Blog #6

Welcome back to the last blog of Taiwan! The last week was filled to the brim with as much as we could do in 4 days. So we’ll just jump right into it. On the 9th after we got critiques, worked on our project, we had a walking tour in Tainan. Where we were shown a Confucius temple and gate, at the entrance there was a very pretty tree. 



Which sounds a little silly but I miss the greenery of Seattle. The tree reminds me of a magnolia tree but I don’t think it was one. If I had more time in Taiwan (and an international motorcycle, small caveat) I would’ve wanted to explore the nature scene here. There’s parks, beaches, and coastlines that I need to see. 


After we walked around the town and toured. We had some down time. Which we filled with one of my favorite activities in all of Taiwan: Night markets. Taiwanese food is incredible. Fried foods, seafoods, dumplings, and sweet drinks. Going with a big group, I was able to try everything my heart possibly wanted to. Katelyn and I split so many foods. 


It was nice to get some refreshing and fun moments in between the stress of the project. 



We slept really good that night after that food. And then we woke up with a ton of energy to work on our project even more. The NCKU students are so impressive, they rendered and 3D modeled our product in such a short amount of time. It made me wonder if product design was something I wanted to consider. 



Writing this after the program ended makes it a great refresher on everything that happened. In one of my psychology classes I was taught that memory, if you recount an experience after it happens in a lot of detail, you will remember it in the way you described it. There’s a window of time that crafts the memory. Which sounds straightforward, right? But the idea is that if you confine an experience to “It was good” that is how it will be remembered. The details of it will fade and it will amount to “good”. So, Design in Taiwan was a step forward in my design experience, a way for me to feel culturally closer to my Chinese heritage. It was full of foods, shopping, sustainable design. It was filled to the brim. Somewhere I will return to in the future. 

Comments

  1. MeichunSeptember 16, 2026 at 1:37 AM

    The beautiful tree in front of the Confucius Temple and its gate is a 鳳凰木 (Royal Poinciana), whose flower is featured in the NCKU logo. I really enjoyed your reflection on how memories are formed through detailed descriptions. I hope you take away many wonderful memories from your time in Taiwan!

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