The Chinese Cultural Camp (the Camp) for Thai students hosted by NCUE ended successfully. The two-week activity not only deepens the friendship between NCUE and its partner university in Thailand but also competently plays an important role in extending NCUE’s connection with “New Southbound Policy” countries. During the closing ceremony, the students displayed their learning accomplishments by showing their calligraphy, drawings made on Peking opera masks, works of paper cutting and sky lanterns, and performance of Chinese songs. They also expressed their gratitude to the teachers and school buddies. It’s hard to say goodbye and the students from both sides look forward to seeing each other again!

The Camp organized by the Office of International and Cross-strait Affairs (OICA) and the Language Center was sponsored by the Ministry of Education for the promotion of “New Southbound” cooperation and exchange. There were 27 students mainly from the KMUTT, which has become NCUE’s partner university since October 2016, participating in the Camp.

It was expected that the participants could get a deeper understanding of Chinese and Taiwanese local culture by joining lessons, on-site visits and practical exercises during the two weeks. The classes were rich in variety, including practical Chinese conversation, cultural lessons like Chinese characters, paper cutting, paintings and sky lanterns. The students also had to go on field trips to practice restaurant dialogue and ordering food at the night market, as well as to visit cultural spots around Taichung and Changhua areas.

The participants, most of whom came to Taiwan for the very first time, were curious and excited about everything here. Their creativity also made the learning process interesting. For example, the students sang two hit songs made by Taiwanese singers with physical performances onstage at the closing ceremony. When they were awarded the certificate of completion, each student said a sentence in Chinese to OICA Dean Huang or Language Center Director Chang, like “I am Thai and I love Taiwan.”, “NCUE Teachers are very cute.”, “I love you, do you love me?” and “Thailand welcomes you.”, etc. All kinds of accents added a lot of fun for the ceremony and their hard work in learning Chinese was witnessed by it.

The participants expressed their appreciation at the end of the ceremony by reading the words written by each of them to the student buddies formed by NCUE students taking care of and providing assistance to them along the way. The student buddies sang a song together to wish them luck in return. It was touching and marked a perfect ending for the Camp.