Day 5 reflections

Today was one of the most exciting and interesting days of the whole trip! Only today, instead of taking the tour bus to all of our destinations, we took public transport around Taipei the whole day, using the metro system in Taiwan. As I travelled to different locations through the Taipei metro system, I realized something striking about the Taiwanese. In Singapore, in places like elevators and crowded places, Singaporeans do not usually queue for buses or trains, but just try to squeeze in as quickly as possible, making movement difficult. But for the Taiwanese, in crowded places, they queue up nicely and orderly, and thus makes moving into the train or up the elevators easy. I feel this is also part of Taiwan's culture, and the Taiwanese are brought up this way, which is good, in my opinion. The public transport is also very similar to Singapore, with different train lines and more of less the same arrangement of seats in the carriage, with a few exceptions. Most of the train services, however, are underground in Taiwan, while in Singapore, train services are above ground. This is one fact I find quite interesting about Taiwan.

Also, Taipei is really quite a large place, as to walk from the metro station to our destination , we really have to walk quite a long distance, whilst in Singapore, stations are very close to each other, and to walk from the station to a destination would not take very long.

The Taiwanese are brought up well in terms of behavior in public spaces. I wonder if this would change in the future, while the economy continuously improves. Meanwhile, in Singapore, would the behavior of Singaporeans change in the future? I think it remind a question yet to be answered, and we will only know in the future.

Day5 shuliang

Today, we visited several different places in Taiwan. The one that captures me the most attention was actually traveling by public transport to our various location. i feel that the Stock museum was actually quite boring and the stuffs that they talk to us about are pretty irrelevant, they focused more on the history of stock market in Taiwan, rather than how stocks work and the impacts it gives to the society, so i find it pretty pointless.
The idea of giving us 1 day to travel to our location of interest through public transport was a really unique idea, it allowed us to better understand and experience Taiwan itself, rather than just sitting on a bus, which has practically no interaction with the locals. The railway, or rather the MRT, in Taiwan is rather similar to Singapore. Both are organized, many interchanges and easy assessibilty to different part of the city. The way the commuters board the MRT in the country is different, they normally form a L shape queue before they move in the carriage for a less busy station and something similiar to Singapore when it is in a busier station, which allows commenters to quickly get on and alight.
I would like to see why Taipei is able to have a much more train frequency as compared to Singapore which has lesser lines, but yet longer frequencies although Singapore is considered as a "better developed" country.

- Shu Liang

Day 5 - Reflections

Today is the most special day ever. For the past few days, we have been moving from places to places by the bus. However, we used the public transport today! I realised that it is actually pretty similar in Singapore. The train gets pretty crowded when it comes to peak hours. Some of us couldn't even get in the train with us. But one thing I see is that the people there are actually very conscious of their surroundings and is very considerate. For example, the reserved seats are always empty. Also, when it comes to waiting for the train, the people always queued up in front and let the passengers inside alight before boarding. However in Singapore, people are often seen cutting queues and going into the cabin even before people can come out. One really special thing that I observed is the tuition advertisement on the train. I can't help but wonder if the tuition industry has became so scary. Every single corner of Taiwan are covered with advertisement for tuition.

Day5 yongkang

Through today's visit, I learnt more about stocks, which I thought was very complicated. It is actually just investing in a company and they will pay you when they earn money. The abacus course was also enriching, especially the amazing performance where people much younger than us calculates much faster. I also understood the difference between the MRT in Taiwan and in Singapore. In Taiwan, the frequency of trains is very high,yet the distance between stations seems quite near. But there are many exits without escalators which is very rare in Singapore. I wonder will the people still queue up for trains during busy hours in Taiwan, and why not having escalators only for some exits. Today was a unique experience that is tiring, but yet fulfilling.

Day4 yongkang

Through today's visit, I learnt many new concepts in math, such as game theory, I learnt more about tuition in Taiwan and how much can a university change the world. The game theory is very interesting but some part of it is quite hard to understand since there is many assumptions. I also thought that university is just transferring knowledge like any other schools does, but through Dr Feng's talk, I realised that universities plays a very important role in many areas. I also didn't expect tuition to be so common in Taiwan, since there are little tests, but today I realised that because there are little tests, the tests are very very important. The friendliness of Taiwanese is also very heartwarming, the managers in the tuition centre can just briefly talk to us since we will not be their customers, but they really spent a lot of time interacting with us and touring their facilities, which really impressed me. I would like to know more details about game theory, and the students' feeling about tuition since we didn't get the chance to interact with students today. I'd like to introduce Dr Feng's talk to my friends since it is really enriching.

Day4 shuliang

Today, we visited the Tsing Hua university. It was an eye opener as we are able to have the opportunity to experience how a university campus is like and how the students at Taiwan attend the university. I have learn many new skills and ways math can be applied. For example, the game theory was an interesting concept and theory which make more fun and use it on real life applications, the classes were pretty fun too with each of the unique professor giving their presentation. It really was interesting and I can see the usefulness of mathematics. The talk by the VP also gave me new perceptive of how important university are, and the importance of collaborations between universities.

Tuition street was also an interesting perspective, it allowed us to better understand the different culture, like in Taiwan, tuition classes are conducted in a much more bigger class size, it was also a very competitive thing as tuition centres will compete against each other to be the best and have recognition, the students themselves are also competetive to improve their grades. Tuition teachers in Taiwan are highly respected and are highly paid, as compared to Singapore, showing the importance and their emphasis on tuition.

- Shu Liang

Day 4 reflections

Today is different from the past few days in Taiwan. Instead of heading to local attractions, we went to the National Tsing Hua University for an immersion program, to learn more about Mathematics. There, we learnt more about the university system in Taiwan, about how certain modules have to be taken and a certain number of courses needed to pass the year and graduate in a certain faculty. In a way, the system is very similar to that in Singapore, as in Singapore, there are also a certain number of credits needed to pass the major that is chosen. It was a surprise to find out that there is no need for students to attend lectures in Taiwan university, as long as the students pass the course, the teacher would not care if the student attended the lecture or not. After that, we were also told that this was the same in Singapore universities. I didn't know about this fact before and thus found it very interesting.

We also learnt more about the Games Theory, whereby logic and knowledge is needed for a best solution to be achieved. An example is the "prisoners dilemma". It was fun to try to think as other people in a set situation. Lastly, at a large tuition centre in Taiwan, I found out that the tuition classes were at a very large scale. As many as 300 and more students attend a same class, like a mass lecture. I was really shocked, as tuition centres in Singapore emphasize a lot on small class sizes. In fact, most tuition centres in Singapore only hold classes of around 20-30 students, and not 10 times as much, like in Taiwan. The students in Taiwan are also very diligent and seem to pay much attention in the big lecture classroom.

One thing I am still unsure of was the mathematical part of the lecture held in the university. The topic taught by a student younger than us was a complicated topic, and even though it was taught in English, I did not really understand the gist of the topic. Another thing is that I wonder how the students do cope with such tuition, tuition homework and school all at the same time.

The tuition centre that we visited was a very interesting visit, as I have never really taken tours around such a large tuition centre before. It was also very surprising to look at all the facilities prepared for the students in the tuition centre, and realize that the Taiwanese do their best to give a best study environment for the students, very much different from in Singapore.