Oh My Days in Taiwan and Japan 志偉在台灣的日子

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黃 育瑋

李 怡瑾

Jing-yi HUANG

Yu-wei HUANG

Celine LEE

I knew Jingyi before I came to Taiwan, and she was the first person I met on the first day I arrived in Taipei. She’s a little shy in person but a very fun person to talk to, and also her opinions on how Din Tai Fung is a restaurant for tourists and her opinions of her mainland counterparts also is refreshingly real and funny to behold.

I first met Yuwei in Kaohsiung.

That was my second time in Kaohsiung, and I really liked that place a lot. He brought me around the city area and we went to the Eda Theme Park together as well. Was a great time screaming like girls on the water roller coaster and strolling along the sidewalk of the schools and parks at night in the beautiful city of Kaohsiung.

Celine is the co-owner of Bike Kaohsiung, a hostel near Ju-dan Station. Yinkuan found the place, and I’ve returned to it time and time again, even recommending it to my exchange friend, Honda-san. Celine knows Dr Liew KK from WKW; she’s worked before in NUS for a year as a researcher and thus I always look forward to her insights on Taiwan and Singapore. She has a heart for the disadvantaged, for the politics of her land. Amazing lady.

羅 豪偉

黃 柏皓

儀

Paul LUO

Bo-hao HUANG

Paul is the kind and outgoing owner of Bike Kaohsiung. I’ve heard of how he and his wife Celine met while they were in Sun Yat Sen University then, and also about his plans for expanding the Bike Kaohsiung brand to other cities and such. He even went to stay in hostels around the world to get a feel of how hostel living ought to be like. Here is a guy with really big dreams and aspirations, and I hope he succeeds.

When I received the email from NCTU that I will be getting a buddy for my exchange I was really excited. Although the next inevitable question will be whether the person can click with eccentric me.

But I’m glad those worries were unfounded at the end of the day.

Po-hao is by nature an introvert, and has deep thoughts that NCTU couldn’t fully realize. He shared those things with me and I could understand. Looking forward to hosting him next year after he returns from Denmark next year.

柏皓的 家人 Bo-hao’s Family I’m thankful that during Mother’s Day in Taiwan I could also feel the warmth of a mother’s love.

That weekend I went back with Bohao to his grandparents’ and his place in Changhua. It was another eye-opening experience to share an everyday conversation, a dinner, a small talk with the mother, father and sister who’s studying business in Taipei. And tasted breakfast in true Taiwanese fashion. An experience I won’t forget.

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吳 易澤 黃 欣怡 Xin-yi HUANG Even though I didn’t get too much of an opportunity to speak much to her, I know her passion is very strong in music (she’s Yunru’s coursemate) and she recently deliberated over moving to Hualien or Taipei for her next academic and career move. Another valued and treasured cell member.

Yi-che WU Yiche, known for his signature response to prayer requests. Every week when it comes to his turn to say, he will aways begin with 創 作順利, so much so it’s begun to take on a life of its own already.

He was a sargeant in the army because he went to do his masters in NHCUE.

甘 尉慈 Wei-chi GAN We all believe at that this point of writing, Weichi is Yiche’s girlfriend. Kind of like an open secret, but because Taiwanese people are much less confrontational than Singaporeans, everyone knows but nobody wishes to actually ask. I believe she is also doing a similar course to Yiche, which explains how they met.

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林 玄用

陳 一涵

志仁

Xuan-yong LIN

Yi-han CHEN

Pastor CHENG

How I met Xuanyong is even more amazing. Two years ago, on my first trip to Taiwan (when I still thought that I was going to NCCU). On the second last day I wanted to visit that university.

I got lost trying to find the bus.

After 1 hour at the bus stop, I approached a stranger behind also waiting at the bus stop. And viola, a new friend was made there and then. He was so nice to not only bring me to NCCU, but walk me through it. Then I knew he was from Chiaotung. I never knew I would eventually go there too.

I remember Yihan for her story of how difficult it was working and facing the workload in the restaurant. On a weekly basis in cell I heard how it was like for a typical Taiwanese teenager to be leaving her home in Pingtung and coming up to Hsinchu to study in Chunghwa Uni (an average ‘neighbourhood’ university by Taiwanese standards). And about getting slots for hostel housing and finding an apartment outside.

