It was hard to find the right class for me at first since ICLP’s curriculum differs from Williams’. Level 3 classes focus more on a colloquial side of Chinese, and a lot of grammars and contents are the ones that I have already learned. On the contrary, when I looked at the level 4 textbooks, the contents focused more on a literary side of Chinese language, and there were too many new words and structures that I have never learned. ICLP teachers told me that I can practice speaking more fluently while remaining on level 3 even though not all of the contents are new to me, that the class materials will get harder in the course of our study, and that there is no available teacher for level 4 classes, so I decided to take level 3 classes. I’m currently taking Chinese moral tales, Today’s Taiwan, and A course in contemporary Chinese 3.
Living in Taiwan is not that different from living in Korea in terms of food, transportation, etc., so adjusting to Taiwan’s living environment has not been a huge challenge for me. Since a lot of Taiwanese people do not speak English at all, I often need to push myself to fully immerse into Taiwan’s Chinese-speaking environment, taking full advantage of studying abroad. Taiwan is really humid and hot, and often rains all of a sudden, so sometimes it is hard to walk around for a long time. However, public transportation is really convenient and cheap in Taiwan, making it easy to travel Taipei city. I would like to travel to southern parts of Taiwan with Jenna and Kristina during weekends.