First of all, this blogpost is about my "in-my-opinion" kind of stuff towards Taiwan, what I see, what I hear, what I feel, and I am writing this now to share my thoughts to the world, to all the peeps that might be going to Taiwan be it for traveling purposes or for studying. I am by no means trying to offend anyone nor criticize any party. You are welcome to discuss if there's anything you feel differently.

I am sure one can find a lot of information regarding studying in Taiwan, but I think I could give a less bias opinion on this one, reason being my secondary school wasn't the Chinese Independent School and my university education was in Multimedia University. For those who don't see the difference, this is what I think: those Malaysian who studies in Taiwan are usually (if not all) coming out from Chinese Independent School and chose to go to Taiwan because they have been studying in Chinese language throughout their life (I might be wrong, this is more of a general perception, not necessarily a fact) and are looking for a similar university language environment. I've never heard of any Malaysian studying in Taiwan which are not from a very Chinese background (this is just a metaphor, no insult/offence intended). Why am I studying in Taiwan, is due to an entirely different purpose, which is why I would like to share what I think for a difference.

Let's start with education in Taiwan. I am currently having my summer break back in Malaysia, and all my friends were asking the exact same thing "did you study in English or Chinese?" Well the truth is, the materials are all in English (textbook etc) but usually most of the class consist of more Taiwanese than foreigners, so unless it was specified a English Course, otherwise all lecturers/professors teach in Chinese language. Throughout my secondary and tertiary education I have been learning using Bahasa Melayu (secondary) and English (university) and now at Master level I am listening to Mandarin lecture (and all the Chinese terms) which is a tough thing to get used to at the beginning. I am a Malaysian Chinese, I can read, write and speak in Mandarin, English and BM, but the last time I listened to a Mandarin lecture was in primary school! What do you expect? But of course, after one of two months I am familiar with all the engineering terms spoken.

That being said, I am proud that I grew up in a multicultural country, allowing me to adapt to all kinds of language and culture, slang and whatnot. Meanwhile in Taiwan, its a pretty much all-Mandarin country, so chances of speaking English for them are low. They learn American-English while we learn British-English, but I don't know if its me being sensitive, but they have a hard time to understand words pronounce in different slang or accent. I guess this is caused by lack-of-use of said-language and the downside of living in a only-Mandarin country. I believe most Malaysian are able to understand/guess words that are pronounce differently from what we learn, not because we are clever, but because we have so many races, so many weird slang, that we are exposed to the possibilities of varieties.

Tutor language aside, Taiwan's educational system has a pretty high standard. Their life is all about exam (correct me if I am wrong), from primary, to secondary, to high school, university, and even during job application and whatnot. Compared to Malaysia where of course we have "big" exams like UPSR, SPM and STPM, but after that its a lot more to luck than to just studying. I mean, we applied to all the universities by sending out our SPM/STPM results but in Taiwan, whichever local university you are looking at, you will have to take their entrance exam, so you will have to choose wisely for the more university you are trying, the more exams you are gonna take, and the more subjects you have to study as the entrance exam of all the university might be testing you on different subjects. This is the same for undergraduate and graduate level. Its all about exam. The other way is through professor recommendation, but you know you will have to be more than excellent for that.

Enough of education. We will go to a less stressful topic. Traffic! The most obvious difference of traffic in Taiwan (if you haven't already knew), the car driving direction is of opposite side compared to Malaysia/SG. Naturally the driver's seat too. In terms of safety, yes I think traffic safety in Taiwan is a lot better than Malaysia. Other than highway, they usually have lower speed limit, as low as 50 and sometimes 70 as opposed to Malaysia's most of the time 60 or 90.

Motorcycle wise, from 50cc to 125cc of horsepower, they are all scooter-like, which I think is a lot safer than Malaysia's kind of motorcycle. The scooter-like motorcycle also provide compartment space under the seat like those scooter in Malaysia. There are a lot of motorcyclists in Taiwan, I think almost all the Taiwanese can ride one as it is very convenient and not as dangerous as Malaysia. This fact also provides better awareness to car drivers as they need to be more careful of not knocking motorcyclist down.

Public transport such as bus, train or MRT (only in Taipei and Kaohsiung) is very convenient and most of the time punctual. We all know what its like in Malaysia so there's no need for me to elaborate. For students or travelers, as long as you know where you are going, there shouldn't be any problem traveling around Taiwan with the train or bus.

Mass medias in Taiwan are pretty powerful as they are granted the freedom of speech and no political interference exist. They are also going on 24/7 which means they report whatever news that is happening (mostly Taiwan news though, less international news unless its too big to ignore), anything, as long as they get the viewers rating up. Most restaurant or canteen that you turn to, they are usually playing live news, and there are quite a few stations/company so their competition is high but healthy (at least that's what seems to me, I don't know any insiders news now, do I?). We all know what its like in Malaysia too, with the politic corruption and the misuse of power, even respect, so the news in Malaysia is most of the time one-sided towards you-know-what. Nowadays I even see some which openly condemn the opposition parties. What happened to democracy and respect? Its nothing more than an ugly childish fight. Seriously, look at the stuff they did (I'm not gonna point out what, but with the election coming, there's plenty for you to feast on), I felt ashamed to even laugh.