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

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Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

5/21

Our first stop this morning was at AIT, the American Institute of Taiwan. We heard from Christian Koschil, who told us about the mission of the AIT, as well as his position in the organization and how the history of Taiwan has impacted the organization’s mission and goals. What I found most interesting from his presentation was the distribution of FDI into Taiwan. Taiwan’s top source of FDI is green energy, primarily in wind, followed by solar. However, Taiwan still imports nearly 97% of their energy to meet their high demand for energy in the semiconductor and technology industry. I […]

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Posted by on May 22, 2025

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

5/20

When traveling across the world to a new continent, there will inevitably be differences in culture. Some of the largest culture shocks I experienced on my first day in Taiwan revolved around the language and food. Although English is a lingua franca, there are still many street signs and labels that are only in Chinese. This creates barriers for non-Chinese speakers to navigate Taiwan. Furthermore, I found it hard to choose my meals when the labels were in Chinese, and there are many foods I am unfamiliar with.  Furthermore, within our first few hours here, we saw some symbols resembling […]

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Posted by on May 22, 2025

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

Taiwan Day three (5/22)

Today (5/22), we explored some of the temples around Taipei. We first started at Banka Lunghan Temple. I first noticed the waterfalls when we walked into the temple, this is something I also noticed when we were at a temple we found last night. All the temples we have seen so far have koi Fish, which are way bigger then any I have previously seen. Additionally, the trees at the front of the temple appeared to look to Bonzi trees, but I do not think they were. One thing that I found interesting is when people who were coming into […]

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Posted by on May 22, 2025

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

Taiwan Day two (5/21)

Today (5/21) we started our day by having breakfast on the top floor of our hotel, which had an amazing view of the city. I tried a bunch of different options for breakfast, while I liked some there was also a couple I was not a fan of. After breakfast, we hoped onto a bus to head to the American Institute in Taiwan. We met with one of the department of commerce workers and he gave us a presentation on what they do and specializes in. I found it interesting how the United States does so much trade with Taiwan […]

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Posted by on May 22, 2025

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

Day 2

American Institute in Taiwan: Trading in my passport for a visitor badge and leaving everything thing in the bus made this visit feel quite serious. From what i gathered from our visit AIT is somewhat of “ambassy” since the US cut ties with Taiwan in 1979 in order to strengthen ties with Beijing. During the visit we learned that AIT helps not only American business work with Taiwan but has recently helped increased Taiwanese investment into the United States. It was really interesting to learn that 24 states and many local governments already have relations with Taiwan even though the […]

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Posted by on May 22, 2025

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

Day 3 – May 22, 2025

Our first stop today was Longshan Temple, located in the Wanhua District. It is one of the oldest and most active temples in the city. The temple serves multiple religious practices, including Buddhism and Taoism. It was crowded with visitors and worshippers. People made offerings, and used traditional methods like drawing fortune sticks or throwing divination blocks to seek answers. The temple architecture was traditional, with intricate carvings, colorful decorations, and symbols representing various deities. There was even an English god we could pray too. I was so stunned at how the buildings have lasted so long but we later […]

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Posted by on May 22, 2025

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