Exploring the Fusion of Business, Culture, and Religion in Taiwan: The Heart of Asia

All posts by Kyla Kelly

Saturday, June 7th, 2025

Day Sixteen – Taipei

This day was wholly focused on our visit to Dharma Drum Mountain, which we stayed at for about seven hours. I felt like this was going to be one of the biggest stretches out of our comfort zone, as the day would be filled primarily with meditation and lecture. However, I was looking forward to taking a break from furiously taking notes and having the excuse to put my phone away for a day. I also was excited to see even such a small glimpse into what a Buddhist monastic’s life is like at Dharma Drum Mountain and compare it […]

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Friday, June 6th, 2025

Day Fifteen – Taipei

Today our only official engagement was a cooking class! In honor of the Dragon Boat Festival, we made zongzi. I mentioned zongzi in my post from a few days ago, and it’s so fortuitous that we ended up making some today since I hadn’t gotten to try it!! Turns out it is a lot more labor intensive than I had thought; I’m not the greatest cook, but luckily we were working in teams of five and my teammates were all very skilled. I also got a lot of help from our teacher, and when she complimented my zongzi at the […]

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Friday, June 6th, 2025

Day Fourteen – Taipei

In the morning, we visited a movie and TV show production company called Studio76, which was founded by Dennis Yang. This company has a lot of influence in both Taiwan and also neighboring countries, both in movie production and in the sourcing of their scripts. They host an annual competition called RisingStories that receives scripts from all over Asia and even the United States. Their main focus is the acquisition of stories and investment into their production. They have since expanded to have other branches that help generate either more stable or more innovative sources of revenue. These branches both […]

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Thursday, June 5th, 2025

Final Presentation

Interactions with local people have been facilitated by mutual effort and positive energy. One of my main concerns going into this program was whether I’d be able to communicate with people, especially considering that one of my goals was to meet people and possibly make friends. Indeed, I did run into many people who primarily spoke Mandarin or Taiwanese, but these situations almost always worked out in the end, and I still managed to make meaningful connections. I can remember one time at Xingtian Temple when a volunteer came up to us while we were looking at the huge koi. […]

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Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025

Day Thirteen – Taipei

We traveled to Taipei in the morning and packed the early afternoon with visits before meeting the bus at the hotel. Since the Confucius Temple in Kaohsiung was under construction, we got to visit a Confucius temple in Taipei instead. This temple is dedicated to the 77th grandson of Confucius. Like the Japanese monarchy, the descdants of Confucius have been tracked in an unbroken lineage and are still well-regarded today. They have been recognized by each dynasty even through changeovers. Confucius is not considered a deity, and neither is his lineage. Rather, he was such a respected teacher during his […]

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Monday, June 2nd, 2025

Day Twelve – Kaohsiung

Last day in Kaohsiung! We had our second day of class, which was more lecture based this time in order to prepare us for our visit to Foguangshan. Foguangshan is one of three major religious institutions in Taiwan, with global reach via their various business ventures. Prof. Young went into some more depth on core Buddhist beliefs and Prof. Chen spoke on how local Taiwanese people view and practice religion. We then read articles on Buddhist economics and discussed how religious institutions participate in the economy via businesses and investing in stocks. Many people have had positive experiences with such […]

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