Ayusa 國際愛優生文化交流協會

As an exchange student, my job, mission and responsibility are not only learning the American culture but also presenting my own country and culture. From the daily life style, to the culture difference, I am impressed to the people around me. This weekend I hold one International Educational week for my American schoolmate. Let me tell you my little achievement.
The first thing of planning the presentation is to figure out whom you talked to.
According to the teacher in library, our school starts at 8:30 in the morning but most of students arrived at 8:15. Most of them use this free time (about 15-20miutes) for socializing or using the Internet in the school library. I used this period for my presentation.
I had started my presentation before I came here. 15 week ago, I used the free time of my summer vacation to search the Internet for some information about Taiwan in English (Ex: Wikipedia) and downloaded them. I found a paper model of the Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. I also went to the administration office of my school for some video about my religion The Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation. My uncle in the US also collected some video, pamphlet and information about it. My mom also helped me to get some pamphlets about Taiwanese culture, history and geography etc from the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan. These are the things I brought from my country.
Before two weeks of the IEW, I started making poster, checking the video, building the model and made arrangements with school teachers (Library, administrator) for space of presentation and the ad in every day morning announcement. Totally. I spent only 15 hours to make these posters and models but the preparation I did is about 2 month. It was worth while I was seeing the joy on the faces of my audience
6. What information about your country did you share with your audience?
I planned many side to introduce my country. They were the history of Taiwan, the geography of Taiwan, the culture of Taiwan, the story of our national flag and my religion Tzu Chi foundation. To avoid “Boring Speech”, I made my speech with many real crafts ( spinning top, painting and the national flag) which I brought from Taiwan and the visual videos(Tzu Chi and Taiwan). I also put some interesting interludes like my little stories and some traditional jokes.
After my presentation, my American friends came and asked more questions about my life in Taiwan.
I thought they realized that who I am more. I also build more friendship between American students. Teachers admire my presentation and even asked their student come to my presentation.
I had very special audience. Because our school took 5 exchange students who came from People’s republic of China, Brazil, Thailand and Japan, they had extremely reactions about my presentation. For example, The students from People’s republic of china was very curious about my personal opinion of the issues of the independence of Taiwan. It was a hot potato to for me talked about the issue but I was glad that I explained my opinion calmly with political and objective words and they accepted my opinion and my passion of my country.
Thank god and the agency gave me this chance to gained more confidence of making a English speech, to make more friends, to build the other people’s respect of me, to learn how to use resources around me to make other people realize me and to learn how to coordinate with other helping peoples.
After the presentation, I also learn and knew more about myself and my country. I did remembered the first I talked about the Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world but it isn’t anymore so my earnest math teacher searched the Internet and found out that the tallest building is still the Taipei 101. I felt cheerful when I heard this.I felt a little pity that I couldn’t provide Taiwanese food to my American friends because I didn’t have the material. Taiwanese snack usually use some glutinous rice to make it tastier but I couldn’t find it even in Wal-mart and some international food store. Also, Taiwanese snacks are mostly fried so I couldn’t bring it to school because the fried food will become oily by staying for a long time. I am still finding the way to let my friends taste Taiwanese delicious snacks.
I also realized that the public announcement was a good tool better than the poster to advertise the program.

As an exchange student, my job, mission and responsibility are not only learning the American culture but also presenting my own country and culture. From the daily life style, to the culture difference, I am impressed to the people around me. I learned from experience and realized from dealing with people. The exchange student’s spirit is in my mind and on my way. I will do as best as I can, just like my pride country and people.

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