Food

• If you eat in a restaurant, never stick the chopsticks into your food. It will bring misfortune to the restaurant.
• If you feel boring during your meal, don't play with your chopsticks.
• If you can't eat with chopsticks, you should carry Knife and Fork with you. But at least, nobody would make fun of you if you can't eat with chopsticks. Just try it.
• If you order food, like hotpot, don't be shocked: Taiwanese people are used to eat different kinds of meat and different kinds of supplements in one meal, so you will sometimes find a nice mixture of different flavors.
• If somebody wants to treat you, don't say know. Maybe you can say that next time the bill is on you.
• If you buy bread in Taiwan, you will mostly find only sweet bread (normal Toast is not sweet). So don't be shocked. There are only fewer stores in Yuanling selling whole-wheat bread which is not sweat.

Special feature for vegetarians:

• If you are vegetarian, it is sometimes not enough to say that you don’t want to eat meat. Sometimes you will still find seafood, like small crabs, in your vegetables (mostly if you buy cabbage in a non-vegetarian restaurant).
• At the campus, there is one vegetarian restaurant in the basement of the h-building (has only open for lunch).

Drinks

• If you want to have a drink without sugar, you should tell the waitress, because normally they add sugar in every drink, if you don’t say anything. (In Chinese you can say: no sugar – “bu yao tang 不 要 糖”, or less sugar – “shao tang 少 糖”
• Normally the drinks are also served cold. So if you wanna have a hot drink (tea, coffee, etc.), you can tell them “ride 熱 的”. If you wanna have cold, you can say “bingde冰 的”. And if you like to have it cold, but without ice you can say “qu bing 去 冰”
• The most drink stores at the campus have now English menus.

Toilets/Restrooms

• The toilets are normally in the ground, so you need to crouch, if you want to go to the restroom
• It is not everywhere usual that you have toilet paper in the restrooms, so you should carry every time some with you.
• Don't throw toilet paper into the toilet. In every toilet you have a dusk pin where you can throw it.
• If somebody knocks on the door, also knock on the door. Then the people know that there is somebody inside. (If you can't knock, you can also say “you ren”)

Communication

Taiwanese people are very happy if you can speak at least a little Chinese. So maybe here some words, you can use:

• “Hello” – “Ni hoa 你 好”
• Goodbye – “Zai jian 再見” or more common “byebye”
• Thanks – “Xiexie 謝謝”

Dormitory

• For the Internet in the dormitory you have to pay 200NTD for every semester.
• When you get the key for your room, you pay 200NTD caution, which you get back, when you return your key.
• If you want to stay in the dormitory during the summer or winter vacations, you have to apply for this time period.
• For the dormitory you have to apply every year.
• Slippers are necessary because there are only public washrooms. (Each floor has two).
• The wardrobe is made to hang clothes, so you need hangers.
• The beds are all high sleepers, without anything. So you need to buy a mattress, pillow, a blanket and bed clothes. (If you stay here in summer, a thin blanket is enough. For winter, most of all during the winter vacations, you need a thicker blanket. The temperature in the room will be then around 14 degrees (no heaters in the rooms).
• If you want to wash your clothes, weather you can use the washing machine (you pay every time 20NTD) or you can wash by hand for free (therefore you need to buy a washbowl, and also a brush).
• If you live in 五期 (Dormitory number 5) you have the possibility to use a kitchen, which is only for international students. There you can cook, and you will also find a refrigerator. For the key you have to ask in the dormitory or other international students.
  • In the kitchen you will also find table-tennis tables
• In every floor there is a TV-corner for all students. There are also many English-channels available.

The Campus and Yuanlin

What can you do at the campus?

• There are several possibilities for sport activities:
  • Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Badminton, Tennis, Softball (outside)
  • When the Gym has open you can also play there table tennis, badminton or go to the fitness-room
  • There is also a Sport ground where you can go jogging
  • When the semester starts there are also several sport facilities like, dancing, Judo, Takewando, Volleyball-team, Soccer-team, etc… (The best is you ask your students, friends or teachers to help you to find your preferred activity).
• The Universities is far away from civilization, so you will find many possibilities for hiking.
• There is no selling of alcohol or cigarettes at the campus. So if you need to buy cigarettes, you go outside the campus.
• Because on Saturday evening, and sometimes in the holidays, there is no bus, you have the possibility to walk to Shanjiao Lu (ca. 20min by food, from the Dormitory number 5). There you have many different restaurants, and also bars.

In Yuanlin there is one movie-theater, KTV and play-halls. You will also find a nightmarket with traditional food and many interesting goods. Also you will find many possibilities for shopping. If you need a big supermarket, you can walk there from the train station (around 15minutes) or ask someone to send you there. Or a smaller supermarket is near the bus stop (“Welcome”).

Driver's licence

If you wanna ride a motorcycle, or drive a car in Taiwan, you wether need an Internation Driver Licence, or, if you stay in Taiwan longer then one year or/and (I'm not sure) have an ID-card you can make your driver's licence here, for less money. But you need someone who drives you to the driving school, because it is a little far away from school.

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