Ps Cheng is the Senior Pastor of Sinyi church in Hsinchu. There was once in cell (and of all cell, that was the one Wenyao came for!). A doctor by training, he shared the story of how he came to Taiwan (He’s from HK) and settled down and took over the reins in this church. He also shared about his wishes for the church, how he wanted the church to be small enough so he could remember the names of everyone.

I can’t remember everything already, but it is still really inspiring and encouraging to know someone who loves the knew in HK to come over and start from scratch.

龔 叔叔 筑尹 Chu-ying CHENG I don’t really have a name that I would call her, but I am always LINEing her, the most memorable incident being the water heater that wasn’t working and the aircon that kept leaking, Yeah. But she’s married and by now her child should have been born already.

She’s really a nice landlady who offered a free stay at my apartment until the contract started. Finding a house in Taiwan isn’t the easiest thing for a Singaporean to do, I’m glad things turned out well.

Uncle KUNG In Singapore I never really got to interact with neighbours downstairs, but in Taiwan, I was able to see how a more leisure Jeremiah looked like. And at times I would stop by to chat with this kind uncle downstairs. He has such an insight into Taiwan politics and is already ready to offer a different opinion on issues hot in the hearts of the Taiwanese, For example, he said why it was important to not defuse the nuclear plants in Taiwan due to economic reasons and practicality issues. Talking to him made me understand Singapore a whole lot more as well.

映嘉的 家人 Rodrigue’s Family I met Yingchia’s mummy and brother the first time I saw Yingchia at Bigcity in Hsinchu. That same afternoon he brought me to see his family (although I was a little shy to do so since it’s really overwhelming to see so many new people at the same time). But I went anyway and they were nice people. The mummy also taught me how to spot discounts in AMart!

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許 文耀

文耀的 家人

潘• 彼德

Wen-yao HSU

Wen-yao’s Family

Peter PHAM

Wenyao is a very special person to me. In many ways he represents the passion of Taiwan, the emotional and the logical side of things. Spending time with him really made me much stronger in my language as I often had to debate abstract concepts of religion and culture according to the yardsticks set by him, and in Chinese too. But I can safely say that he is so special a person that I cannot find another person that’s quite like him anywhere else.

Wenyao has an elder sister that really looks like Rainie Yang (but is not), a dad who’s a civil servant working in the shipping industry and a mother with whom he always enjoys picking a good argument with. I’ve had a few meals with them at their place, his mum is really the typical Taiwanese mummy I see on TV, very nice, very motherly, always stuffing food, cakes and fruits to me.

Grateful to share time with them.

Peter is also an exchange student.

He is from the States and is of Vietnamese descent. He’s really interested in Chinese culture, media and music and during the times we hung out together he was a very witty person who quite a bit about the US and stuff. Really quite a blessing to be able to know this person.

陽 台恩 Prof. Tai-en YANG Prof Yang is my teacher for the digital TV production module I took at NCTU. Even though his lessons aren’t the most engaging, he was a very nice and generous teacher that treated everyone in class to a meal after going to Huashih studios in Taipei.

林 君丞 Chun-cheng LIN Chuncheng wants to set up a restaurant in the future. I met him at the TV mod in NCTU. He shared with me how masters students in Taiwan can ‘earn’ their allowance and how the universities pay them differently. He wishes to study business in Taiwan University,

坤• 思文 Sven KHUN Sven is one of my two housemates.

He was very shy for an angmoh, or so I thought. He largely left the talking to Markus and generously took the smaller room between the two rooms available for them. We didn’t talk much, until one night when the both of them came back from drinking and a half-drunk Sven started talking about how he wished I would talk more to them and bring them out more often and stuff like that. We laughed and things were much better from that point onwards.

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顏 晟宇

方 俊元

Bi-chu CHUANG

Allen YAN

Jun-yuan FANG

Bichu came to know Jesus barely few months ago. But she is deeply passionate and earnest in knowing more about God and Christ, always reading some book and mentioning how God has helped her in her everyday life.

I got to know Allen rather indirectly through Yuwei and also realised that incidentally he was also in NCTU and in the same program I was enrolled in (DCT), just that I didn’t take the mod so that wasn’t much chance to see him. But I eventually still stepped into the Hakka College and it was really a nice place. He intends to do his exchange in Singapore and I really do hope that he will be able to get into the 4 places that NTU has allotted for inbound students from NCTU.

