Last Lectures

July 21^st- The rest of the time here will be a little more lax than the past few weeks have been. We finished up our last two lectures today and will have a bit more free time to explore Taipei before leaving. I really enjoyed both of the lectures today. One was on the Aborigine people of Taiwan. The lecturer was really knowledgeable and I especially liked hearing about the dynamic between keeping native cultural identity as society advances. Overall, the US could take a few tips from the Taiwan government. The native people here assimilate better into modern society and create a good dynamic between keeping the culture alive without shutting themselves off from the modern world. A lot of the Native Americans in the US have issues coming into the modern world and by shutting themselves out, they don’t allow for any advancement of there society.

The second lecture of the day dealt with food security, economic development and environment. Food scarcity is definitely a big problem for many countries. I think that this really needs to be addressed more and I think that Taiwan has a lot better agriculture techniques as compared to the US. One thing I’ve really enjoyed seeing in Taiwan is the closeness you are to the food you eat. In the US the amount of prepackaged food is disgusting. I really hate looking at labels of food and only being able to understand what half of the ingredients of the food is. By keeping food closer to the farmer, you allow for higher quality food in my opinion. The US is so focused on production; I think we are really killing ourselves. It’s so disappointing to hear about food scarcity and then compare that to the obesity in the US. There is some sort of balance that the Taiwan people seem to have that the US is missing.

As you can see above, I did really enjoy the lectures today. I can’t believe the program is wrapping up in two days! I must stop thinking about it!