National Taiwan Normal University

5/6/11 – 7:00 pm (From Taichung)

Our second university visit was to National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). Again we were able to sit in on a class, which was taught in English. This was an MBA class that focused on marketing. Again the material was no different than what I have been studying and it was presented in a familiar way. I really enjoyed the professor. He was very knowledgeable and interacted well with the students, although the Taiwanese students did not interact a lot. They seemed a little shy and hesitant to speak up. Three of us from the U of M group are MBA students (the rest are undergraduate students) so we were familiar with the material and got the dialog started. We did most of the talking, but I do not think that was a result of us knowing the material and the Taiwanese students not. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Taiwanese people are very humble. When they speak to us in English they tend to get a little embarrassed because they do not speak it perfectly. We think most of them speak English very well and we are able to communicate with them with little problem, yet sometimes they tend to be reserved like they were in class that day. After class we had lunch with the students and they really opened up. They turned out to be a lot of fun and we learned a lot from them. 

To give you an idea of how some of them feel about their English: I talked to one girl, Connie, all through lunch. She was very friendly and we talked nonstop for an hour. She spoke English well and had little to no problem communicating with me. Towards the end of lunch she asked me if I spoke any other languages. Of course I said no, and asked her how many she knew. She said “Two; Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese.” I asked “What about English?” She got a little embarrassed and said, “No, I do not speak English very well.

The second half of our time at NTNU was spent listing to a presentation by the marketing director of ASUS, a Taiwanese computer company. She was very sharp. It was evident that their marketing strategies are very similar to the ones we are familiar with on our side of the world. I was not familiar with ASUS before the presentation, but I got the impression that it is a leader in technology. Computers, computer components, etc. This presentation was one experience (one of many on this trip) that is leading me to change my impression of Taiwan, Taiwanese businesses, and Taiwanese products.

It is customary to exchange gifts when meeting