Wine for French is like tea for Chinese. French are known for delicious and sumptuous wine and wine tasting is a highly trained skill and a form of art. Tea for Chinese, similarly, is equally sophisticated and requires great palette to appreciate its subtle aroma. When a number of French visitors (11) who reside in Taiwan visited TKU in early May (8/5) through a “Sino-French Cultural Exchange Program,” naturally, tea culture in Taiwan was introduced and demonstrated to them. First, they were received by a team of students from the Department of French, who acted as the good-will ambassadors for the entire department. In fluent French, these students walked the visitors through campus, introducing the history and features of TKU. After that, they explained tea culture to the visitors with the help of the students from the Tea Culture Club and their instructor. Having witnessed elaborate tea ceremony and savored fine Taiwanese tea, these guests were impressed by the care and thoughts DF put in. They promised that they would have further exchanges with TKU in the future.

Dr. Lee Pei Wha, the Chair of DF, maintains that her department usually has had exchange events with its sister universities in France, and they are mostly limited to academic related issues. However, this event was the first to allow students to have close contact with French nationals outside the academic circle, which in turn should help students’ practice French in real life situations. “It’s a very meaningful event,” Dr. Lee concludes. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )