Hello,
My name is Whitney Schwope. I'm a Bio-environmental Science major hoping to graduate this December from Texas A&M University. My study abroad started June 2nd when I flew from Houston, TX to Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China. I took 9 credit hours there, two of which were taught by American professors who guided us during the trip. We stayed at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU) in Fuzhou most of the time but traveled on weekends to popular destinations such as Wuyishan, Xiamen, a Panda Zoo, Transgenic Rice Facility and finally Beijing to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City, etc. I had a wonderful time and learned a lot from our travels and our new Chinese friends. I picked up a bit of mandarin Chinese from a few classes and friends, but am in no way fluent. I think it is an interesting language and would love to learn more, though the tones and inflections are giving me difficulty.
Although I was exhausted from the previous weekend in Beijing, I am also very excited for the adventures I'll have in Taiwan. I already noticed subtle cultural differences between China and Taiwan; the weather seems to be less humid than Fuzhou (the city we spent 4 weeks in), and the traffic is more organized. I will say the weather that greeted us was less than welcoming, it was storming in Taipei Sunday night. Random, but I got excited when I realized that most of the bathrooms had toilet paper and soap, which was a rarity in China. It is nice we get our own dorm rooms, and there are dryers. I also noticed a greater proportion of the population speaks English so that makes my life a bit easier in terms of communicating. So far I'm enjoying the dorms and atmosphere of campus and can't wait to see the rest of Taiwan!
My name is Whitney Schwope. I'm a Bio-environmental Science major hoping to graduate this December from Texas A&M University. My study abroad started June 2nd when I flew from Houston, TX to Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China. I took 9 credit hours there, two of which were taught by American professors who guided us during the trip. We stayed at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU) in Fuzhou most of the time but traveled on weekends to popular destinations such as Wuyishan, Xiamen, a Panda Zoo, Transgenic Rice Facility and finally Beijing to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City, etc. I had a wonderful time and learned a lot from our travels and our new Chinese friends. I picked up a bit of mandarin Chinese from a few classes and friends, but am in no way fluent. I think it is an interesting language and would love to learn more, though the tones and inflections are giving me difficulty.
Although I was exhausted from the previous weekend in Beijing, I am also very excited for the adventures I'll have in Taiwan. I already noticed subtle cultural differences between China and Taiwan; the weather seems to be less humid than Fuzhou (the city we spent 4 weeks in), and the traffic is more organized. I will say the weather that greeted us was less than welcoming, it was storming in Taipei Sunday night. Random, but I got excited when I realized that most of the bathrooms had toilet paper and soap, which was a rarity in China. It is nice we get our own dorm rooms, and there are dryers. I also noticed a greater proportion of the population speaks English so that makes my life a bit easier in terms of communicating. So far I'm enjoying the dorms and atmosphere of campus and can't wait to see the rest of Taiwan!
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