Panels, Lectures, and 1 presidential meeting: Fulbright Taiwan Conference

March 4, I left Beijing for Taipei for a week long Fulbright Mid-Year Research Conference  Upon arrival at the airport, I had this funny feeling that my flight information was wrong. And sure enough, I was supposed to be on the 8:30am flight (I arrived at the airport at 11am). I had confused my flight information because my flight out of Beijing changed several times due to a combination of my schedule changes, and Fulbright policy changes with booking...so annoying. Luckily, Robin, another Fulbrighter, was there to calm me down and help me get on the next flight. Air China changed me to the 2pm with Robin, free of charge! It was my lucky day. And then, Robin got me into the United Lounge with her and we had a nice free lunch, and free internet! So great! We arrived in Taipei, and took a cab together to our really nice hotel (paid for courtesy of US Taxpayers, thank you!), Amba Hotel. After dropping off my stuff, a large group of Fulbrighters and I went together to a night market, one of Taiwan's famous culinary destinations. The night markets are full of fried food, fresh fruit, insects, coconut juice, bubble tea, and more! Small food carts line the streets as people wander from one shop to the next. Afterwards, we felt a little overloaded on grease, but still loved it!

Tuesday was our first official day at the conference. Each day consisted of panels, breakout groups, and a keynote address. The panels were on International Affairs, Domestic Taiwanese Governance, Religion/Gender/Education Issues, Public Health & the Environment, and Taiwanese Economy. While the panels were really interesting (and resulted in 2 great contacts for me), they were really long and took up a lot of time. The keynote addresses were definitely a highlight. On our first day, we heard a speech about Taiwanese Consciousness (What does it mean to be Taiwanese?). The next day the "Director of the American Institute of Taiwan" (aka the Ambassador to Taiwan, but we can't say that because America does not recognize Taiwan as a country) spoke to us about being Fulbrighters, his life experience in Taiwan, etc. And the highlight of the whole week- We met Ma Ying-jeou, the president of Taiwan!!!! You can watch the complete video of his speech here (and there are a few shots of me- I'm in a red sweater in the front on the right side) and read an article about it here. He was very eloquent and articulate. He emphasized Taiwan's role as a peacemaker in Cross-Strait relations, and the diaoyu islands controversy with Japan. It was great to hear him speak, and promote such pragmatic policies. Afterwards, he took questions for probably a half hour. I got to ask him about increasing women's role in government in Taiwan! Actually, Taiwan has the 4th highest participation rate of women in the parliament (33%!) because of a quota system that requires 1/3 of the parliament to be women. While that's a great accomplishment compared to most of the world (the US Senate only has 20% women), isn't it sad that "the best" we can do right now is still only 1/3? Anyways, President Ma brushed off the question by talking about how great Taiwan is already doing so that was still disappointing, but hey, I spoke directly to the President of a country (well, kind of country...?)! And then at the end he went around and shook everyone's hands!!! so awesome! Through the rest of the week, we also had many "breakout" sessions where fellow Fulbright researchers divided up based on the subject of our projects to discuss progress, challenges, and solutions so far. It was really helpful hearing what other people were doing, and being reassured that I'm not a total failure so far. We also brainstormed some great solutions and ways to help each other out throughout the year. By Thursday night, we were all exhausted from having our ears talked off. After a final buffet dinner (my personal favorite), we all began our vacation, which lasted another week in Taiwan!