Knowing Junyuan was one of the most ‘organic’ experiences I had in NCTU, meaning that this knowing wasn’t dictated or necessitated by an arrangement. It occurred just randomly and that spontaneity led us to do a group project together involving presenting in Chinese.

And like a true Taiwanese with a great tongue, he spoke (or bulled) about AMei effortlessly throughout the presentation.

莊 璧朱

常 愉

施

宇

Jennifer SHIH Shes’s one of Changyu’s cell mates (they all stay in a dormitory just outside the Kuangfu campus), and is also a classmate for my management class, though in another lecture group.

Yu CHANG She was once very, very quiet, even though she just sat next to me for weeks in my business management class. Changyu and I became closer as time passed and afterwards I even got to go and attend her church service and cell, which is quite different from what I used to know of churches before.

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江 姿潔

賴 韻如

何 老師

Ruby CHIANG

Momo LAI

Tracy HO

Ruby is my project mate in the TV practicum. Even though my involvement in the project wasn’t a lot, I got to know her better after the weekly lessons, when we will take a leisure stroll around the NCTU campus and just talk about life; her life, my life, how Taiwanese students see the outside world, going outside to work and stuff. Really learnt so much from simple conversations.

Her concert was amazing. As a cell we attended her concert at NHCUE music hall, and there she belted out effortlessly a dozen hits of classical pieces. I didn’t understand much, but I know enough to tell she knows her stuff.

Most of them call her 何老師.

She sometimes pops by our cell gatherings and she will already be ready to offer her view and insights, And like all learned people, her words are always so edifying to the ears and the heart. The cell clearly values her presence and her personal fight with cancer deems her a living testimony of faith in her Provider.

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崔 瑞康

Rui-kang CHUEI I got to know Ruikang better through my involvement at the Easter Service at Chupei Stadium.

I won’t forget the rainy and windy night I rode pillion on his bike and his helmet flew off on the bridge!

He is quite a soft spoken person and he is also my senior at NCTU and will also be pursuing his masters there as well.

李 俊谷

翁 映嘉

Joshua LEE

Rodrigue WENG

I call him 谷哥 because that’s part of his name. He’s one of the older brothers in the Sinyi church and because the church is only so big, many of the members there also look up to him as well, I suppose.

I’m not sure how I met him but we ate together and I even got to bring Wenyao to his place for dinner! He works at the Hsinchu Technopark, but he wants to get out of Taiwan to get a new perspective on life. He is also exploring Singapore as well. The last I know, he is in the States.

Yingchia is a random friend in every sense of the word. One day I received a random friend request, and it turned out to be all part of God’s plan for me. He lives in Hsinchu and is part of the church and cell group that I would eventually join for the 5 months in Hsinchu. His importance is in being the bridge into his community, and that bridge is, as I would later realise, priceless and so ordained

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維爾莫• 馬克思 Markus WIEMUTH Markus is a particularly funny guy. Even though he is German, his English is really fluent and that really helped to make admin stuff better (I was the small landlord, telling them things like recycling and how much to pay me). He brought his brother and brother’s girlfriend over also and we had a good time at Lion’s Head Mountain, nearing the end of my exchange. And also for all the good German words he taught me like Schade / scheide (vagina), Auf jeden, Dumpfbacke (used when describing him) and of course Dummer idiot. Couldn’t have asked for a better pair of housemates.

本田 達也

Tatsuya HONDA Honda-san is an exchange student and he comes from Hokkaido if I am not wrong. It was really an experience having him meet Yuwei, and I was practically translating three languages (Jap, Eng and Chinese) to the both of them.

But I am glad that Honda-san enjoyed his time at Kaohsiung too, although it made Yuwei a tad nervous because Honda-san can only use Japanese.

林 昱伸 Josh LIN Josh is works as a teacher in Kuangfu Junior High and is really interested in Singaporean culture and the Singlish language! He even taught Singlish in his own English class. He is a very good listening ear to all my issues and troubles; those times when I would just rant everything out to him.

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This book is dedicated to the God who created me, who loved me so much to die for me, who brought me through to Wee Kim Wee and to Taiwan and back.

Then, this book is also dedicated to every person whose name is mentioned here.

Lastly, the journey would not have been possible had it not for 2 loving parents who freely gave their hard-earned money (and then some more) for their son to see the world.

And also to myself. May I look back at this book everytime I feel like I’ve forgotten something, and realize how blessed I am to be alive, and to have experienced it all.