Irish student brought rain to Taiwan

Leon Reilly from Dún Laoghaire scooped up the last minute opportunity to experience life in a university in Taiwan for a week. The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) has supported overseas schools and established over 40 Taiwan Centres for Mandarin Learning (TCML) globally in 2022, planning to increase the number of centres to 67 in 2023. By 2025, there will be around 150 TCML in the world. In order to promote TCML and Mandarin learning, the OCAC invited university-aged adults to visit at least three Mandarin learning centres in universities in Taiwan.

When TCML Ireland announced the news, many current students were very interested, however they were not qualified. Leon’s parent is one the students and fortunately Leon was able to make the trip in December. He visited three universities and their Mandarin learning centres including the National Taiwan University, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and the National Tsing Hua University. Leon also visited famous night markets, the national palace museum, temples, Taipei 101, Taipei fine art museum and the national gallery.

Leon said “as an economics student, much of my knowledge of Taiwan was forged on the anvil of the economic miracle and rapid industrialisation Taiwan pulled off: that alone made it worth visiting for me. Yet, I was able to expand my horizons in a variety of ways, from learning about Chiang Kai-shek to wandering through Taipei’s night markets. That richness drew me to Taiwan, and will continue to in the future.”

Taiwan and Ireland share many similarities such as both being small islands, being quite scenic, having vibrant democracy and valuing marriage equality. The weather, however is not the same despite what you might think judging from Leon’s Vlog.