taiwan and is famous for its glass beads and wooden sculptures. As an instinctive reaction, they speak Paiwanese among themselves and Mandarin to externals.
That's why my effort in practicing speaking Mandarin did not help me as much as expected.

The second challenge came in the picture very soon when one non-Paiwan worker brought me around the "place". He first took me to a herbal garden which size is twice of our school sports hall, planting 50 different types of herbs, both local and foreign (did I mention the cool and humid weather here?). The tour was in Chinese. Back then, I could only get the names of these herbs (because there were pauses before them haha) and completely no other thing! I also discovered that this worker knew English, but his English was so weak that he could not introduce himself properly (that's why the tour was in Chinese v.v).

That tour alone was overwhelming to me, but he moved on to introduce the flower garden, the small lake with aboriginal plants and their stories (I only knew there were stories later on when I myself had to introduce the same thing to tourists). I interrupted him uncountable times to clarify, but it seemed to be useless because I knew so little Chinese and he spoke so little English and no other person can help us communicate!

I still remember, that night I was so lonely that I had to call my Mom in Vietnam and used up one phone card! For the entire day I hardly spoke the English that I had been used to, I hardly understood what people tried to let me know. Communication failed by all means! The interesting thing is, I told my Mom that everything was okay and everyone treated me very nice. They were all true! And this fact raised me up. Though there were difficulties, but upon reflecting, they were not as hard as reading an Econs book or as tricky as travel around Singapore with $1 which I did! So, why afraid? Just move on!

And I did move on!