Taiwan – So many things to explore, my journey is yet to come!
Quyen Tran is a young and spontaneous journalist and editor from Adelaide, South Australia. She has recently been studying in Taiwan for a year, developing her language skills. Quyen currently has her own Travel blog and Facebook page G’day Taiwan, which exhibits her travel experiences. She is very talented in writing and definitely knows how to portray an authentic view of Taiwan. Her beautiful works highlight the natural atmosphere of Taiwan perfectly encapsulating its culture, traditions, community and people.
She is currently starting an internship in the British Chamber of Commerce, which is a non-profit organisation which acts as a platform for small to medium sized enterprises, interested in business and trade opportunities in Taiwan.
Quyen shares her thoughts on her adaptation to Taiwanese culture and its people in comparison to Australia. She believes that Taiwanese people are more openly polite and friendlier towards those whom are not locally from Taiwan. Taiwanese people have a genuine sense of good nature and are more willingly to help. Quyen has experienced this herself. In one of her most heartfelt experiences in Taiwan, when she had been hitchhiking along the mountains, it was getting late and the sun was starting to set. Anyone in her situation would understand the fear of being alone in such a vast area and would start thinking of multiple Plan B’s. But Quyen encountered a rare act of kindness from a person driving along the road. The driver, who wasn’t able to stop at the time, had given a call to a local bus company and offered to pay for her trip to wherever she needed to go. Such a rare act of kindness is greatly appreciated. Quyen recounted her experiences “I remember just furiously thanking him on the phone. I couldn’t believe that he would help me, and I said thank you so many times”.
In Chinese they say “随便” ‘Sui Bian’ which means casual, and for an Australians we often consider ourselves to be laidback. Quyen’s experiences in Taiwan are that the Taiwanese people are casual people and that she really enjoys its environment and formality.
Being an Australian-Asian she understands views through another perspective and although she considers herself Australian, she is also comes from a Vietnamese background. This means that she cannot fully consider herself as Asian-Chinese either. Quyen feels there is still a barrier between being an Anglo Australian living in Australia and an Asian-Australian.
Quyen first came across Taiwan whilst studying in university; she had very little knowledge of Taiwan compared to the other Asian countries. However, this had then become her reason to travel to Taiwan. She now fully embraces the Taiwanese culture and wishes to continue promoting Taiwan as she believes that not enough people know about Taiwan. She feels that her life has improved dramatically since her time there and states “I don’t think my journey is over in Taiwan, I still need to discover a lot more… The more I explore the more I realise that there are so many more things to explore, that I haven’t even touched to tip of the iceberg”.