Taiwan Tech Trek – Taiwanese American Internship Opportunity
By Eric Yuju Lee, July 29, 2016

This summer, I had the opportunity to participating in Taiwan Tech Trek 2016, an academic internship hosted by Taiwan’s Ministry of Technology and Sciences in cooperation with other government institutions in Taiwan. The purpose was to recruit students of Taiwanese descent, mostly of college and beyond, from all corners of the world to Taiwan to participate in shadowing programs in numerous scientific institutions in order to gain work experience and  knowledge in the field, and partly as a way for overseas youths to come in contact with Taiwanese culture and hopefully retain them domestically in the future.

The institution that I was accepted into was none other than Academia Sinica (中央研究院), the most prestigious research facility in Taipei. I was appointed to the IHP (Institute of History and Philology,) the leading research center in everything related to archaeology in Taiwan, housing over 100 years worth of archaeological data and artifacts. As a translator for the Institute’s website, I needed to consult with numerous staff members in the department to ensure my translations were spotless. The working environment in IHP was very unique: most of its workers, mostly teachers, professors, or grad students, were much older than me and were very absorbed in their work, wasting no time to explain duties to a young intern like me. It was very challenging to keep up in a fast-paced, foreign environment, but I saw it as a training course to improve my Chinese skills and communication skills. I finished my translation work in just two weeks, and I actively sought out staff who needed help, and figured that I should learn from the staff as much as I can. The knowledge that I reaped each day was astounding: to repair broken pottery unearthed at excavation sites, you must construct an inner model with clay, piece the fragments like a puzzle on the clay model, and glue them together by applying gauze with a needle. To ensure that the excavation process at a site is done in an orderly fashion, professors would demand diggings in specific intervals called floors, usually at 15 centimeter intervals, sometimes at 5 centimeter intervals if the site contains delicate pieces of artifacts. If ones are digging during a rainy season, it’s crucial that the exavators dig in terraces, maybe even a ditch to collect the runoff water, for water would ruin the quality of the artifacts and weaken the walls. If the excavators were not careful, the pit would literally collapse on top of them, burying them alive. Each day I came home with new (life-or-death) knowledge in my head. Though to me these bits of know-how are so disconnected from my field of study, more like fun fact than anything, they’re still things that could only be learned from experts, and I appreciate the staff for teaching me the esoteric knowledge of archaeology.

The bus ride back home to Songsan each evening from my work place took about 30 minutes. Though most weary passengers prefer napping a bit after a long day of work, I liked to watch the Taipei street life unfold before my eyes, and felt ever so close to my Taiwanese roots. The hollering from the cheap street vendors, the incessant swearing from a group of teenagers chatting about League of Legends, the continuous line of well-endowed girls and their burly companions, that foreigner that you weren’t sure if you’re suppose to talk to them in English or in Chinese, the skyrocketing, crushingly high prices of Taiwanese real estate. It was a comfortable and homely feeling to be back in a familiar world. If you are interested in this internship opportunity, go to their official website down below:

https://ap0512.most.gov.tw/ttt/index.aspx

Prior to the actual internship program, you will go through a week-long orientation, where the organizers put the applicants in groups and bring them to visit different institutes and experience different local food and places.