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Saturday, June 7th, 2025

Day 16 in Taiwan

Day 16 was mostly spent at Dharma Drum Mountain, one of the largest Buddhist Monasteries in the world. We spent our day at the attached University doing a variety of activities that included many different types of mediation, two different tea events, lecture events, and a discussion with a Monk and two Nuns. The first part of the day consisted of a long session of meditation. We started with seated meditation like what we had previously practiced with Professor Young in our lecture sessions. I noticed that it gets easier to relax, sit still, and focus on breathing the more […]

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Saturday, June 7th, 2025

Day 15 in Taiwan

We started our day off with a cooking class!! I have been looking forward to this excursion throughout the whole trip and it definitely met my expectations! We made Zongzi, a traditional food that is a part of the dragon boat fesitival. The unique story behind it is linked to Qu Yuan, the famous poet that committed suicide by jumping into the Miluo river. It is said that people threw Zongzi into the river to keep the fish from eating his body and as a way to honor him. Due to the significance of this food and the fact that […]

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Thursday, June 5th, 2025

Day 14 in Taiwan

Day 14 started off with a visit to studio 76, a film and media company that specializes in entertainment and smart media. One thing that I found significant was that the major markets for the developed films are in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Mainland China. I feel like it makes sense that more films are sold to surrounding countries than places in Europe or the US. I also thought it was super interesting how strict censorship policies are present in China that make it so that certain scenes are required to be removed from the film. One example was […]

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Wednesday, June 4th, 2025

Day 13 in Taiwan

Today we retuned to my favorite city in Taiwan, Taipei. We finally got to travel on the high speed rail at full speed! I think we got up to a little over 260 mph which is super cool! Kyla and I spent a large amount of the ride talking to my sister on the phone until we were kindly asked to be quiet which was a reminder to me that it is important to pay attention to the people around you. We felt bad! But other than that small experience, we had a pretty fun, very hot, and busy day. […]

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Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025

Day 12 in Taiwan

Day 12 began with our second lecture session of the trip. Once again we meditated for 5 minutes at the beginning of the session, which I thought was a helpful practice session for when we meditated later at Foguangshan. I, personally, find it really hard to sit still, even just for 5 minutes, but I am beginning to understand and appreciate the art of mediation more as we spend more time doing it and learning about it. This class session was more educational than the last one. We had the opportunity to hear from both professors about both religion and […]

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