Zara Miller's Adventures Abroad 🌎🇺🇳

As I’m nearing the end of my third month learning Chinese, the NSLI-Y cohort had our first week-long holiday break. Last Friday, the ten of us boarded the high speed rail at Zuoying Station. Flying through the countryside at almost 190 mph, it only took us around 40 minutes to step out into the central county of Taiwan: Nantou!  Nantou is famous in Taiwan and beyond, as it’s the home to the vast majority of Taiwan’s tea-making farms. Scattered on every corner of every street

This weekend, the cohort took our first overnight trip outside of Kaohsiung, traversing the coastline to a small town in South Taiwan called Checheng (車城). The purpose? A five-day folk-rock concert which calls Checheng home!  As soon as we stepped foot into the quaint city, I was struck by the still, calm sounds of the ocean. Having not left Kaohsiung for the past 5 weeks, the faint drone of car honks and city life had become expected background noise. We were quickly escorte

Starting the second week I arrived in Taiwan, a slow trickle of mooncakes started arriving at my host family's living room table. It started with a simple gift package from a relative in Northern Taiwan, and it eventually turned into an entire stack of sweets piled onto the table's center.  One of my favorite desserts I’ve tried in Taiwan so far, mooncakes are a traditional Chinese pastry, typically come in a round shape, and are filled with red bean paste and egg yolk (somet