Written by Niklas Gamble (University of Minnesota), Student Correspondent for CET Taiwan, Summer 2024
When I first joined the CET Summer program, I was a little worried I would struggle to fit in. In fact, if you go back to my first blog post, It’s Never Too Late To Study Abroad, I shared those fears and anxieties pretty early on. This is a fairly large program, and many students came into the program with friends they had already made at their home universities. There were already existing friend groups, which made me worry that I might struggle to get involved and get to know people.
By the time the program began, I had just finished my first year of college as a transfer student and didn’t have a particularly large network of friends at the University of Minnesota to begin with. It also seemed that perhaps only one other CET student was from the same university as me. I actually only met her once a few weeks before departing for Taiwan. We had a class together this past fall semester but didn’t get the chance to actually meet at that time.
That worry and unfamiliarity bled away quickly, and that is in large part thanks to CET’s staff here in Taiwan. The whole office is friendly, cheerful, and welcoming. I had my Chinese class in the afternoon and often passed a group of CET staff members on my walk to National Taiwan University’s language department as they departed for their lunch break. When we passed each other, we would all greet each other with brief but warm familiarity. It always lifted my spirits! The staff seemed to know every student individually by name despite not spending every day with each student. On official CET activities, at least two staff members would always be present, and they all had a way of making activities exciting and engaging while still making sure that everyone was accounted for.
CET sponsored a lot of activities. It could sometimes be a little competitive to sign up in time before the activities filled up! While I did unfortunately miss a few activities, CET helped me to get on the waiting list, and helped bump me up the list if I missed out on a prior activity. Ultimately, I had the opportunity to do quite a lot in a very short amount of time! I got to paint lanterns and dig for oysters in Changhua, learn some useful day-to-day 臺語 (Tâi-gí, or Taiwanese) and put it to use speaking with older locals on a guided stroll through Zhiguang Huanghun Market, shape clay and do some indigo dying in the Yingge and Sanxia districts.
I got to meet more people on the program (and adjacent to it) through meetups and info sessions. With my language partners, I’ve gone to various restaurants and cafes, gone to Yehliu, walked through museums, and gone to forums to discuss social changes and advocacy. With my Chinese class at NTU, I’ve gone bowling, to a movie, climbing the stairs up to Xiangshan (Elephant Mountain), and to a cake museum where we made our own pineapple cakes and learned about Chinese history and tradition in Taiwan.
When I wasn’t able to sign up for CET activities, I spent some time getting to know my fellow CET classmates, my language partners, and the other non-CET students in my Chinese class at NTU. Through all of this, every single one of my fears about not fitting in dissipated. I was so certain I would find it awkward to be on this program solely because of my age, but that ended up not being the case. Melita, a staff member with CET, was receptive to me voicing my anxieties with her, and she let me know that there have been others around my age who have participated in this program before me. She and Rita, the program director in Taiwan, also helped find language partners who were a little closer to my age to work with me.
Forging stronger friendships with some CET students afforded me even more opportunities to explore Taiwan! I got to go to Yehliu for a weekend trip, explore some of the bars, clubs, restaurants, and shops in Taipei, and somewhat frequently dropped in on some local eateries, night markets, and parks around both NTU as well as in the Da’an district where a few CET students (including myself) resided. This boosted my confidence, and I was able to do some solo exploring as well, venturing a little south of the school to get a rather intricate tattoo on my own!
As I grew more comfortable and confident in my newfound friend group, I did eventually tell them my age. In my first blog post, I mentioned I would keep that a secret until my fourth and final post—but I did spill the beans to those I grew closest to in Taiwan. I teased it for a while, usually hinting at it, then deflecting the natural “Wait, how old are you?” question, with a cheeky “Guess!” as a reply. After first revealing it, I worried I might have made it harder for them to relate to me, but I was happily mistaken. After that revelation was out there, it was something that I played up and joked about and that they did as well.
On a more serious note, for some of these friends, I was able to share a few of my life experiences and offer advice I only wish I had been given around the same age. What they gave me in turn were frequent invitations to experience the country a little more spontaneously with them—to be a little bolder and more curious—as though I was twenty-something too. It felt very much like making up for lost time, having not followed the traditional high-school-to-college timeline. This was something that was sorely needed in my life.
Learning what sort of long-term plans each of them were preparing for was also inspiring and enlightening. Some told me that they intend to return to Taiwan again—if not just to visit, then to try to carve out a living long-term. Many of them shared with me that they feel a profound sense of belonging in Taiwan. I feel the same, though my current plans don’t point towards living there at this time. Whether that will change or not is impossible to say.
Unexpected changes throughout my adulthood have often surfaced abruptly—some welcome, some not. I remain ever cognizant of the fact that I can’t predict the future with any certainty. However, at present, my plan is to stay in Minnesota, marry my fiancée, start a family, and do this all while finishing up my degree. Should this pan out, I would love to return to Taiwan for a while with my family, though my home as it stands right now is intrinsically tethered to the U.S.
That said, in just 72 days, I have certainly found a place on earth that feels, to me, like a second home. This most assuredly will not be my last time in Taiwan, circumstances willing. As I continue to work to improve my Chinese language competency, I will reflect upon my time in Taiwan and use that memory to fuel my drive to improve. I will work to maintain friendships forged, and to perhaps make more new friends abroad in the hopes that I’ll have more people to visit whenever I return.
Thank you, CET, for facilitating this extremely enriching and overall extremely positive experience! And, to you older and non-traditional students wondering if you should try to study abroad despite the scarcity of accounts of other older and non-traditional students doing so, don’t wait any longer! Go do it—you won’t regret it!
If I could have stayed a little longer, I certainly would have—but I have a fiancée, friends, and family at home, all of whom I sorely missed. If I stayed just two weeks longer than the end of the CET Taiwan Summer program, I would end up missing out on celebrating my 37th birthday with my loved ones in Minnesota. 😉